Do you believe his ‘tenders’ as you call them?

OPHELIA

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUS

Marry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby

That you have ta’en his tenders for true pay,

Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly,

Or—not to crack the wind of the poor phrase,

Running it thus—you’ll tender me a fool.

OPHELIA

My lord, he hath importuned me with love

In honourable fashion—

POLONIUS

Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to.

OPHELIA

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With all the vows of heaven.

POLONIUS

Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know

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, daughter,

Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.

Set your entreatments at a higher rate

Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,

Believe so much in him, that he is young,

And with a larger tether may he walk

Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,

Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,

Not of the dye which their investments show,

But mere imploratators of unholy suits,

Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds

The better to beguile. This is for all—

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth

Have you so slander any moment leisure

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to’t, I charge you. Come your ways.

OPHELIA I shall obey, my lord.

Exeunt

1.4 Enter Prince Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus

HAMLET

The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.

HORATIO

It is a nipping and an eager air.

HAMLET What hour now?

HORATIO I think it lacks of twelve.

MARCELLUS No, it is struck.

HORATIO

Indeed? I heard it not. Then it draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.

A flourish of trumpets, and two pieces of ordnance goes off

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLET

The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,

Keeps wassail, and the swagg’ring upspring reels,

And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down

The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIO Is it a custom?

HAMLET Ay, marry is’t,

And to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner born, it is a custom

More honoured in the breach than the observance.

Enter the Ghost, as before

HORATIO Look, my lord, it comes.

HAMLET

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, hearsèd in death,

Have burst their cerements, why the sepulchre

Wherein we saw thee quietly enurned

Hath oped his ponderous and marble jaws

To cast thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel,

Revisitst thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous, and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

The Ghost beckons Hamlet

HORATIO

It beckons you to go away with it

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.

MARCELLUS (to Hamlet) Look with what courteous action

It wafts you to a more removed ground.

But do not go with it.

HORATIO (to Hamlet)

No, by no means.

HAMLET

It will not speak. Then will I follow it.

HORATIO

Do not, my lord.

HAMLET

Why, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

The Ghost beckons Hamlet

It waves me forth again. I’ll follow it.

HORATIO

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff

That beetles o’er his base into the sea,

And there assume some other horrible form

Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason

And draw you into madness? Think of it.

The Ghost beckons Hamlet

HAMLET

It wafts me still. (To the Ghost) Go on, I’ll follow thee.

MARCELLUS

You shall not go, my lord.

HAMLET

Hold off your hand.

HORATIO

Be ruled. You shall not go.

HAMLET

My fate cries out,

And makes each petty artere in this body

As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.

The Ghost beckons Hamlet

Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heav’n, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.

I say, away! (To the Ghost) Go on, I’ll follow thee.

Exeunt the Ghost and Hamlet

HORATIO

He waxes desperate with imagination.

MARCELLUS

Let’s follow.’Tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIO

Have after. To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUS

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIO