The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. Soft
The fair Ophelia :-
Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Oph.

you, now!

Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

Ham. I humbly thank you; well.

8

Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver ;

I pray you, now receive them.

Ham.

I never gave you aught.

No, not I;

Oph. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath compos'd
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind,

Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?
Oph. My lord?

Ham. Are you fair?

Oph. What means your lordship?

Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, you should † admit no discourse to your beauty.

8 Nymph, in thy orisons, &c.] This is a touch of nature. Hamlet, at the sight of Ophelia, does not immediately recollect that he is to personate madness, but makes her an address grave and - solemn, such as the foregoing meditation excited in his thoughts. JOHNSON.

your honesty should"

Oph. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness 9; this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

Ham. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

Oph. I was the more deceived.

Ham. Get thee to a nunnery; Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better, my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in 1, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in: What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven! We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

Oph. O, help him, you sweet heavens !

Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry; Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough, what monsters

9

into his likeness ;] The modern editors read its likeness; but the text is right. Shakspeare and his contemporaries frequently use the personal for the neutral pronoun.

1

with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in,] To put a thing into thought, is to think on it.

you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him!

Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance2: Go to, I'll no more of't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit HAMLET. Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword: The expectancy and rose of the fair state,

3

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form, 3
The observ'd of all observers ! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his musick vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me!
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see !

Re-enter King and POLONIUS.

King. Love! his affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;

And, I do doubt, the hatch, and the disclose,

2 make your wantonness your ignorance:] You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance.

3 the mould of form,] The model by whom all endeavoured to form themselves. JOHNSON.

4

with ecstasy:] The word ecstasy was anciently used to signify some degree of alienation of mind.

Will be some danger: Which for to prevent,
I have, in quick determination,

Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute:

Haply, the seas, and countries different,

With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart;
Whereon his brains still beating, puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think

you on't?
Pol. It shall do well; but yet I do believe,
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia ?
You need not tell us what lord Hamlet said;

We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;

But, if you hold it fit, after the play,

Let his queen-mother all alone entreat him

To show his grief; let her be round with him ;5
And I'll be plac'd, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference: If she find him not,
To England send him : or confine him, where
Your wisdom best shall think.

Ham. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the towncrier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus: but use all gently: for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of

-be round with him;] Reprimand him with freedom.

your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise; I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod9: Pray you, avoid it. 1 Play. I warrant your honour.

Ham. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'er-step not the modesty of nature; for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure.1 Now this, overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of which one2, must, in allowance3, your o'er-weigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players, that I have seen play,—and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely,

6 periwig-pated] This is a ridicule on the quantity of false hair worn in Shakspeare's time; for wigs were not in common use till the reign of Charles II.

7

the groundlings;] In our early play-houses the pit had neither floor nor benches. Hence the term of groundlings for those who frequented it.

Termagant;] Termagaunt (says Dr. Percy) is the name given in the old romances to the god of the Sarazens; in which he is constantly linked with Mahound, or Mohammed.

9 -out-herods Herod:] The character of Herod, in the ancient mysteries, was always a violent one.

1

-pressure.] Resemblance as in a print.

2 -the censure of which one,] The meaning is, "the censure of

one of which."