Po. 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,

[Exit Laertes.

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell.

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

Oph. So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.

Po. 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.

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

Po. Affection? puh! 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.

1 Inexperienced.

Po. 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.

Oph. My lord, he hath importuned me with love In honorable fashion.

Po. 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.

Po. 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 1 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 die which their investments show,

But mere implorators 1 of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile. 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.

SCENE IV.

The platform.

Enter HAMLEt, horatio, and MARCELLUS.

Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.,
Ho. It is a nipping and an eager 2 air.

Ham. What hour now?

Ho.

Mar. No, it is struck.

I think, it lacks of twelve.

Ho. Indeed? I heard it not: it then draws near the season,

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

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

Ham. The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,3

Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring 5 reels;

1 Implorers.

2 Keen.

3 Jovial draught.

5 A dance.

4 A convivial entertainment.

And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.

Hɔ.

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.

This heavy-headed-revel, east and west,

Makes us traduced, and tax'd of other nations:

1

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 the o'ergrowth of some complexion,2
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;—
Their 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 eale

Doth all the noble substance of a doubt,

To his own scandal.1

Enter GHOST.

Ho.

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 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 inurn'd,

Hath oped 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 horridly to shake our disposition, 3

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Ho. It beckons you to go away with it,
As if it some impartment did desire

1 Commentators have hitherto failed to discover any satisfactory elucidation of this corrupt passage.

Conversable.

3 For frame.