answer made it none: yet once methoughtIt lifted up its head and did addressItself to motion, like as it would speak;But even then the morning cock crew loud,And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,And vanish’d from our sight.’Tis very strange.
| Horatio | It would have much amazed you. |
| Hamlet | Very like, very like. Stay’d it long? |
| Horatio | While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred. |
| Marcellus | BernardoLonger, longer. |
| Horatio | Not when I saw’t. |
| Hamlet | His beard was grizzled — no? |
| Horatio | It was, as I have seen it in his life,A sable silver’d. |
| Hamlet | I will watch to-night;Perchance ’twill walk again. |
| Horatio | I warrant it will. |
| Hamlet | If it assume my noble father’s person,I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gapeAnd bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,Let it be tenable in your silence still;And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,Give it an understanding, but no tongue:I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:Upon the platform, ’twixt eleven and twelve,I’ll visit you. |
| All | Our duty to your honour. |
| Hamlet | Your loves, as mine to you: farewell. |
| Exeunt all but Hamlet |
| My father’s spirit in arms! all is not well;I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes. |
| Exit | |
| But let me hear from you. |
| Ophelia | Do you doubt that? |
| Laertes | For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,A violet in the youth of primy nature,Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more. |
| Ophelia | No more but so? |
| Laertes | Think it no more;For nature, crescent, does not grow aloneIn thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,The inward service of the mind and soulGrows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirchThe virtue of his will: but you must fear,His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;For he himself is subject to his birth:He may not, as unvalued persons do,Carve for himself; for on his choice dependsThe safety and health of this whole state;And therefore must his choice be circumscribedUnto the voice and yielding of that bodyWhereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,It fits your wisdom so far to believe itAs he in his particular act and placeMay give his saying deed; which is no furtherThan the main voice of Denmark goes withal.Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,If with too credent ear you list his songs,Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure openTo his unmaster’d importunity.Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,And keep you in the rear of your affection,Out of the shot and danger of desire.The chariest maid is prodigal enough,If she unmask her beauty to the moon:Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes:The canker galls the infants of the spring,Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,And in the morn and liquid dew of youthContagious blastments are most imminent. |
| Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. |
| Ophelia | I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,And recks not his own rede. |
| Laertes | O, fear me not.I stay too long: but here my father comes. |
| Enter Polonius | |
| A double blessing is a double grace,Occasion smiles upon a second leave. |
| Lord Polonius | Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!And these few precepts in thy memorySee thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,Nor any unproportioned thought his act.Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. BewareOf entrance to a quarrel, but being in,Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;For the apparel oft proclaims the man,And they in France of the best rank and stationAre of a most select and generous chief in that.Neither a borrower nor a lender be;For loan oft loses both itself and friend,And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.This above all: to thine ownself be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man. |
| Farewell: my blessing season this in thee! |
| Laertes | Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. |
| Lord Polonius | The time invites you; go; your servants tend. |
| Laertes | Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well |
| What I have said to you. |
| Ophelia | ’Tis in my memory lock’d, |
| And you yourself shall keep the key of it. |
| Laertes | Farewell. |
| Exit | |
| Lord Polonius | What is’t, Ophelia, be hath said to you? |
| Ophelia | So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet. |
| Lord Polonius | Marry, well bethought: |
| Ophelia | ’Tis told me, he hath very oft of lateGiven private time to you; and you yourselfHave of your audience been most free and bounteous:If it be so, as so ’tis put on me,And that in way of caution, I must tell you,You do not understand yourself so clearlyAs it behoves my daughter and your honour.What is between you? give me up the truth.He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders |
| Of his affection to me. |
| Lord Polonius | Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl, |
| Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.Do you believe his tenders, as you call them? |
| Ophelia | I do not know, my lord, what I should think. |
| Lord Polonius | Marry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby; |
| Ophelia | That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;Or — not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,Running it thus — you’ll tender me a fool.My lord, he hath importuned me with love |
| In honourable fashion. |
| Lord Polonius | Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. |
| Ophelia | And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, |
| With almost all the holy vows of heaven. |
| Lord Polonius | Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, |
