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Laer. 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.

Pol. Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame; The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail, 2

And you are staid for: There,-my blessing with you; [Laying his hand on LAERTES' head. And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou charácter. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. 3 Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

Take each man's censure, 4 but reserve thy judgment.

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 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.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee !5
Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend.
Laer. Farewell, Ophelia ; and remember well
What I have said to you.

[2] The shoulder of your sail-this is a common sea-phrase. STEEVENS. [3] The literal sense is, Do not make thy palm callous by shaking every man by the hand. The figurative meaning may be, Do not by promiscuous conversation make thy mind insensible to the difference of characters.

[4] Censure-opinion. So in K. Henry VI.

JOHNSON.

"The king is old enough to give his censure." STEEVENS. [5] Season, for infuse. WARBURTON.It is more than to infuse, it is to infix it in such a manner as that it may never wear out. JOHNSON.

Oph. 'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell.

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

[Exit.

Oph. So please you, something touching the lord Hamlet.

Pol. 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.

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders Of his affection to me.

Pol. Affection? puh! you speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.6

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

Oph. I do not know, my lord, what I should think. Pol. 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, Wronging it thus,) you'll tender me a fool.

Oph. My lord, he hath importun'd me with love, In honourable fashion.

Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it :7 go to, go to. Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Pol. 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;

[6] Sifted means tempted. See St. Luke xxxi. 22.

HARRIS.

[7] She uses fashion for manner, and he for a transient practice. JÓHNS. [8] Entreatments here meaus company, conversation, from the French efttretien.

JOHNSON.

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 die which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing life sanctified and pious bonds,'
The better to beguile. This is for all,-
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet.
Look to't, I charge you; come your ways.
Oph. I shall obey, my lord.

SCENE IV.

[Exeunt.

The Platform. Enter HAMLET, HORATIO, and MARCELLUS.
Ham. The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Hor. It is a nipping and an eager air.

Ham. What hour now?

Hor. I think, it lacks of twelve.

Mar. No, it is struck.

Hor. 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 ?

Ham. The king doth wake to-night,and takes his rouse, Keeps wassel, and the swaggering up-spring reels ; 2 And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

Hor. Is it a custom ?

Ham. 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 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,

[9] Tether is that string by which an animal, set to graze in grounds unin closed, is confined within the proper limits. JOHNSON.

[1] Theobald for bonds substitutes barwds.
[2] The blustering upstart. JOHNSON.

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JOHNSON,

The pith and marrow of our attribute. 3
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)5

Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault: The dram of base
Doth all the noble substance often dout,

To his own scandal.

Enter Ghost.

Hor. Look, my lord, it comes !

Ham. 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 com'st in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee, Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane : O, answer me :7

Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell,
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,

Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,

[3] The best and most valuable part of the praise that would be otherwise attributed to us. JOHNSON.

[4] Complexion-humour; as sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, &c. WARBURTON.

[5] As large as can be accumulated upon man. JOHNSON.

[6] Dout is a word formed by the coalescence of two others (do and out) like don for do on, doff for do off, both of which are used by Shakspeare. In Warwickshire they always say-dout the candle, dout the fire, put out or extinguish them. STEEVENS.

[7] Hamlet's speech to the apparition of his father seems to me to consist of three parts. When first he sees the spectre, he fortifies himself with an invocation, "Angels and ministers of grace defend us !"

As the spectre approaches, he deliberates with himself, and determines that whatever it be he will venture to address it,

The five next lines he says while his father is advancing; he then, as he had determined, speaks to him, and calls him-Hamlet, King, Father, Royal Dane: O, answer me. JOHNSON.

To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel, s
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous ; and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition 9

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, why is this? wherefore? what should we do?
Hor. It beckons you to go away with it,

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

Mar. Look, with what courteous action

It waves you to a more removed ground:
But do not go with it.

Hor. No, by no means.

Ham. It will not speak; then I will follow it.
Hor. Do not, my lord.

Ham. Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin's fee:1

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.

Hor. 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, 2
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

Ham. It waves me still :

Go on,

I'll follow thee.

Mar. You shall not go, my lord.

Ham. Hold off your hands.

Hor. Be rul'd, you shall not go.

Ham. My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery in this body

As hardy as the Némean lion's nerve.

[Ghost beckons.

[8] It is probable that Shakspeare introduced his ghost in armour, that it might appear more solemn by such a discrimination from the other characters; though it was really the custom of the Danish kings to be buried in that manner. Vide Olaus Wormius, cap. 7. STEEVENS,

[9] Disposition, for frame. WARBURTON.

[1] The value of a pin. JOHNSON.

[2] Toys for whims. WARBURTON.

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