Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio!
My father!–methinks I see my father.
HORATIO Where, my lord?
HAMLET In my mind’s eye, Horatio.
HORATIO I saw him once; he was a goodly king.
HAMLET He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
HORATIO My lord, I think I saw him yesternight.
HAMLET Saw? who?
HORATIO My lord, the king your father.
HAMLET The king my father!
HORATIO Season your admiration for awhile
With an attent ear, till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This marvel to you.
HAMLET For God’s love, let me hear.
HORATIO Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Bernardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night,
Been thus encounter’d. A figure like your father,
Armed at point exactly, cap-a-pe,
Appears before them, and with solemn march
Goes slow and stately by them: thrice he walk’d
By their oppress’d and fear-surprised eyes,
Within his truncheon’s length; whilst they, distilled
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had deliver’d, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes: I knew your father;
These hands are not more like.
HAMLET But where was this?
MARCELLUS My lord, upon the platform where we watch’d.
HAMLET Did you not speak to it?
HORATIO My lord, I did;
But answer made it none: yet once methought
It lifted up its head and did address
Itself to motion, like as it would speak;
But even then the morning cock crew loud,
And at the sound it shrunk in haste away,
And vanish’d from our sight.
HAMLET ‘Tis very strange.
HORATIO As I do live, my honour’d lord, ’tis true;
And we did think it writ down in our duty
To let you know of it.
HAMLET Indeed, indeed, sirs, but this troubles me.
Hold you the watch to-night?
MARCELLUS, BERNARDO We do, my lord.
HAMLET Arm’d, say you?
MARCELLUS, BERNARDO Arm’d, my lord.
HAMLET From top to toe?
MARCELLUS, BERNARDO My lord, from head to foot.
HAMLET Then saw you not his face?
HORATIO O, yes, my lord; he wore his beaver up.
HAMLET What, look’d he frowningly?
HORATIO A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.
HAMLET Pale or red?
HORATIO Nay, very pale.
HAMLET And fix’d his eyes upon you?
HORATIO Most constantly.
HAMLET I would I had been there.
HORATIO It would have much amazed you.
HAMLET Very like, very like. Stay’d it long?
HORATIO While one with moderate haste might tell a hundred.
MARCELLUS, BERNARDO Longer, longer.
HORATIO Not when I saw’t.
HAMLET His beard was grizzled–no?
HORATIO It was, as I have seen it in his life,
A sable silver’d.
HAMLET I will watch to-night;
Perchance ’twill walk again.
HORATIO I warrant it will.
HAMLET If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, though hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,
If you have hitherto conceal’d this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still;
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue:
I will requite your loves. So, fare you well:
Upon the platform, ‘twixt eleven and twelve,
I’ll visit you.
All Our duty to your honour.
HAMLET Your loves, as mine to you: farewell.
Exeunt all but HAMLET
My father’s spirit in arms! all is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
Exit
Scene 3
A room in Polonius’ house.
Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA
LAERTES 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.
OPHELIA Do you doubt that?
LAERTES For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour,
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.
OPHELIA No more but so?
LAERTES Think it no more;
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:
He may not, as unvalued persons do,
Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
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 honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
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:
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.
OPHELIA 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;
Whiles, like a puff’d and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.
LAERTES 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.
LORD POLONIUS 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
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
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. Beware
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 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 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 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!
LAERTES Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.
LORD POLONIUS The time invites you; go; your servants tend.
LAERTES Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well
What I have said to you.
OPHELIA ‘Tis in my memory lock’d,
And you yourself shall keep the key of it.
LAERTES Farewell.
Exit
LORD POLONIUS What is’t, Ophelia, be hath said to you?
OPHELIA So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.
LORD POLONIUS 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.
OPHELIA He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders
Of his affection to me.
LORD POLONIUS Affection! pooh! you speak like a green girl,
Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
OPHELIA I do not know, my lord, what I should think.