Hamlet (7 page)

HAMLET
    Your love, as mine to you: farewell.—

My father’s spirit in arms? All is not well:

I
doubt
²⁶⁹
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.

LAERTES
    My necessaries are embarked, farewell:

And, sister,
as
²
the winds give benefit

And
convoy is assistant
³
, do not sleep

But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA
    Do you doubt that?

LAERTES
    For Hamlet and the trifling of his favours,

Hold it a fashion and a
toy in blood
⁷
,

A violet in the youth of
primy
⁸
nature,

Froward
⁹
, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

The
suppliance
¹⁰
of a minute, no more.

OPHELIA
    No more
but so
¹¹
?

LAERTES
    Think it no more,

For nature
crescent
¹³
does not grow alone

In
thews
and bulk, but as his
temple
¹⁴
waxes,

The inward service of the mind and soul

Grows wide
withal
¹⁶
. Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no
soil nor cautel
¹⁷
doth besmirch

The virtue of his
will
¹⁸
: but you must fear,

His greatness
weighed
¹⁹
, his will is not his own;

For he himself is subject to his birth:

He may not, as
unvalued
²¹
persons do,

Carve
²²
for himself, for on his choice depends

The
sanctity
²³
and health of the whole state,

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed

Unto the voice and
yielding
²⁵
of that body

Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it

As he in his
peculiar sect and force
²⁸

May give his saying deed, which is no further

Than the
main voice
of Denmark goes
withal
³⁰
.

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain

If with too
credent
ear you
list
³²
his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your
chaste treasure
³³
open

To his
unmastered importunity
³⁴
.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,

And
keep within the
rear
³⁶
of your affection,

Out of the
shot
³⁷
and danger of desire.

The
chariest
³⁸
maid is prodigal enough

If she
unmask her beauty to the
moon
³⁹
:

Virtue itself
scapes
not
calumnious strokes
⁴⁰
:

The
canker
galls
the
infants of the spring
⁴¹

Too oft before the
buttons be disclosed
⁴²
,

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth

Contagious
blastments
⁴⁴
are most imminent.

Be wary then: best safety lies in fear.

Youth
to
⁴⁶
itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA
    I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some
ungracious
⁴⁹
pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whilst, like a
puffed
⁵¹
and reckless libertine

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And
recks
not his own
rede
⁵³
.

LAERTES
    O,
fear me not
⁵⁴
.

I
stay
⁵⁵
too long. But here my father comes.

A
double blessing
⁵⁶
is a double grace;

Occasion
smiles upon a second
leave
⁵⁷
.

POLONIUS
    Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are
stayed
⁶⁰
for there. My blessing with you!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character
⁶²
. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any
unproportioned
thought
his
⁶³
act.

Be thou
familiar
⁶⁴
, but by no means vulgar.

The friends thou hast, and their
adoption tried
⁶⁵
,

Grapple
⁶⁶
them to thy soul with hoops of steel,

But do not
dull thy palm
⁶⁷
with entertainment

Of each new-hatched,
unfledged
⁶⁸
comrade: beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear’t that th’opposèd
⁷⁰
may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

Take each man’s
censure
⁷²
, but reserve thy judgement:

Costly thy
habit
⁷³
as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in
fancy
⁷⁴
; rich, not gaudy:

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are of a most select and generous chief in that
⁷⁷
.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of
husbandry
⁸⁰
.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be
false
⁸³
to any man.

Farewell: my blessing
season
this
⁸⁴
in thee!

LAERTES
    Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUS
    The time invites you. Go, your servants
tend
⁸⁶
.

LAERTES
    Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well

What I have said to you.

OPHELIA
    ’Tis in my memory locked,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES
    Farewell.

POLONIUS
    What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIA
    So please you, something
touching
⁹³
the lord Hamlet.

POLONIUS
    
Marry
, well
bethought
⁹⁴
.

’Tis told me, he hath very oft of late

Given private time to you; and you yourself

Have of your
audience
⁹⁷
been most free and bounteous:

If it be so, as so ’tis
put on
⁹⁸
me,

And that in way of caution, I must tell you

You do not understand yourself so clearly

As it
behoves
¹⁰¹
my daughter and your honour.

What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA
    He hath, my lord, of late made many
tenders
¹⁰³

Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS
    Affection? Puh! You speak like a
green
¹⁰⁵
girl,

Unsifted
¹⁰⁶
in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA
    I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS
    Marry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby

That you have ta’en his tenders for true pay

Which are not
sterling
.
Tender yourself more dearly
¹¹¹
;

Or — not to
crack the wind of
¹¹²
the poor phrase,

Running
it thus — you’ll
tender me a fool
¹¹³
.

OPHELIA
    My lord, he hath
importuned
¹¹⁴
me with love

In honourable fashion.

POLONIUS
    Ay,
fashion
you may call it.
Go to
¹¹⁶
, go to.

OPHELIA
    And hath given
countenance
¹¹⁷
to his speech,

My lord, with all the vows of heaven.

POLONIUS
    Ay,
springes
to catch
woodcocks
¹¹⁹
. I do know,

When the blood burns, how
prodigal
¹²⁰
the soul

Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,

Giving more
light
than heat,
extinct in both
¹²²

Even in their promise, as it is a-making,

You must not take for fire.
For this time
¹²⁴
, daughter,

Be somewhat
scanter
¹²⁵
of your maiden presence;

Set your
entreatments
¹²⁶
at a higher rate

Than a
command to parley
¹²⁷
. For Lord Hamlet,

Believe so much in him that he is young

And with a larger tether may he walk

Than may be given you:
in few
¹³⁰
, Ophelia,

Do not believe his vows, for they are
brokers
¹³¹
,

Not of the dye which their
investments
¹³²
show,

But
mere implorators
of unholy
suits
¹³³
,

Breathing like sanctified and pious
bawds
¹³⁴
,

The better to
beguile.
This is
for all
¹³⁵
:

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,

Have you so slander any
moment
¹³⁷
leisure,

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to’t, I charge you.
Come your ways
¹³⁹
.

OPHELIA
    I shall obey, my lord.

HAMLET
    The air bites
shrewdly
¹
: is it very cold?

HORATIO
    It is a nipping and an
eager
²
air.

HAMLET
    What hour now?

HORATIO
    I think it
lacks of
⁴
twelve.

HAMLET
    No, it is struck.

HORATIO
    Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season

Wherein the spirit
held his wont
⁷
to walk.

A
flourish
of trumpets and
drums, perhaps also cannon

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET
    The king doth
wake
tonight and
takes his rouse
⁹
,

Keeps wassail
, and
the swaggering upspring reels
¹⁰
:

And as he drains his draughts of
Rhenish
¹¹
down,

The
kettledrum
and trumpet thus
bray out
¹²

The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO
    Is it a custom?

HAMLET
    Ay, marry, is’t:

And to my mind, though I am native here

And to the
manner
¹⁷
born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance
¹⁸
.

HORATIO
    Look, my lord, it comes!

HAMLET
    Angels and
ministers of grace
²⁰
defend us!

Be thou
a spirit of
health
or
goblin
²¹
damned,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com’st in such a
questionable shape
²⁴

That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane. O, O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell

Why thy
canonized
bones,
hearsèd
²⁸
in death,

Have burst their
cerements
, why the
sepulchre
²⁹

Wherein we saw thee quietly
inurned
³⁰
,

Hath oped his
ponderous
³¹
and marble jaws

To
cast
³²
thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse, again in
complete steel
³³

Revisits thus the
glimpses of the moon
³⁴
,

Making night
hideous
, and we
fools of nature
³⁵

So
horridly
to shake our
disposition
³⁶

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this?
Wherefore?
³⁸
What should we do?