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LAERTES
My necessaries are embark’d. Farewell.And, sister, as the winds give benefi And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,But let me hear from you.
OPHELIA
Do you doubt that?
LAERTES
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.
OPHELIA
No more but so?
LAERTES
Think it no more For nature, crescent, does not grow alone In thews and bulk, but, as this temple waxes, The inward service of the mind and sou Grows wide withal. 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 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 i 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, 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. “The chariest maid is prodigal enoug 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.
OPHELIA
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.
LAERTES
O, fear me not. I stay too long: but here my father comes.[ Enter POLONIUS] A double blessing is a double grace, Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
LORD 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 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. Bewar 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 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 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!
LAERTES
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS
The time invites you; go; your servants tend
LAERTES
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well What I have said to you.
OPHELIA
’Tis in my memory lock’d, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES
Farewell.
[ Exit. ]
LORD POLONIUS
What is’t, Ophelia, be hath said to you?
OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
LORD POLONIUS
Marry, well bethought: ’Tis told me, he hath very oft of lat 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.
OPHELIA
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me
LORD 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.
LORD 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—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, Wronging it thus—you’ll tender me a fool.
OPHELIA
My lord, he hath importuned me with love In honourable fashion.
LORD 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.
LORD POLONIUS
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 tim 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: in few, Ophelia Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers, Not of that dye which their investments show, But mere implorators of unholy suits, Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds The better to beguile. This is for al 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.
[ Exeunt. ]