What is between you? give me up the truth. OPHELIA He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me. LORD 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. LORD 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 hath importuned me with love In honourable fashion. LORD POLONIUS Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. OPHELIA And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, With almost all the holy vows of heaven. LORD 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 somewhat 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.
Exeunt SCENE IV. The platform. Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS HAMLET The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold. HORATIO It is a nipping and an eager air. HAMLET What hour now? HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve. HAMLET No, it is struck. HORATIO 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? HAMLET The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, 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. HORATIO Is it a custom? HAMLET Ay, marry, is't:
But 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 traduced 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 the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason, Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners, that these men, Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect, Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--Their 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 eale Doth all the noble substance of a doubt To his own scandal. HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes!
Enter Ghost HAMLET Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou comest in such a questionable shape 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 canonized bones, hearsed in death, Have burst their cerements; why the sepulchre, Wherein we saw thee quietly inurn'd, 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 With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Ghost beckons HAMLET HORATIO It beckons you to go away with it, As if it some impartment did desire To you alone. MARCELLUS Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it. HORATIO No, by no means. HAMLET It will not speak; then I will follow it. HORATIO Do not, my lord. HAMLET Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life in 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. HORATIO 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 And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain That looks so many fathoms to the sea And hears it roar beneath. HAMLET It waves me still.
Go on; I'll follow thee. MARCELLUS You shall not go, my lord. HAMLET Hold off your hands. HORATIO Be ruled; you shall not go. HAMLET My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen.
By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me!
I say, away! Go on; I'll follow thee.
Exeunt Ghost and HAMLET HORATIO He waxes desperate with imagination. MARCELLUS Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him. HORATIO Have after. To what issue will this come? MARCELLUS Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. HORATIO Heaven will direct it. MARCELLUS Nay, let's follow him.
