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.
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

'Tis in my memory locked,

Laer. Farewell.

[Exit LAERTES. Pol. What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

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

Pol. 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.

Pol. 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.
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 (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,
Wronging it thus) you'll tender me a fool.4

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

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

1 "To season, to temper wisely, to make more pleasant and acceptable."-Baret.

2 Wait.

3 i. e. untried, unexperienced.

4 Shakspeare makes Polonius play on the equivocal use of the word tender, which was anciently used in the sense of regard or respect, as well as in that of offer. The folio reads, "roaming it thus;" and the quarto, "wrong it thus."

Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks.1 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 3 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 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.

SCENE IV. The Platform.

[Exeunt.

Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

1 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epigrams under that title; the woodcock being accounted a witless bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. "Springes to catch woodcocks," means "arts to intrap simplicity."

2"How prodigal the tongue lends the heart vows," 4to. 1603.

3 i. e. "be more difficult of access; and let the suits to you, for that purpose, be of higher respect than a command to parley."

4 i. e. panders. Brokage, and to broke, was anciently to deal in business of an amatory nature by procurement.

Hor. It is a nipping and an eager1 air.
Ham. What hour now?

Hor.

Mar. No, it is struck.

I think it lacks of twelve.

Hor. Indeed? I heard it not; it then 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,

Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring 3 reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Hor.

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 honored in the breach, than the observance.
This heavy-headed revel, east and west,

Makes us traduced, and taxed of other nations. They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though performed 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,

1 Eager was used in the sense of the French aigre, sharp.

2 To keep wassail was to devote the time to festivity.

3 Upspring here appears to mean nothing more than upstart. Steevens, from a passage in Chapman's Alphonsus, thought that it might mean a dance.

4 This and the following twenty-one lines are omitted in the folio. They had probably been omitted in representation, lest they should give offence to Anne of Denmark.

5 Clepe, call, clypian (Sax.). The Danes were, indeed, proverbial as drunkards; and well they might be, according to the accounts of the time. 6 i. e. characterize us by a swinish epithet.

7 i. e. spot, blemish.

Since nature cannot choose his origin,)
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,1

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,2-
Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo)

Shall in the general censure3 take corruption
From that particular fault. The dram of bale
Doth all the noble substance often doubt1
To his own scandal..

Enter Ghost.

Hor.

Look, my lord, it comes!

Ham. 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 com'st in such a questionable 5 shape,

1 Complexion for humor.

2 i. e. the influence of the planet supposed to govern our birth, &c. 3 i. e. judgment, opinion.

4 The last paragraph of this speech stands in the quarto editions thus:

66

the dram of eale

Doth all the noble substance of a doubt

To his own scandal."

Steevens reads:

66

The dram of base

Doth all the noble substance often dout [i. e. do out]
To his own scandal."

Malone proposed:

There seems to be no reason why dout should be substituted for doubt. Mr. Boswell has justly observed, that to doubt may mean to bring into doubt or suspicion; many words similarly formed are used by Shakspeare and his contemporaries. We have ventured to read bale (i. e. evil) instead of base, as nearer to the reading of the first edition.

5 Questionable must not be understood in its present acceptation of doubtful, but as conversable, inviting question.

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 canónized bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned,'
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?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground! But do not go with it.

Hor.

No, by no means.

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

Ham.

Why, what should be the fear?

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,

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,5
And draw you into madness? Think of it.

1 Quarto 1603—interred.

2 It appears, from Olaus Wormius, cap. vii., that it was the custom to bury the Danish kings in their armor.

3 Frame of mind.

4 i. e. overhangs his base.

5" To deprive your sovereignty of reason,” signifies to take from you or dispossess you of the command of reason,