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Oph.

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;
Whilst, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read.

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Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for.

There, my blessing with you! [Laying his hand on Laertes' head.

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou charàcter. 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 hooks 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 the opposèr 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 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!

Laer.

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said to you.

'T is in my memory locked,

Oph.

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Farewell.

Laer.

Pol.

[Rises.

[Exit Laertes

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

Oph.

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

Marry, well bethought:

Pol.

'T is 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 't is 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.

Oph.

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

Fol.

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

Oph.

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

Pol.

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.

Oph.

My lord, he hath impòrtuned me with love

In honourable fashion.

Pol.

Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.

Oph.

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

Pol.

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's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to 't, I charge you: come your ways.

Oph.

I shall obey, my lord.

[Exeunt Polonius and Ophelia R

Scene Third.-THE PLATFORM. DIM STarlight.

[Enter Hamlet and Horatio, to Marcellus, who is on guard.

Hamlet.

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

Horatio.

It is a nipping and an eager air.

Hamlet.

What hour now?

Horatio.

I think it lacks of twelve.

Mar.

No, it is struck.

Horatio.

Indeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

[A flourish of trumpets: ordnance shot off, within What does this mean, my lord?

Hamlet.

The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
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:

Horatio.

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.

Look, my lord, it comes!

Horatio.

Hamlet.

[Enter Ghost R. I. E.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,

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 in-urned,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Re-visit'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?
[The Ghost beckons Hamlet.

Horatio.

It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire
Το you alone.

Mar.

Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.

[Ghost beckons.

No, by no means.

Horatio.

Hamlet.

It will not speak; then will I follow it.

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