Hamlet · William Shakespeare
_SCENA TERTIA_[1]
_Polon_. Yet heere _Laertes_? Aboord, aboord for shame, The winde sits in the shoulder of your saile, And you are staid for there: my blessing with you; [Sidenote: for, there my | with thee] [Footnote 7: _1st Q_. But my deere brother, do not you Like to a cunning Sophister, Teach me the path and ready way to heauen, While you forgetting what is said to me, Your selfe, like to a carelesse libertine Doth giue his heart, his appetite at ful, And little recks how that his honour dies. 'The primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.' --_Macbeth_, ii. 3: 'The flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.' _All's Well_, iv. 5.] [Page 38] And these few Precepts in thy memory,[1] See thou Character.[2] Giue thy thoughts no tongue, [Sidenote: Looke thou] Nor any vnproportion'd[3] thought his Act: Be thou familiar; but by no meanes vulgar:[4] The friends thou hast, and their adoption tride,[5] [Sidenote: Those friends] Grapple them to thy Soule, with hoopes of Steele: [Sidenote: unto] But doe not dull thy palme, with entertainment Of each vnhatch't, vnfledg'd Comrade.[6] Beware [Sidenote: each new hatcht unfledgd courage,] Of entrance to a quarrell: but being in Bear't that th'opposed may beware of thee. Giue euery man thine eare; but few thy voyce: [Sidenote: thy eare,] Take each mans censure[7]; but reserue thy Judgement; Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy; But not exprest in fancie; rich, not gawdie: For the Apparell oft proclaimes the man. And they in France of the best ranck and station, Are of a most select and generous[8] cheff in that.[10] [Sidenote: Or of a generous, chiefe[9]] Neither a borrower, nor a lender be; [Sidenote: lender boy,] For lone oft loses both it selfe and friend: [Sidenote: loue] And borrowing duls the edge of Husbandry.[11] [Sidenote: dulleth edge] This aboue all; to thine owne selfe be true: And it must follow, as the Night the Day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.[12] Farewell: my Blessing season[13] this in thee.
_Laer_. Most humbly doe I take my leaue, my Lord. _Polon_. The time inuites you, goe, your seruants tend. [Sidenote: time inuests] _Laer._ Farewell _Ophelia_, and remember well What I haue said to you.[14] _Ophe_. Tis in my memory lockt, And you your selfe shall keepe the key of it, _Laer_. Farewell. _Exit Laer_. _Polon_. What ist _Ophelia_ he hath said to you? [Footnote 11: Those that borrow, having to pay, lose heart for saving. 'There's husbandry in heaven; Their candles are all out.'--_Macbeth_, ii. 1.] [Page 40] _Ophe._ So please you, somthing touching the L. _Hamlet._ _Polon._ Marry, well bethought: Tis told me he hath very oft of late Giuen priuate time to you; and you your selfe Haue of your audience beene most free and bounteous.[1] If it be so, as so tis put on me;[2] And that in way of caution: I must tell you, You doe not vnderstand your selfe so cleerely, As it behoues my Daughter, and your Honour What is betweene you, giue me vp the truth? _Ophe._ He hath my Lord of late, made many tenders Of his affection to me. _Polon._ Affection, puh. You speake like a greene Girle, Vnsifted in such perillous Circumstance. Doe you beleeue his tenders, as you call them? _Ophe._ I do not know, my Lord, what I should thinke.
_Polon._ Marry Ile teach you; thinke your self a Baby, [Sidenote: I will] That you haue tane his tenders for true pay, [Sidenote: tane these] Which are not starling. Tender your selfe more dearly; [Sidenote: sterling] Or not to crack the winde of the poore Phrase, [Sidenote: (not ... &c.] Roaming it[3] thus, you'l tender me a foole.[4] [Sidenote: Wrong it thus] _Ophe._ My Lord, he hath importun'd me with loue, In honourable fashion. _Polon._ I, fashion you may call it, go too, go too. _Ophe._ And hath giuen countenance to his speech, My Lord, with all the vowes of Heauen. [Sidenote: with almost all the holy vowes of] [Page 42] _Polon_. I, Springes to catch Woodcocks.[1] I doe know [Sidenote: springs] When the Bloud burnes, how Prodigall the Soule[2] Giues the tongue vowes: these blazes, Daughter, [Sidenote: Lends the] Giuing more light then heate; extinct in both,[3] Euen in their promise, as it is a making; You must not take for fire. For this time Daughter,[4] [Sidenote: fire, from this] Be somewhat scanter of your Maiden presence; [Sidenote: something] Set your entreatments[5] at a higher rate, Then a command to parley. For Lord _Hamlet_, [Sidenote: parle;] Beleeue so much in him, that he is young, And with a larger tether may he walke, [Sidenote: tider] Then may be giuen you. In few,[6] _Ophelia_, Doe not beleeue his vowes; for they are Broakers, Not of the eye,[7] which their Inuestments show: [Sidenote: of that die] But meere implorators of vnholy Sutes, [Sidenote: imploratators] Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds, The better to beguile. This is for all:[8] [Sidenote: beguide] I would not, in plaine tearmes, from this time forth, Haue you so slander any moment leisure,[9] [Sidenote: 70, 82] As to giue words or talke with the Lord _Hamlet_:[10] Looke too't, I charge you; come your wayes.
_Ophe_. I shall obey my Lord.[11] _Exeunt_. _Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus._ [Sidenote: _and Marcellus_] [Sidenote: 2] _Ham_. [12]The Ayre bites shrewdly: is it very cold?[13] _Hor_. It is a nipping and an eager ayre. _Ham_. What hower now? _Hor_. I thinke it lacks of twelue. _Mar_. No, it is strooke. _Hor_. Indeed I heard it not: then it drawes neere the season, [Sidenote: it then] Wherein the Spirit held his wont to walke. What does this meane my Lord? [14] [Sidenote: _A flourish of trumpets and 2 peeces goes of._[14]] [Footnote 10: _1st Q_. _Ofelia_, receiue none of his letters, For louers lines are snares to intrap the heart; [Sidenote: 82] Refuse his tokens, both of them are keyes To vnlocke Chastitie vnto Desire; Come in _Ofelia_; such men often proue, Great in their wordes, but little in their loue. '_men often prove such_--great &c.'--Compare _Twelfth Night_, act ii. sc. 4, lines 120, 121, _Globe ed.] [Footnote 12: _1st Q._ The ayre bites shrewd; it is an eager and An nipping winde, what houre i'st?] [Page 44] [Sidenote: 22, 25] _Ham_. The King doth wake to night, and takes his rouse, Keepes wassels and the swaggering vpspring reeles,[1] [Sidenote: wassell | up-spring] And as he dreines his draughts of Renish downe, The kettle Drum and Trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his Pledge.
_Horat_. Is it a custome? _Ham_. I marry ist; And to my mind, though I am natiue heere, [Sidenote: But to] And to the manner borne: It is a Custome More honour'd in the breach, then the obseruance. [A] _Enter Ghost._ _Hor_. Looke my Lord, it comes. [Sidenote: 172] _Ham_. Angels and Ministers of Grace defend vs: [Sidenote: 32] Be thou a Spirit of health, or Goblin damn'd, Bring with thee ayres from Heauen, or blasts from Hell,[2] [Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto:--_ This heauy headed reueale east and west[3] Makes vs tradust, and taxed of other nations, They clip[4] vs drunkards, and with Swinish phrase Soyle our addition,[5] and indeede it takes From our atchieuements, though perform'd at height[6] The pith and marrow of our attribute, So oft it chaunces in particuler men,[7] That for some vicious mole[8] of nature in them As in their birth wherein they are not guilty,[8] (Since nature cannot choose his origin) By their ore-grow'th of some complextion[10] Oft breaking downe the pales and forts of reason Or by[11] some habit, that too much ore-leauens The forme of plausiue[12] manners, that[13] these men Carrying I say the stamp of one defect Being Natures liuery, or Fortunes starre,[14] His[15] vertues els[16] be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may vndergoe,[17] Shall in the generall censure[18] take corruption From that particuler fault:[19] the dram of eale[20] Doth all the noble substance of a doubt[21] To his[22] owne scandle.]
_Hor._ What if it tempt you toward the Floud my Lord?[11] [Footnote 7: Even if Shakspere cared more about grammar than he does, a man in Hamlet's perturbation he might well present as making a breach in it; but we are not reduced even to justification. _Toschaken_ (_to_ as German _zu_ intensive) is a recognized English word; it means _to shake to pieces_. The construction of the passage is, 'What may this mean, that thou revisitest thus the glimpses of the moon, and that we so horridly to-shake our disposition?' So in _The Merry Wives_, And fairy-like to-pinch the unclean knight. 'our disposition': our _cosmic structure_.] [Page 48] Or to the dreadfull Sonnet of the Cliffe, [Sidenote: somnet] That beetles[1] o're his base into the Sea, [Sidenote: bettles] [Sidenote: 112] And there assumes some other horrible forme,[2] [Sidenote: assume] Which might depriue your Soueraignty[3] of Reason And draw you into madnesse thinke of it?
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.