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A Room in POLONIUS’ House. | |
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Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA. | |
| Laer. My necessaries are embark’d; farewell: | |
| And, sister, as the winds give benefit | |
| And convoy is assistant, do not sleep, | 5 |
| But let me hear from you. | |
| Oph. Do you doubt that? | |
| Laer. 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, | 10 |
| Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting, | |
| The perfume and suppliance of a minute; | |
| No more. | |
| Oph. No more but so? | |
| Laer. Think it no more: | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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 unvalu’d persons do, | |
| Carve for himself, for on his choice depends | 25 |
| The safety and the health of the whole state; | |
| And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d | |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| The chariest maid is prodigal enough | |
| If she unmask her beauty to the moon; | |
| Virtue herself ’scapes not calumnious strokes; | |
| The canker galls the infants of the spring | |
| Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d, | 45 |
| 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. | |
| Oph. I shall th’ effect of this good lesson keep, | 50 |
| 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, | 55 |
| And recks not his own rede. | |
| Laer. O! fear me not. | |
| I stay too long; but here my father comes. | |
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Enter POLONIUS. | |
| A double blessing is a double grace; | 60 |
| 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! | |
| And these few precepts in thy memory | 65 |
| Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, | |
| Nor any unproportion’d thought his act. | |
| Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar; | |
| The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, | |
| Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; | 70 |
| 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 th’ opposed may beware of thee. | |
| Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; | 75 |
| 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 | 80 |
| 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, | 85 |
| 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. | 90 |
| 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. | 95 |
| 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 | 100 |
| 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. | 105 |
| 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. | 110 |
| 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; | 115 |
| Or,—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, | |
| Running 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. | 120 |
| 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, | 125 |
| 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 | 130 |
| 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, | 135 |
| 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, | 140 |
| Have you so slander any moment’s 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. | |
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