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ACT I, SCENE I.

Elsinore. A platform before the castle.

FRANCISCO at his post. Enter to him BERNARDO

BERNARDO
001: Who's there?

FRANCISCO
002: Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

BERNARDO
003: Long live the king!

FRANCISCO
004: Bernardo?

BERNARDO
005: He.

FRANCISCO
006: You come most carefully upon your hour.

BERNARDO
007: 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

FRANCISCO
008: For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold,
009: And I am sick at heart.

BERNARDO
010: Have you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCO
011: Not a mouse stirring.

BERNARDO
012: Well, good night.
013: If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,
014: The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.

FRANCISCO
015: I think I hear them. Stand, ho! Who's there?

Enter HORATIO and MARCELLUS

HORATIO
016: Friends to this ground.

MARCELLUS
017: And liegemen to the Dane.

FRANCISCO
018: Give you good night.

MARCELLUS
019: O, farewell, honest soldier:
020: Who hath relieved you?

FRANCISCO
021: Bernardo has my place.
022: Give you good night.

Exit

MARCELLUS
023: Holla! Bernardo!

BERNARDO
024: Say,
025: What, is Horatio there?

HORATIO
026: A piece of him.

BERNARDO
027: Welcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
028: What, has this thing appear'd again to-night?

BERNARDO
029: I have seen nothing.

MARCELLUS
030: Horatio says 'tis but our fantasy,
031: And will not let belief take hold of him
032: Touching this dreaded sight, twice seen of us:
033: Therefore I have entreated him along
034: With us to watch the minutes of this night;
035: That if again this apparition come,
036: He may approve our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIO
037: Tush, tush, 'twill not appear.

BERNARDO
038: Sit down awhile;
039: And let us once again assail your ears,
040: That are so fortified against our story
041: What we have two nights seen.

HORATIO
042: Well, sit we down,
043: And let us hear Bernardo speak of this.

BERNARDO
044: Last night of all,
045: When yond same star that's westward from the pole
046: Had made his course to illume that part of heaven
047: Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,
048: The bell then beating one,--

Enter Ghost

MARCELLUS
049: Peace, break thee off; look, where it comes again!

BERNARDO
050: In the same figure, like the king that's dead.

MARCELLUS
051: Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.

BERNARDO
052: Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.

HORATIO
053: Most like: it harrows me with fear and wonder.

BERNARDO
054: It would be spoke to.

MARCELLUS
055: Question it, Horatio.

HORATIO
056: What art thou that usurp'st this time of night,
057: Together with that fair and warlike form
058: In which the majesty of buried Denmark
059: Did sometimes march? by heaven I charge thee, speak!

MARCELLUS
060: It is offended.

BERNARDO
061: See, it stalks away!

HORATIO
062: Stay! speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Exit Ghost

MARCELLUS
063: 'Tis gone, and will not answer.

BERNARDO
064: How now, Horatio! you tremble and look pale:
065: Is not this something more than fantasy?
066: What think you on't?

HORATIO
067: Before my God, I might not this believe
068: Without the sensible and true avouch
069: Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUS
070: Is it not like the king?

HORATIO
071: As thou art to thyself:
072: Such was the very armour he had on
073: When he the ambitious Norway combated;
074: So frown'd he once, when, in an angry parle,
075: He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
076: 'Tis strange.

MARCELLUS
077: Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
078: With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIO
079: In what particular thought to work I know not;
080: But in the gross and scope of my opinion,
081: This bodes some strange eruption to our state.

MARCELLUS
082: Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
083: Why this same strict and most observant watch
084: So nightly toils the subject of the land,
085: And why such daily cast of brazen cannon,
086: And foreign mart for implements of war;
087: Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
088: Does not divide the Sunday from the week;
089: What might be toward, that this sweaty haste
090: Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:
091: Who is't that can inform me?

HORATIO
092: That can I;
093: At least, the whisper goes so. Our last king,
094: Whose image even but now appear'd to us,
095: Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,
096: Thereto prick'd on by a most emulate pride,
097: Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet--
098: For so this side of our known world esteem'd him--
099: Did slay this Fortinbras; who by a seal'd compact,
100: Well ratified by law and heraldry,
101: Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands
102: Which he stood seized of, to the conqueror:
103: Against the which, a moiety competent
104: Was gaged by our king; which had return'd
105: To the inheritance of Fortinbras,
106: Had he been vanquisher; as, by the same covenant,
107: And carriage of the article design'd,
108: His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,
109: Of unimproved mettle hot and full,
110: Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
111: Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes,
112: For food and diet, to some enterprise
113: That hath a stomach in't; which is no other--
114: As it doth well appear unto our state--
115: But to recover of us, by strong hand
116: And terms compulsatory, those foresaid lands
117: So by his father lost: and this, I take it,
118: Is the main motive of our preparations,
119: The source of this our watch and the chief head
120: Of this post-haste and romage in the land.

BERNARDO
121: I think it be no other but e'en so:
122: Well may it sort that this portentous figure
123: Comes armed through our watch; so like the king
124: That was and is the question of these wars.

HORATIO
125: A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye.
126: In the most high and palmy state of Rome,
127: A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,
128: The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead
129: Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:
130: As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,
131: Disasters in the sun; and the moist star
132: Upon whose influence Neptune's empire stands
133: Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:
134: And even the like precurse of fierce events,
135: As harbingers preceding still the fates
136: And prologue to the omen coming on,
137: Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
138: Unto our climatures and countrymen.--
139: But soft, behold! lo, where it comes again!
[Re-enter Ghost]
140: I'll cross it, though it blast me. Stay, illusion!
141: If thou hast any sound, or use of voice,
142: Speak to me:
143: If there be any good thing to be done,
144: That may to thee do ease and grace to me,
145: Speak to me:
[Cock crows]
146: If thou art privy to thy country's fate,
147: Which, happily, foreknowing may avoid, O, speak!
148: Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life
149: Extorted treasure in the womb of earth,
150: For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death,
151: Speak of it: stay, and speak! Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUS
152: Shall I strike at it with my partisan?

HORATIO
153: Do, if it will not stand.

BERNARDO
154: 'Tis here!

HORATIO
155: 'Tis here!

MARCELLUS
156: 'Tis gone!
[Exit Ghost]
157: We do it wrong, being so majestical,
158: To offer it the show of violence;
159: For it is, as the air, invulnerable,
160: And our vain blows malicious mockery.

BERNARDO
161: It was about to speak, when the cock crew.

HORATIO
162: And then it started like a guilty thing
163: Upon a fearful summons. I have heard,
164: The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
165: Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
166: Awake the god of day; and, at his warning,
167: Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,
168: The extravagant and erring spirit hies
169: To his confine: and of the truth herein
170: This present object made probation.

MARCELLUS
171: It faded on the crowing of the cock.
172: Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes
173: Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated,
174: The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
175: And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad;
176: The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
177: No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
178: So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

HORATIO
179: So have I heard and do in part believe it.
180: But, look, the morn, in russet mantle clad,
181: Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill:
182: Break we our watch up; and by my advice,
183: Let us impart what we have seen to-night
184: Unto young Hamlet; for, upon my life,
185: This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
186: Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
187: As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUS
188: Let's do't, I pray; and I this morning know
189: Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE II.

A room of state in the castle.

Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, HAMLET, POLONIUS, LAERTES, VOLTIMAND, CORNELIUS, Lords, and Attendants

KING CLAUDIUS
001: Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death
002: The memory be green, and that it us befitted
003: To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom
004: To be contracted in one brow of woe,
005: Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature
006: That we with wisest sorrow think on him,
007: Together with remembrance of ourselves.
008: Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,
009: The imperial jointress to this warlike state,
010: Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,--
011: With an auspicious and a dropping eye,
012: With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,
013: In equal scale weighing delight and dole,--
014: Taken to wife: nor have we herein barr'd
015: Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone
016: With this affair along. For all, our thanks.
017: Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
018: Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
019: Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
020: Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
021: Colleagued with the dream of his advantage,
022: He hath not fail'd to pester us with message,
023: Importing the surrender of those lands
024: Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,
025: To our most valiant brother. So much for him.
026: Now for ourself and for this time of meeting:
027: Thus much the business is: we have here writ
028: To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras,--
029: Who, impotent and bed-rid, scarcely hears
030: Of this his nephew's purpose,--to suppress
031: His further gait herein; in that the levies,
032: The lists and full proportions, are all made
033: Out of his subject: and we here dispatch
034: You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltimand,
035: For bearers of this greeting to old Norway;
036: Giving to you no further personal power
037: To business with the king, more than the scope
038: Of these delated articles allow.
039: Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.

CORNELIUS, VOLTIMAND
040: In that and all things will we show our duty.

KING CLAUDIUS
041: We doubt it nothing: heartily farewell.
[Exeunt VOLTIMAND and CORNELIUS]
042: And now, Laertes, what's the news with you?
043: You told us of some suit; what is't, Laertes?
044: You cannot speak of reason to the Dane,
045: And loose your voice: what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,
046: That shall not be my offer, not thy asking?
047: The head is not more native to the heart,
048: The hand more instrumental to the mouth,
049: Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.
050: What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTES
051: My dread lord,
052: Your leave and favour to return to France;
053: From whence though willingly I came to Denmark,
054: To show my duty in your coronation,
055: Yet now, I must confess, that duty done,
056: My thoughts and wishes bend again toward France
057: And bow them to your gracious leave and pardon.

KING CLAUDIUS
058: Have you your father's leave? What says Polonius?

LORD POLONIUS
059: He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave
060: By laboursome petition, and at last
061: Upon his will I seal'd my hard consent:
062: I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

KING CLAUDIUS
063: Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
064: And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
065: But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

HAMLET [Aside]
066: A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS
067: How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET
068: Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
069: Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
070: And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
071: Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
072: Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
073: Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
074: Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET
075: Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
076: If it be,
077: Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET
078: Seems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'
079: 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
080: Nor customary suits of solemn black,
081: Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
082: No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
083: Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
084: Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
085: That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
086: For they are actions that a man might play:
087: But I have that within which passeth show;
088: These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING CLAUDIUS
089: 'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,
090: To give these mourning duties to your father:
091: But, you must know, your father lost a father;
092: That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
093: In filial obligation for some term
094: To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
095: In obstinate condolement is a course
096: Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
097: It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
098: A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
099: An understanding simple and unschool'd:
100: For what we know must be and is as common
101: As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
102: Why should we in our peevish opposition
103: Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
104: A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
105: To reason most absurd: whose common theme
106: Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
107: From the first corse till he that died to-day,
108: 'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
109: This unprevailing woe, and think of us
110: As of a father: for let the world take note,
111: You are the most immediate to our throne;
112: And with no less nobility of love
113: Than that which dearest father bears his son,
114: Do I impart toward you. For your intent
115: In going back to school in Wittenberg,
116: It is most retrograde to our desire:
117: And we beseech you, bend you to remain
118: Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
119: Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN GERTRUDE
120: Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
121: I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.

HAMLET
122: I shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KING CLAUDIUS
123: Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
124: Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
125: This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
126: Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
127: No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
128: But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
129: And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
130: Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

HAMLET
131: O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
132: Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
133: Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
134: His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
135: How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
136: Seem to me all the uses of this world!
137: Fie on't! ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden,
138: That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
139: Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
140: But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two:
141: So excellent a king; that was, to this,
142: Hyperion to a satyr; so loving to my mother
143: That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
144: Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth!
145: Must I remember? why, she would hang on him,
146: As if increase of appetite had grown
147: By what it fed on: and yet, within a month--
148: Let me not think on't--Frailty, thy name is woman!--
149: A little month, or ere those shoes were old
150: With which she follow'd my poor father's body,
151: Like Niobe, all tears:--why she, even she--
152: O, God! a beast, that wants discourse of reason,
153: Would have mourn'd longer--married with my uncle,
154: My father's brother, but no more like my father
155: Than I to Hercules: within a month:
156: Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
157: Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,
158: She married. O, most wicked speed, to post
159: With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!
160: It is not nor it cannot come to good:
161: But break, my heart; for I must hold my tongue.

Enter HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and BERNARDO

HORATIO
162: Hail to your lordship!

HAMLET
163: I am glad to see you well:
164: Horatio,--or I do forget myself.

HORATIO
165: The same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

HAMLET
166: Sir, my good friend; I'll change that name with you:
167: And what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio? Marcellus?

MARCELLUS
168: My good lord--

HAMLET
169: I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.
170: But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

HORATIO
171: A truant disposition, good my lord.

HAMLET
172: I would not hear your enemy say so,
173: Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,
174: To make it truster of your own report
175: Against yourself: I know you are no truant.
176: But what is your affair in Elsinore?
177: We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

HORATIO
178: My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

HAMLET
179: I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student;
180: I think it was to see my mother's wedding.

HORATIO
181: Indeed, my lord, it follow'd hard upon.

HAMLET
182: Thrift, thrift, Horatio! the funeral baked meats
183: Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
184: Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
185: Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
186: My father!--methinks I see my father.

HORATIO
187: Where, my lord?

HAMLET
188: In my mind's eye, Horatio.

HORATIO
189: I saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLET
190: He was a man, take him for all in all,
191: I shall not look upon his like again.

HORATIO
192: My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.

HAMLET
193: Saw? who?

HORATIO
194: My lord, the king your father.

HAMLET
195: The king my father!

HORATIO
196: Season your admiration for awhile
197: With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
198: Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
199: This marvel to you.

HAMLET
200: For God's love, let me hear.

HORATIO
201: Two nights together had these gentlemen,
202: Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
203: In the dead vast and middle of the night,
204: Been thus encounter'd. A figure like your father,
205: Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
206: Appears before them, and with solemn march
207: Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk'd
208: By their oppress'd and fear-surprised eyes,
209: Within his truncheon's length; whilst they, distilled
210: Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
211: Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
212: In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
213: And I with them the third night kept the watch;
214: Where, as they had deliver'd, both in time,
215: Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
216: The apparition comes: I knew your father;
217: These hands are not more like.

HAMLET
218: But where was this?

MARCELLUS
219: My lord, upon the platform where we watch'd.

HAMLET
220: Did you not speak to it?

HORATIO
221: My lord, I did;
222: But answer made it none: yet once methought
223: It lifted up its head and did address
224: Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
225: But even then the morning cock crew loud,
226: And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
227: And vanish'd from our sight.

HAMLET
228: 'Tis very strange.

HORATIO
229: As I do live, my honour'd lord, 'tis true;
230: And we did think it writ down in our duty
231: To let you know of it.

HAMLET
232: Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
233: Hold you the watch to-night?

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
234: We do, my lord.

HAMLET
235: Arm'd, say you?

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
236: Arm'd, my lord.

HAMLET
237: From top to toe?

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
238: My lord, from head to foot.

HAMLET
239: Then saw you not his face?

HORATIO
240: O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.

HAMLET
241: What, look'd he frowningly?

HORATIO
242: A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLET
243: Pale or red?

HORATIO
244: Nay, very pale.

HAMLET
245: And fix'd his eyes upon you?

HORATIO
246: Most constantly.

HAMLET
247: I would I had been there.

HORATIO
248: It would have much amazed you.

HAMLET
249: Very like, very like. Stay'd it long?

HORATIO
250: While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.

MARCELLUS, BERNARDO
251: Longer, longer.

HORATIO
252: Not when I saw't.

HAMLET
253: His beard was grizzled--no?

HORATIO
254: It was, as I have seen it in his life,
255: A sable silver'd.

HAMLET
256: I will watch to-night;
257: Perchance 'twill walk again.

HORATIO
258: I warrant it will.

HAMLET
259: If it assume my noble father's person,
260: I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
261: And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
262: If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
263: Let it be tenable in your silence still;
264: And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
265: Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
266: I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
267: Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
268: I'll visit you.

All
269: Our duty to your honour.

HAMLET
270: Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
[Exeunt all but HAMLET]
271: My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
272: I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
273: Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
274: Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Exit

ACT I, SCENE III.

A room in Polonius' house.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA

LAERTES
001: My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:
002: And, sister, as the winds give benefit
003: And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
004: But let me hear from you.

OPHELIA
005: Do you doubt that?

LAERTES
006: For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
007: Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,
008: A violet in the youth of primy nature,
009: Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
010: The perfume and suppliance of a minute; No more.

OPHELIA
011: No more but so?

LAERTES
012: Think it no more;
013: For nature, crescent, does not grow alone
014: In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes,
015: The inward service of the mind and soul
016: Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now,
017: And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
018: The virtue of his will: but you must fear,
019: His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
020: For he himself is subject to his birth:
021: He may not, as unvalued persons do,
022: Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
023: The safety and health of this whole state;
024: And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
025: Unto the voice and yielding of that body
026: Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
027: It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
028: As he in his particular act and place
029: May give his saying deed; which is no further
030: Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
031: Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
032: If with too credent ear you list his songs,
033: Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
034: To his unmaster'd importunity.
035: Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,
036: And keep you in the rear of your affection,
037: Out of the shot and danger of desire.
038: The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
039: If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
040: Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
041: The canker galls the infants of the spring,
042: Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
043: And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
044: Contagious blastments are most imminent.
045: Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:
046: Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA
047: I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
048: As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
049: Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
050: Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
051: Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
052: Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
053: And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES
054: O, fear me not.
055: I stay too long: but here my father comes.
[Enter POLONIUS]
056: A double blessing is a double grace,
057: Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

LORD POLONIUS
058: Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
059: The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
060: And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
061: And these few precepts in thy memory
062: See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
063: Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
064: Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
065: Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
066: Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
067: But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
068: Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
069: Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
070: Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
071: Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
072: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
073: Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
074: But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
075: For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
076: And they in France of the best rank and station
077: Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
078: Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
079: For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
080: And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
081: This above all: to thine ownself be true,
082: And it must follow, as the night the day,
083: Thou canst not then be false to any man.
084: Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

LAERTES
085: Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS
086: The time invites you; go; your servants tend.

LAERTES
087: Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
088: What I have said to you.

OPHELIA
089: 'Tis in my memory lock'd,
090: And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES
091: Farewell.

Exit

LORD POLONIUS
092: What is't, Ophelia, be hath said to you?

OPHELIA
093: So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

LORD POLONIUS
094: Marry, well bethought:
095: 'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late
096: Given private time to you; and you yourself
097: Have of your audience been most free and bounteous:
098: If it be so, as so 'tis put on me,
099: And that in way of caution, I must tell you,
100: You do not understand yourself so clearly
101: As it behoves my daughter and your honour.
102: What is between you? give me up the truth.

OPHELIA
103: He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
104: Of his affection to me.

LORD POLONIUS
105: Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
106: Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
107: Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIA
108: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

LORD POLONIUS
109: Marry, I'll teach you: think yourself a baby;
110: That you have ta'en these tenders for true pay,
111: Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;
112: Or--not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
113: Running it thus--you'll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA
114: My lord, he hath importuned me with love
115: In honourable fashion.

LORD POLONIUS
116: Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

OPHELIA
117: And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
118: With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

LORD POLONIUS
119: Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
120: When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
121: Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
122: Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
123: Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
124: You must not take for fire. From this time
125: Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
126: Set your entreatments at a higher rate
127: Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
128: Believe so much in him, that he is young
129: And with a larger tether may he walk
130: Than may be given you: in few, Ophelia,
131: Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
132: Not of that dye which their investments show,
133: But mere implorators of unholy suits,
134: Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
135: The better to beguile. This is for all:
136: I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
137: Have you so slander any moment leisure,
138: As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
139: Look to't, I charge you: come your ways.

OPHELIA
140: I shall obey, my lord.

Exeunt

ACT I, SCENE IV.

The platform.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS

HAMLET
001: The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

HORATIO
002: It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET
003: What hour now?

HORATIO
004: I think it lacks of twelve.

HAMLET
005: No, it is struck.

HORATIO
006: Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season
007: Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
[A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off, within]
008: What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET
009: The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse,
010: Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels;
011: And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
012: The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
013: The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO
014: Is it a custom?

HAMLET
015: Ay, marry, is't:
016: But to my mind, though I am native here
017: And to the manner born, it is a custom
018: More honour'd in the breach than the observance.
019: This heavy-headed revel east and west
020: Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations:
021: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
022: Soil our addition; and indeed it takes
023: From our achievements, though perform'd at height,
024: The pith and marrow of our attribute.
025: So, oft it chances in particular men,
026: That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
027: As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
028: Since nature cannot choose his origin--
029: By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
030: Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
031: Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
032: The form of plausive manners, that these men,
033: Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
034: Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
035: Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
036: As infinite as man may undergo--
037: Shall in the general censure take corruption
038: From that particular fault: the dram of eale
039: Doth all the noble substance of a doubt
040: To his own scandal.

HORATIO
041: Look, my lord, it comes!

Enter Ghost

HAMLET
042: Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
043: Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,
044: Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
045: Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
046: Thou comest in such a questionable shape