Ham.

Are of a 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.-Act 1, Sc. 3.

It is a custom

More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

Act I, Sc. 4.

Ham. O my prophetic soul! Mine uncle !

Act 1, Sc. 5.

Ghost. O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!-Act 1, Sc. 5.

Ghost.

Sleeping within my orchard,

My custom always in the afternoon.-Act 1, Sc. 5.

Ghost. 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,
Unhousel'd,* disappointed, unanel'd,†

No reckoning made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.—Act 1, Sc. 5.

Ghost.

Fare thee well at once!

The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire :

Adieu, adieu! Hamlet, remembcr me.-Act 1, Sc. 5.

Ham. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.-Act 1, Sc. 5.

* Without having received the Eucharist.

† Without extreme unction.

Polonius. Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
Act 2, Sc. I.

Pol. My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad :
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.

Queen.

More matter, with less art.

Pol. Madam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, 'tis true: 'tis true, 'tis pity;
And pity 'tis 'tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him, then and now remains
That we find out the cause of this effect,

Or rather say, the cause of this defect,

For this effect defective comes by cause :
Thus it remains, and the remainder thus.--Act 2, Sc. 2.

Ham. Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar ;

Pol. Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.

Act 2, Sc. 2.

Ham. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals !-Act 2, Sc. 2.

Pol. The actors are come hither, my lord.

Ham. Buz, buz!

Pol. Upon mine honour,—

Ham. Then came each actor on his ass,

Pol. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited : Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.—Act 2, Sc. 2.

Ham. Come, give us a taste of your quality.—Act 2, Sc. 2.

Ham. I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general but it was-as I received it, and others, whose judgment in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning.-Act 2, Sc. 2.

Ham. Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time : after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Pol. My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

Ham. God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.-Act 2, Sc. 2.

Ham. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I !
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit

That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting,
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,
A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,*
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?

Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,

As deep as to the lungs? who does me this? Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am a pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this

I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!

Why, what an ass am I? This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,

* Mopc.

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

A scullion!

Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures, sitting at a play,

Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently

They have proclaim'd their malefactions;

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle; I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick; if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil; and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
Act 2, Sc. 2.

Pol.

With devotion's visage,

And pious action, we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.-Act 3, Sc. I.

Ham. To be, or not to be: that is the question :
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep :

To sleep perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;