Hamlet'e
gir friend sister

SCENE III Hamlet

girlfriend

Enter Laertes and Ophelia.

Laer. My necessaries are embark'd: farewell:
And, sister, as the winds give benefit
And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,
But let me hear from you.

Oph.

Do you doubt that? Laer. For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favor, Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood,

A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute;
No more.

Oph. No more but so?

Laer.

Think it no more:

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For nature crescent does not grow alone
In thews and bulk; but, as this temple waxes,
The inward service of the mind and soul
Grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now;
And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch
The virtue of his will: but you must fear,
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:

11. "crescent"; growing.-C. H. H.

12. "this temple"; so Qq.; Ff., "his temple.”—I. G. 16. "will," so Qq.; Ff., “fear.”—I. G.

18. Omitted in Qq.-I. G.

"he himself is subject to his birth"; this line is found only in the folio. “This scene," says Coleridge, “must be regarded as one of Shakespeare's lyric movements in the play, and the skill with which

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself, for on his choice depends 20
The safety and health of this whole state,
And therefore must his choice be circumscribed
Unto the voice and yielding of that body
Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he
loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place

May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.

Then weigh what loss
your honor
may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,

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Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,

And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclosed,
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then; best safety lies in fear:

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it is interwoven with the dramatic parts is peculiarly an excellence with our Poet. You experience the sensation of a pause, without the sense of a stop. You will observe, in Ophelia's short and general answer to the long speech of Laertes, the natural carelessness of innocence, which cannot think such a code of cautions and prudences necessary to its own preservation."-H. N. H.

26. "particular act and place," so Qq.; Ff., “peculiar sect and force."-I. G.

Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. Oph. I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads 50
And recks not his own rede.

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, And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no
tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

59. Polonius' precepts have been traced back to Euphues' advice to Philautus; the similarity is certainly striking (vide Rushton's Shakespeare's Euphuism); others see in the passage a reference to Lord Burleigh's "ten precepts," enjoined upon Robert Cecil when about to set out on his travels (French's Shakespeareana Genealogica, v. Furness, Vol. II. p. 239).—I. G.

61. "Vulgar" is here used in its old sense of common.-In the second line below, divers modern editions have "hooks" instead of hoops, the reading of all the old copies. It is not easy to see what is gained by the unauthorized change.-H. N. H.

advice

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption
tried.

Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd unfledged comrade. Be-

ware

Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,

Bear 't, that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg-

ment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

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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 of a 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 own self 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!

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65. "comrade" (accented on the second syllable), so F. 1; Qq. (also Q. 1), "cowrage."-I. G.

74. "Are of a most select and generous chief in thať"; so F. 1; Q. 1, "are of a most select and general chiefe in that”; Q. 2, “Or of a most select and generous chiefe in that"; the line is obviously incorrect; the simplest emendation of the many proposed is the omission of the words "of a" and "chief," which were probably due to marginal corrections of "in" and "best" in the previous line:"Are most select and generous in that.”

(Collier "choice" for "chief"; Staunton "sheaf,” i. e. set, clique, suggested by the Euphuistic phrase "gentlemen of the best sheaf”). -I. G.

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.

Oph.

'Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it. Laer. Farewell.

[Exit.

Pol. What is 't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?
Oph. So please you, something touching the Lord
Hamlet.

Pol. Marry, well bethought:

'Tis told me, he hath very oft of late

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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 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.

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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,

instructer