LAERTES.

O, fear me not.

I stay too long: but here my father comes.

Enter POLONIUS.

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

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 to thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd unfledged comrade. Be-

ware

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 judg

ment.

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 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!

LAERTES.

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUS.

The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

LAERTES.

Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well

What I have said to you.

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

OPHELIA.

So please you, something touching the Lord

Hamlet.

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 boun

teous:

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.

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.
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 you'll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA.

My lord, he hath importuned me with love
In honourable fashion.

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.

POLONIUS.

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows.

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.

I shall obey, my lord.

OPHELIA.

(Exeunt.)

[The action of this scene passes on the same platform that was shown in the first scene of this act. HAMLET and HORATIO appear from the first entrance on the right and approach MARCELLUS, who is on guard. HORATIO stops at the left of the platform, and looks out over the battlements.]

HAMLET.

THE air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

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

season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

(A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.)

What doth this mean, my lord?

HAMLET.

The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; 3

And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO.

Is it a custom?

Ay, marry, is't:

HAMLET.

But to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance.

Enter GHOST.

HORATIO.

Look, my lord, it comes!

HAMLET.

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 comest 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 canonized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd,
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 horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls? Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do? (GHOST beckons HAMLET.)

HORATIO.

It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire
To you alone.