Hamlet Page #3

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Do you doubt that?

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.

Forward, not permanent,

sweet, not lasting.

The perfume and suppliance

of a minute - no more.

No more but so? Think it no more.

Perhaps he loves you now,

and now no soil nor cautel

doth besmirch

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 unvalued persons do,

carve for himself,

for on his choice depends

the safety and the health

of this whole state.

And therefore must his choice

be circumscribed

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

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.

DISTANT THUMP:

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.

Be wary, then.

Best safety lies in fear.

Youth to itself rebels,

though none else near.

I shall the 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,

whiles, like a puff'd and reckless

libertine,

himself the primrose path

of dalliance treads,

and recks not his own rede.

O, fear me not.

I stay too long,

but here my father comes.

A double blessing is a double grace,

occasion smiles upon a second leave.

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

see thou character.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,

nor any unproportioned 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. Beware

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 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.

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 ownself 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 servant tends.

Farewell, Ophelia.

And remember well

what I have said to you.

Tis in my memory lock'd,

and you yourself

shall keep the key of it.

Farewell.

DOOR CLOSES:

What is't, Ophelia,

he hath said to you?

So please you,

something touching the Lord Hamlet.

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 honour.

What is between you?

Give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord,

of late made many tenders

of his affection to me.

Affection! Pah!

You speak like a green girl,

unsifted

in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders,

as you call them?

I do not know, my lord,

what I should think.

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, not to crack the wind

of the poor phrase,

running it thus

you'll tender me a fool.

My lord,

he hath importuned me with love

in honourable fashion.

Ay, fashion you may call it -

go to, go to.

And hath given countenance to

his speech, my lord,

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,

you must not take for fire.

From this time

be somewhat scanter

of your maiden presence,

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.

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.

The air bites shrewdly -

it is very cold.

It is a nipping and an eager air.

What hour now?

I think it lacks of twelve.

No, it is struck.

Indeed? I heard it not.

Then it draws near the season

wherein the spirit

held his wont to walk.

BANG:

FIREWORK:

What does this mean, my lord?

The king doth wake tonight

and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail,

and the swaggering up-spring reels.

And, as he drains his draughts of

Rhenish down,

The kettle-drum

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 honour'd in the breach

than the observance.

FIREWORKS EXPLODE

Look, my lord, it comes!

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 canonised bones,

hearsed in death,

have burst their cerements.

Why the sepulchre,

wherein we saw thee

quietly inter'd,

hath oped his ponderous

and marble jaws,

to cast thee up again.

What may this mean,

that thou, dead corpse,

again in complete steel

revisits 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?

It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

to you alone.

It waves you to a more removed

ground. But do not go with it.

No, by no means. It will not speak,

then I will follow it.

Do not, my lord.

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life in a pin's fee.

And for my soul,

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