Beware

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm* with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade.
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear it that the opposer 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.

Hamlet's Address to his Father's Ghost.

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,

* Palm of the hand.

+ Opinion.

+ Chiefly.

Hath oped 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 horribly to shake our disposition,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

The Dangers attendant on following the Ghost. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff, That beetles* o'er his base into the sea? And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason, And draw you into madness? think of it: The very place puts toys† of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain, That looks so many fathoms to the sea, And hears it roar beneath.

Ghost and Hamlet.

HAMLET. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

HAMLET.
GHOST. Pity me not,
To what I shall unfold.
HAMLET.

* Impends.

Alas, poor ghost! but lend thy serious hearing

Speak, I am bound to hear.

† Whims.

GHOST. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear. HAMLET. What?

GHOST. I am thy father's spirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;
And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,
Are burn'd and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word.

Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood ;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood :—List, list, O list!
If thou didst ever thy dear father love,-

HAMLET. O heaven!

GHOST. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

HAMLET. Murder?

GHOST. Murder most foul, as in the best it is ;

But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

HAMLET. Haste me to know it; that I with wings

as swift

As meditation, or the thoughts of love,

May sweep to my revenge.

GHOST.

I find thee apt ;

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe's Wharf,

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear :
'Tis given out, that, sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is, by a forged process of my death,

Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life
Now wears his crown.

HAMLET. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle!

The Ghost's Description of the Murder.

But soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be :-Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon* in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through.
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And, with a sudden vigour, it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine
And a most instant tetter+ bark'd about,
Most lazar‡ like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd; §
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousell'd, disappointed, unanel'd ;¶
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.

Approach of Dawn.

The glow-worm shews the matin to be near,

And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire.

Leprous.

Without having received the sacrament. Without extreme unction.

D

ACT II.

Old Age.

Beshrew my jealousy !

It seems, it is as proper to our age
To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions,
As it is common for the younger sort
To lack discretion.

Reflections on Man.

I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'er-hanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me,—nor woman neither; though, by your smiling, you seem to say so.

Hamlet's Reflections on the Player.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous, that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul thus to his own conceit,
That, from her working, all his visage wann'd;
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,