Advertisement
Not a member of Pastebin yet?
Sign Up,
it unlocks many cool features!
- **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*
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment
Advertisement