ACT I SCENE III                 A room in Polonius' house.               [Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA] LAERTES             My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:               And, sister, as the winds give benefit               And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,               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 alone               In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,               The inward service of the mind and soul               Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,               And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch               The 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 depends               The safety and health of this whole state;               And therefore must his choice be circumscribed               Unto the voice and yielding 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 particular act and place               May give his saying deed; which is no further               Than 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 open               To 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 youth               Contagious 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 memory               See 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 entertainment               Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware               Of 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 station               Are 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:               'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late               Given private time to you; and you yourself               Have 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 clearly               As it behoves my daughter and your honour.               What is between you? give me up the truth. OPHELIA             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;               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. OPHELIA             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,               When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul               Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,               Even in their promise, as it is a-making,               You must not take for fire. From this time               Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;               Set your entreatments at a higher rate               Than a command to parley. 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, Ophelia,               Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,               Not of that dye which their investments show,               But mere implorators of unholy suits,               Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,               The better to beguile. This is for all:               I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,               Have you so slander any moment leisure,               As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.               Look to't, I charge you: come your ways. OPHELIA             I shall obey, my lord.                [Exeunt]  ACT I SCENE IV                 The platform.               [Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS] HAMLET             The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. HORATIO            It is a nipping and an eager air. HAMLET             What hour now? HORATIO                              I think it lacks of twelve. HAMLET             No, it is struck. HORATIO            Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season               Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.                [A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within]                What does this mean, my lord? HAMLET             The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,               Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;               And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,               The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out               The triumph of his pledge. HORATIO            Is it a custom? HAMLET             Ay, marry, is't:               But to my mind, though I am native here               And to the manner born, it is a custom               More honour'd in the breach than the observance.               This heavy-headed revel east and west               Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:               They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase               Soil our addition; and indeed it takes               From our achievements, though perform'd at height,               The pith and marrow of our attribute.               So, oft it chances in particular men,               That for some vicious mole of nature in them,               As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,               Since nature cannot choose his origin--               By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,               Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,               Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens               The form of plausive manners, that these men,               Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,               Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--               Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,               As infinite as man may undergo--               Shall in the general censure take corruption               From that particular fault: the dram of eale               Doth all the noble substance of a doubt               To his own scandal. HORATIO            Look, my lord, it comes!                [Enter Ghost] HAMLET             Angels and ministers of grace defend us!               Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,               Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,               Be thy intents wicked or charitable,               Thou comest in such a questionable shape               That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,               King, father, royal Dane: O, answer me!               Let me not burst in ignorance; but tell               Why thy canonized bones, hearsed in death,               Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,               Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,               Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,               To cast thee up again. What may this mean,               That thou, dead corse, again in complete steel               Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,               Making night hideous; and we fools of nature               So horridly to shake our disposition               With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?               Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?                [Ghost beckons HAMLET] HORATIO            It beckons you to go away with it,               As if it some impartment did desire               To you alone. MARCELLUS                        Look, with what courteous action               It waves you to a more removed ground:               But do not go with it. HORATIO            No, by no means. HAMLET             It will not speak; then I will follow it. HORATIO            Do not, my lord. HAMLET                               Why, what should be the fear?               I do not set my life in a pin's fee;               And for my soul, what can it do to that,               Being a thing immortal as itself?               It waves me forth again: I'll follow it. HORATIO            What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,               Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff               That beetles o'er his base into the sea,               And there assume some other horrible form,               Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason               And draw you into madness? think of it:               The very place puts toys of desperation,               Without more motive, into every brain               That looks so many fathoms to the sea               And hears it roar beneath. HAMLET             It waves me still.               Go on; I'll follow thee. MARCELLUS      You shall not go, my lord. HAMLET             Hold off your hands. HORATIO            Be ruled; you shall not go. HAMLET             My fate cries out,               And makes each petty artery in this body               As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.               Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.               By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!               I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.                [Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET] HORATIO            He waxes desperate with imagination. MARCELLUS      Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him. HORATIO            Have after. To what issue will this come? MARCELLUS      Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. HORATIO            Heaven will direct it. MARCELLUS      Nay, let's follow him.                [Exeunt]