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.

O, fear me not.

I stay too long. But here my father comes.

[Enter Polonius]

A double blessing is a double grace;

Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

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.

[Laying his hand on Laertes's head]

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts

                         no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel;

But do not dull thy 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 thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

Take each man's censure, but reserve

                         thy judgement.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:

For the apparel oft 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 oft loses both itself and friend;

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Farewell: my blessing season this in thee.

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

The time invites you; go, your servants tend.

Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well

What I have said to you.

'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Farewell.

[Exit]

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

So please you, something touching

                         the Lord Hamlet.

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 honour.

What is between you? Give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

Affection! Pooh! You speak like a green girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

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.

My lord, he hath importun'd me with love

In honourable fashion.

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

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

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.

I shall obey, my lord.

[Exeunt]

The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.

It is a nipping and an eager air.

What hour now?

I think it lacks of twelve.

No, it is struck.

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?

The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;

And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,

The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Is it a custom?

Ay marry is't;

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

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 their o'ergrowth of some complexion,

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, —

His 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 evil

Doth all the noble substance of a doubt

To his own scandal.

Look, my lord, it comes!