Than your particular demands will touch it.

Take you, as ‘twere, some distant knowledge of him,

As thus: ‘I know his father and his friends,

And in part him’—do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDO Ay, very well, my lord.

POLONIUS

‘And in part him, but’, you may say, ‘not well,

But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild,

Addicted so and so’; and there put on him

What forgeries you please—marry, none so rank

As may dishonour him, take heed of that—

But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips

As are companions noted and most known

To youth and liberty.

REYNALDO As gaming, my lord?

POLONIUS

Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,

Quarrelling, drabbing—you may go so far.

REYNALDO

My lord, that would dishonour him.

POLONIUS

Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.

You must not put another scandal on him,

That he is open to incontinency.

That’s not my meaning—but breathe his faults so

quaintly

That they may seem the taints of liberty,

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,

A savageness in unreclaimed blood,

Of general assault.

REYNALDO

But, my good lord—

POLONIUS

Wherefore should you do this?

REYNALDO

Ay, my lord.

I would know that.

POLONIUS

Marry, sir, here’s my drift,

And I believe it is a fetch of warrant:

You laying these slight sullies on my son,

As ‘twere a thing a little soiled i’th’ working,

Mark you, your party in converse, him you would

sound,

Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes

The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured

He closes with you in this consequence:

‘Good sir’, or so, or ‘friend’, or ‘gentleman’,

According to the phrase and the addition

Of man and country.

REYNALDO

Very good, my lord.

POLONIUS

And then, sir, does a this—a does—

what was I about to say? By the mass, I was about to

say something. Where did I leave?

REYNALDO

At ‘closes in the consequence’, at ‘friend,

Or so’, and ‘gentleman’.

POLONIUS

At ‘closes in the consequence’—ay, marry,

He closes with you thus: ‘I know the gentleman,

I saw him yesterday’—or t‘other day,

Or then, or then—’with such and such, and, as you

say,

There was a gaming, there o‘ertook in ’s rouse,

There falling out at tennis’, or perchance

‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’,

Videlicet, a brothel, or so forth. See you now,

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;

And thus do we of wisdom and of reach

With windlasses and with assays of bias

By indirections find directions out.

So, by my former lecture and advice,

Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?

REYNALDO My lord, I have.

POLONIUS God b’wi’ ye. Fare ye well.

REYNALDO Good my lord.

POLONIUS

Observe his inclination in yourself.

REYNALDO I shall, my lord.

POLONIUS And let him ply his music.

REYNALDO Well, my lord.

Enter Ophelia

POLONIUS

Farewell.

Exit Reynaldo

How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIA

Alas, my lord, I have been so affrighted.

POLONIUS With what, i’th’ name of God?

OPHELIA

My lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,

No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,

Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle,

Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosed out of hell

To speak of horrors, he comes before me.

POLONIUS

Mad for thy love?

OPHELIA

My lord, I do not know,

But truly I do fear it.

POLONIUS

What said he?

OPHELIA

He took me by the wrist and held me hard,

Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

And with his other hand thus o’er his brow

He falls to such perusal of my face

As a would draw it. Long stayed he so.

At last, a little shaking of mine arm,

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

He raised a sigh so piteous and profound

That it did seem to shatter all his bulk

And end his being. That done, he lets me go,

And, with his head over his shoulder turned,

He seemed to find his way without his eyes,

For out o’ doors he went without their help,

And to the last bended their light on me.

POLONIUS

Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.

This is the very ecstasy of love,

Whose violent property fordoes itself

And leads the will to desperate undertakings

As oft as any passion under heaven

That does afflict our natures. I am sorry—

What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIA

No, my good lord, but as you did command

I did repel his letters and denied

His access to me.

POLONIUS

That hath made him mad.

I am sorry that with better speed and judgement

I had not quoted him. I feared he did but trifle

And meant to wreck thee. But beshrew my jealousy!