Hamlet Page #4

may give his saying deed...

...which is no further

than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

Then weigh what loss

your honor may sustain...

...if with too credent ear

you list his songs...

...or lose your heart...

...or your chaste treasure open

to his unmastered importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister...

...and keep within 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.

I shall th' 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...

...whilst like a puffed

and reckless libertine...

...himself the primrose path

of dalliance treads...

...and recks not his own rede.

O fear me not.

-I stay too long.

POLONIUS:
Yet here, Laertes?

But here my father comes.

A double blessing is a double grace.

Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

Aboard, aboard, for shame.

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

and you are stayed 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.

The 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-hatched,

unfledged 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.

Take each man's censure,

but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

but not expressed in fancy.

Rich not gaudy.

For the apparel oft proclaims the man...

...and they in France

of the best rank and station...

...are of all 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.

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

The time invites you.

Go. Your servants tend.

Farewell, Ophelia...

...and remember well

what I have said to you.

'Tis in my memory locked...

...and you yourself shall keep

the key of it.

Farewell.

POLONIUS:

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

[BELL CHIMING]

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 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 honor.

What is between you?

Give me up the truth.

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.

You believe his "tenders"

as you call them?

I do not know, my lord,

what I should think.

Marry, Ill teach you:

think yourself a baby...

...that you have ta'en his tenders

for true pay, which are not sterling.

Tender yourself dearly...

...or, not to crack the wind

of the phrase, you'll tender me a fool.

My lord, he hath importuned me with love

in honorable fashion--

Ay, "fashion" you may call it.

Go to, go to.

And hath given countenance to his speech

with almost all the holy vows of heaven.

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.

ln few, Ophelia...

...do not believe his vows,

for they are brokers...

...not of the 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.

HAMLET:

The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.

It is nipping and an eager air.

-What hour now?

-I think it lacks of 12.

No, it is struck.

Indeed? I heard it not.

Then it draws near the season

wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

[RUMBLING ABOVE]

[WHISPERS]

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET:
The king doth wake tonight

and takes his rouse...

...keeps wassail,

and the swagg'ring upspring reels.

And as he drains his drafts

of Rhenish down...

..the kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out

the triumph of his pledge.

-Is it a custom?

-Ay, marry is't.

But to my mind, though I am native here

and to the manner born...

...it is a custom more honored

in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel east and west...

...makes us trauduc'd

and tax'd of other nations...

...they clepe us drunkards,

and with swinish phrase...

...soil our addition.

And indeed it takes

from our achievements...

...though perform'd at height,

the pith and marrow of our attribute.

So oft it chances in particular men...

...that for some vicious mole

of nature in them...

...as in their birth, wherein they are not guilty

since nature cannot choose his origin...

...by their o'ergrowth

of some complexion...

...oft breaking down the pales

and forts of reason...

...or by some habit,

that too much o'erleavens...

...the form of plausive manners,

that these men...

...carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,

being nature's livery or Fortune's star...

...his virtues else, be they as pure as grace,

as infinite as man may undergo...

...shall in the general censure

take corruption...

...from that particular fault.

The dram of evil

doth all the noble substance over-daub...

...to his own scandal.

HORATIO:

Look, my lord, it comes.

lt beckons you to go away with it...

...as if it some impartment did desire

to you alone.

Look with what courteous action

it waves you to a more removed ground.

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