LAERTES
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.
OPHELIA
Do you doubt that?
LAERTES
For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood;
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting;
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.
OPHELIA
No more but so?
LAERTES
Think it no more.
For nature crescent does not grow alone
In thews and bulk; but as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide . Perhaps he loves you now,
And now no soil nor cautel besmirch
The virtue of his will; but you must fear,
His greatness weigh’d, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:
He may not, as unvalu’d persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The sanctity and health of this whole state;
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib’d
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes .
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.
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.
Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too before their buttons be disclos’d,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then, best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
OPHELIA
I shall th’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.
LAERTES
O, fear me not.
I stay too long. But here my father comes.
LAERTES
A double blessing is a double grace;
Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame.
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with you.
POLONIUS
And these few precepts in memory
Look character. Give thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends , and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of .
Give every man ear, but few voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve judgement.
Costly habit as purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in .
LAERTES
Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
POLONIUS
The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
LAERTES
Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well
What I have said to you.
OPHELIA
in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES
Farewell.
POLONIUS
What is’t, Ophelia, he said to you?
OPHELIA
So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
POLONIUS
Marry, well bethought:
told me he very 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 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 honour.
What is between you? Give me up the truth.
OPHELIA
He , my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
POLONIUS
Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
OPHELIA
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS
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,
Running it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.
OPHELIA
My lord, he importun’d me with love
In honourable fashion.
POLONIUS
Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
OPHELIA
And given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
POLONIUS
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 something scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments 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 dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you; come your ways.
OPHELIA
I shall obey, my lord.