The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark

1 Enter Laertes and Ophelia.
2 LAERTES.
3 My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.
4 And, sister, as the winds give benefit
5 And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
6 But let me hear from you.
7 OPHELIA.
8 Do you doubt that?
9 LAERTES.
10 For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
11 Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood;
12 A violet in the youth of primy nature,
13 Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting;
14 The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
15 No more.
16 OPHELIA.
17 No more but so?
18 LAERTES.
19 Think it no more.
20 For nature crescent does not grow alone
21 In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,
22 The inward service of the mind and soul
23 Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
24 And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
25 The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
26 His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
27 For he himself is subject to his birth:
28 He may not, as unvalu’d persons do,
29 Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
30 The sanctity and health of this whole state;
31 And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d
32 Unto the voice and yielding of that body
33 Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
34 It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
35 As he in his particular act and place
36 May give his saying deed; which is no further
37 Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
38 Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
39 If with too credent ear you list his songs,
40 Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
41 To his unmaster’d importunity.
42 Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
43 And keep you in the rear of your affection,
44 Out of the shot and danger of desire.
45 The chariest maid is prodigal enough
46 If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
47 Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes:
48 The canker galls the infants of the spring
49 Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d,
50 And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
51 Contagious blastments are most imminent.
52 Be wary then, best safety lies in fear.
53 Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
54 OPHELIA.
55 I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep
56 As watchman to my heart. But good my brother,
57 Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
58 Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
59 Whilst like a puff’d and reckless libertine
60 Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
61 And recks not his own rede.
62 LAERTES.
63 O, fear me not.
64 I stay too long. But here my father comes.
65 Enter Polonius.
66 A double blessing is a double grace;
67 Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
68 POLONIUS.
69 Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame.
70 The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
71 And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with you.
72 [_Laying his hand on Laertes’s head._]
73 And these few precepts in thy memory
74 Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
75 Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
76 Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
77 Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
78 Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;
79 But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
80 Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
81 Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
82 Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee.
83 Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
84 Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
85 Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
86 But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
87 For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
88 And they in France of the best rank and station
89 Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
90 Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
91 For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
92 And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
93 This above all: to thine own self be true;
94 And it must follow, as the night the day,
95 Thou canst not then be false to any man.
96 Farewell: my blessing season this in thee.
97 LAERTES.
98 Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
99 POLONIUS.
100 The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
101 LAERTES.
102 Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
103 What I have said to you.
104 OPHELIA.
105 ’Tis in my memory lock’d,
106 And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
107 LAERTES.
108 Farewell.
109 [_Exit._]
110 POLONIUS.
111 What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
112 OPHELIA.
113 So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
114 POLONIUS.
115 Marry, well bethought:
116 ’Tis told me he hath very oft of late
117 Given private time to you; and you yourself
118 Have of your audience been most free and bounteous.
119 If it be so,—as so ’tis put on me,
120 And that in way of caution,—I must tell you
121 You do not understand yourself so clearly
122 As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
123 What is between you? Give me up the truth.
124 OPHELIA.
125 He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
126 Of his affection to me.
127 POLONIUS.
128 Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
129 Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
130 Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
131 OPHELIA.
132 I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
133 POLONIUS.
134 Marry, I’ll teach you; think yourself a baby;
135 That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,
136 Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
137 Or,—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
138 Running it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.
139 OPHELIA.
140 My lord, he hath importun’d me with love
141 In honourable fashion.
142 POLONIUS.
143 Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
144 OPHELIA.
145 And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
146 With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
147 POLONIUS.
148 Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
149 When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
150 Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
151 Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
152 Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
153 You must not take for fire. From this time
154 Be something scanter of your maiden presence;
155 Set your entreatments at a higher rate
156 Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
157 Believe so much in him that he is young;
158 And with a larger tether may he walk
159 Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
160 Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
161 Not of that dye which their investments show,
162 But mere implorators of unholy suits,
163 Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
164 The better to beguile. This is for all:
165 I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
166 Have you so slander any moment leisure
167 As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
168 Look to’t, I charge you; come your ways.
169 OPHELIA.
170 I shall obey, my lord.
171 [_Exeunt._]