HAMLET. William Shakespeare

pastors do,

       Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;

       Whilst, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,

       Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads

       And recks not his own read.

       Laer.

       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.

       Pol.

       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!

       [Laying his hand on Laertes’s head.]

       And these few precepts in thy memory

       Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

       Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.

       Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

       Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

       Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;

       But do not dull thy palm with entertainment

       Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware

       Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,

       Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.

       Give every man thine 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 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 own self 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!

       Laer.

       Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

       Pol.

       The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

       Laer.

       Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well

       What I have said to you.

       Oph.

       ‘Tis in my memory lock’d,

       And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

       Laer.

       Farewell.

       [Exit.]

       Pol.

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

       Oph.

       So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

       Pol.

       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 behooves my daughter and your honour.

       What is between you? give me up the truth.

       Oph.

       He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

       Of his affection to me.

       Pol.

       Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,

       Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

       Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

       Oph.

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

       Pol.

       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,

       Wronging it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.

       Oph.

       My lord, he hath importun’d me with love

       In honourable fashion.

       Pol.

       Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

       Oph.

       And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

       With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

       Pol.

       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 something 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.

       Oph.

       I shall obey, my lord.

       [Exeunt.]

       SCENE IV. The platform.

       [Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.]

       Ham.

       The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

       Hor.

       It is a nipping and an eager air.

       Ham.

       What hour now?

       Hor.

       I think it lacks of twelve.

       Mar.

       No, it is struck.

       Hor.

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