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And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still,
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue;
I will requite your loves: So, fare you well:
Upon the platform, 'twixt eleven and twelve,
I'll visit you.

All.

Our duty to your honor.

Ham. Your loves, as mine to you: Farewell.

[Exeunt HORATIO, MARCELLUS, and Bernardo

My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;

I doubt some foul play: 'would, the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: Foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o'erwhelms them, to men's eyes.

SCENE III-A Room in Polonius' House.
Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA.

Laer. My necessaries are embark'd; farewell:
And, sister, as the winds give benefit,

Pray let me hear from you.

Óph.

Do you doubt that?

Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor,

Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood;

For he himself is subject to his birth:

He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself:

Then weigh what loss your honor may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs.
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 enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.

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 puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

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I stay too long;-But here my father comes.

Enter POLONIUS.

Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame

[Exit.

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

and you are staid for: There, my blessing with you!

[Laying his hand on LAERTES' head

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd 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-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear it, that the opposer 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 express'a 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 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!

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
Laer. Farewell, Ophelia : and remember well
What I have said to you.

Oph.

"Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell.

SCENE IV.-The Platform.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.

Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.

Ham. What hour now?

Hor.

Mar. No, it is struck.

I think, it lacks of twelve.

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

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

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse, And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

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Ham. Ay, marry, is't:

Is it a custom ?

But to my mind,—though I am native here,

And to the manner born,—it is a custom

More honor'd in the breach, than the observance.

Enter Ghost.

Hor. Look, my lord, it comes!

Ham. 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 com'st 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 canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horribly to shake our disposition,

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

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Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham.

Why, what should be the tear

I do not set my life at a pin's fee;

And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again;-I'll follow it.

Hor. What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,

That beetles o'er his base into the sea?

And there assume some other horrible form,
And draw you into madness?

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And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.—
Still am I call'd ;—unhand me, gentlemen! :—

[Ghost beckons.

[Breaking from them.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me :— say, away :-Go on, I'll follow thee.

I

[Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET

SCENE V.—A more remote Part of the Platform.

Re-enter Ghost and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further Ghost. Mark me.

Ham.

Ghost.

I will.

My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Ham.

Alas, poor ghost!

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

To what I shall unfold.

Ham.

Speak, I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

Ham. What?

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And, for the day confin'd to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature,

Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood;
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,

And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:

But this eternal blazon must not be

To ears of flesh and blood:-List, list, O list!—

If thou didst ever thy dear father love,

Ham. O heaven!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder

Ham. Murder?

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is;

But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Ham. Haste me to know it; that I, with wings as swift As meditation, or the thoughts of love,

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I find thee apt;

And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed

That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

Would'st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:
'Tis given out, that sleeping in mine orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abus'd: but know, thou noble youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life,
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle!
Ghost. Ay,-

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,
He won to his shameful love

The will of my most seeming virtuous queen:
O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!
From me, whose love was of that dignity,
That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!

But, soft! methinks, I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be :-Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And, with a sudden vigor, it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch'd:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head.

Ham. O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible
Ghost. If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not
But, howsoever thou pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaven,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To goad and sting her. Fare thee well at once

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