The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best Authorities : with a Memoir, and Essay on His Genius

Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell my blessing season this in thee!
Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants
tend.

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

Laer. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence; What I have said to you.

Set your entreatments at a higher rate

Have of your audience been most free and boun-I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,

teous:

If it be so (as so 't is 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 honor.
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? pooh! you speak like a green girl,

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
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 impórtuned me with
love,

In honorable fashion.

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

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Have you to squander any moment's leisure,
As to give words or talk with the lord Hamlet.
Look to 't, I charge you; so now come your ways.
Oph. I shall obey, my lord.
[Exeunt.

SCENE IV. 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;
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,

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do And to the manner born, it is a custom

know,

More honored in the breach than the observance.

This heavy-headed revel, east and west,
Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations:
They clepe us drunkards, and with swinish phrase
Soil our addition; and indeed it takes

As if it some impartment did desire Το you alone.

Mar.

Look, with what courteous action It waves you to a more removéd ground:

From our achievements, though performed at But do not go with it.

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 its 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 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 damned, 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:
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 in-urned,
Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this
mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in cómplete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,
So horribly to shake our disposition
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,

SCENE V. A more remote part of the Platform. 'T is given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forgéd process of my death

Re-enter Ghost and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak; I'll Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,

go no further.

Ghost. Mark me.

Ham.

I will.

Ghost.
My hour is almost come,
When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

Ham.

Alas, poor ghost!

The serpent that did sting thy father's life,
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle!
Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate
beast,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts,
(O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust To what I shall unfold.

Hum. Speak; I am bound to hear.

The will of my most seeming virtuous queen:
O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt From me, whose love was of that dignity

hear.

Ham. What?

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit;

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night;
And, for the day, confined to lasting fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young

blood;

That it went hand in hand even with the vow
I made to her in marriage; and to decline
Upon a wretch, whose natural gifts were poor
To those of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage.

But, soft! methinks I scent the morning air;
Brief let me be:- Sleeping within mine orchard,

Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their My custom always of the afternoon,

spheres ;

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Upon my sécure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of curséd hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That, swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And, with a sudden vigor, it doth posset

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural And curd, like aigre droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And in a most instant tetter barked about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despoil'd:

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhouselled, disappointed, unanelled;
No reckoning made, but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! Most horrible!

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear; If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not;

Ham. There's ne'er a villain dwelling in all Denmark,

But he 's an arrant knave.

Hor. There needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave,

And shall I couple hell? O fie!- Hold, hold, my To tell us this.

heart;

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
But bear me stiffly up! - Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond recórds,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past,
That youth and observation copied there;
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter: yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!

O villain, villain, smiling, damnéd villain!
My tables: meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least, I am sure it may be so in Denmark:

[Writing.

So, uncle, there you are. Now, te my word;
It is, 66
Adieu, adieu! remember me."

I have sworn 't.

Hor. [within]. My lord, my lord,-
Mar. [within]. Lord Hamlet,-
Hor. [within]. Heaven secure him!
Ham. So be it!

Mar. [within]. Hillo, ho, ho, my lord!
Ham. Hillo, ho, ho, boy! come, bird, come.

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Mar.

Ham. Ha, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou But come:

there, truepenny?

Come on;

Propose the oath, my lord.

Here, as before, never, so help you mercy!
you hear this fellow in the cellarage: How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself,
Consent to swear.
As I, perchance, hereafter shall think meet
Hor.
To put an antic disposition on, -

Ham. Never to speak of this that you have seen, That you, at such times seeing me, never shall,
With arms encumbered thus, or this head-shake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,

Swear by my sword.

Ghost [beneath]. Swear!

Ham. Hic et ubique? then we will shift our As "Well, well, we know;" or, "We could, an

A worthy pioneer!-Once more remove, good With all my love I do commend me to you;
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is

friends.

Hor. O day and night, but this is wondrous May do, to express his love and friending to you,
strange!
God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together;
Ham. And therefore as a stranger give it wel- And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint;-O cursed spite,
There are more things in heaven and earth, Ho- That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let's go together.

come.

ratio,

Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

[Exeunt.

ACT II.

SCENE I. A Room in POLONIUS' House.

Enter POLONIUS and REYNALDO,

What company, at what expense; and finding,
By this encompassment and drift of question,
That they do know my son, come you more nearer

Pol. Give him this money, and these notes, Than your particular demands will touch it:
Reynaldo.

Rey. I will, my lord.

Take you, as 't were, some distant knowledge of
him;

Pol. You shall do marvelous wisely, good Rey- As thus: "I know his father, and his friends,
naldo,

And, in part, him." Do you mark this, Reynaldo?

Rey. Ay, very well, my lord.

Pol. "And, in part, him ; — but," you may say,
"not well:

Look But, if't be he I mean, he's very wild;

Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they
keep,

Addicted so and so;"—and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonor him; take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips,

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The Complete Works of Shakspeare, Revised from the Best ..., Volume 1