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 his 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 weighed, 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 sanity and health of the 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 peculiar sect and force

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 unmastered importunity.

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

And keep within 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 th’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 puffed and reckless libertine

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads

And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES

O fear me not.

Enter Polonius

I stay too long—but here my father comes.

A double blessing is a double grace;

Occasion smiles upon a second leave.

POLONIUS

Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stayed 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.

The 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-hatched unfledged comrade. Beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

Bear’t that th’opposèd may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear but few thy voice.

Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy; rich not gaudy;

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are of all 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.

LAERTES

Most humbly do I take my leave, my 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 locked,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTES Farewell.

Exit

POLONIUS

What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIA

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

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.

POLONIUS

Affection, pooh! You speak like a green girl

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.