HOR. It was, as I have seen it in his life, A sable silver'd. HAM. I will watch to-night; Perchance, 't will walk again. HOR. I warrant you it will. HAM. If it assume my noble father's person, I'll speak to it, though hell itself should gape, 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, ALL. Our duty to your honour. HAM. Your love, 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! Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes. [Exit. SCENE III-A Room in Polonius's House. Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA. LAER. My necessaries are embark'd; farewell: And, sister, as the winds give benefit, And convoy is assistant, do not sleep, But let me hear from you. ОРН. Do you doubt that? LAER. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favours, A violet in the youth of primy nature, No more. OPH. No more but so? LAER. Think it no more: G 2 For nature, crescent, does not grow alone In thews, and bulk; but, as this temple waxes, As he in his peculiar sect and force May give his saying deed; which is no further, Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister; OPH. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven; LAER. O fear me not. I stay too long;-But here my father comes. Enter POLONIUS. A double blessing is a double grace; POL. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame; And you are staid for: There, my blessing with you! [Laying his hand on LAERTES' head. And these few precepts in thy memory See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy: And they in France of the best rank and station LAER. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. What I have said to you. ОРН. 'T is in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it. LAER. Farewell. [Exit LAERTES. POL. What is 't, Ophelia, he hath said to you? OPн. So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet. POL. Marry, well bethought: '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, OPн. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders 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. OPH. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love, POL. Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. OPH. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With all the vows of heaven. POL. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know, Not of the eye which their investments show, I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, SCENE IV. The Platform. Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS. HAM. The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold. HAM. What hour now? MAR. No, it is struck. I think, it lacks of twelve. [Exeunt. 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, Keeps wassels, and the swaggering up-spring 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? And to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance. This heavy-headed revel, east and west, Makes us traduc'd, and tax'd of other nations: They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase From our achievements, though perform'd at height, So, oft it chances in particular men, |