To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
Ros. We shall, my lord.

King.

[Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILdenstern.
Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;

For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither;
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia.

Her father and myself (lawful espials 2)

Will so bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If't be the affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

Queen.

I shall obey you;

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish,

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness. So shall I hope, your virtues Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honors.

Oph.

Madam, I wish it may.

[Exit Queen.

Pol. Ophelia, walk you here.-Gracious, so please

you,

We will bestow 3 ourselves.-Read on this book;

That show of such an exercise may color

[To OPHELIA.

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,-
'Tis too much proved,—that with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself.

King.

O'tis too true! how smart

A lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it,

1 i. e. meet, encounter her.

2 "Lawful espials;" that is, lawful spies.

3"Bestow ourselves" is here used for hide or place ourselves. 4 Quarto-lowliness.

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

O heavy burden!

[Aside.

Pol. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord. [Exeunt King and POLONIUS.

Enter HAMLET.

Ham. To be, or not to be, that is the question :-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

-

And, by opposing, end them?-To die,-to sleep,—
No more;—and, by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to,-'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die ;-to sleep ;-
To sleep! perchance to dream ;-ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,1
Must give us pause. There's the respect,2
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,3
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,1
The
pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus 5 make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life;

8

But that the dread of something after death,-
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

1 "This mortal coil;" that is, "The tumult and bustle of this life."

2 i. e. the consideration. This is Shakspeare's most usual sense of the word.

3 Time, for the time, is a very usual expression with our old writers. 4 Folio "the poor man's contumely."

5 The allusion is to the term quietus est, used in settling accounts at exchequer audits.

6 "Bodkin was the ancient term for a small dagger."

7 Packs, burdens.

8 To grunt appears to have conveyed no vulgar or low image to the ear of our ancestors, as many quotations from the old translations of the classics would show.

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 enterprises of great pith' and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,2
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now!
The fair Ophelia.-Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
Good my lord,

Oph.
How does your honor for this many a day?
Ham. I humbly thank you; well.
Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.

Ham.

I never gave you aught.

No, not I;

yours,

Oph. My honored lord, you know right well, you

did;

And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed 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, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.3

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

Ham. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner

1 Quartos-pitch.

2 Folio-away.

3 i. e. "your honesty should not admit your beauty to any discourse with her." The first quarto reads, "Your beauty should admit no discourse to your honesty;" that of 1604, "You should admit no discourse to your beauty."

transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; 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 wouldst 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,' 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 2 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 you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell.

Oph. Heavenly powers, restore him!

4

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,

1 "Than I have thoughts to put them in." To put "a thing into thought," is "to think on it."

2 Folio-way.

3 Folio-Go, farewell.

4 The folio, for paintings, has prattlings; and for face has pace.

and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to; I'll no more of it; 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. Ŏ, 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,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers! quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That sucked the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune, and harsh;
That unmatched 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 lacked 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,*

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

From fashion of himself.

beating, puts him thus

What think

What think you on't?

1 "You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance."

2 Quarto time.

3 Ecstasy is alienation of the mind. Vide Tempest, Act iii. Sc. 3. 4 To disclose was the ancient term for hatching birds of any kind; from the Fr. esclos.