The Best of Shakespeare:. William Shakespeare

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

       Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

       [A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.]

       What does this mean, my lord?

       Ham.

       The King doth wake tonight 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.

       Hor.

       Is it a custom?

       Ham.

       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 traduc’d 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 often doubt

       To his own scandal.

       Hor.

       Look, my lord, it comes!

       [Enter Ghost.]

       Ham.

       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 com’st 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 canoniz’d bones, hearsed in death,

       Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,

       Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn’d,

       Hath op’d 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?