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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
To his unmaster'd' importunity.

your heart; or your

chaste treasure open

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 disclos'd;
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.

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 9 libertine,

6 If with too credulous ear you listen to his songs.

7 Licentious.

8 i. e. the most cautious, the most discreet. In Green's Never too Late, 1616: Love requires not chastity, but that her soldiers be chary. And again:-' She lives chastly enough that lives charily.' We have chariness in The Merry Wives of Windsor; and unchary in Twelfth Night, Act iii. Sc. 4.

9 Rechless, or negligent; Omissus animus.—Baret.

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own read 10.

Laer.

I stay too long;—But here my

O fear me not,

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 staid for: There, my blessing with

you;

[Laying his Hand on LAERTES' Head.

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou charácter 11. Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd 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 hooks of steel12;
But do not dull thy palm 13 with entertainment

10 i. e. regards not his own lesson. In The Two Angry Women of Abington, 1599, we have:- Take heed, is a good reed.' And in Sternhold, Psalm i. :—

'Blest is the man that hath not lent

To wicked rede his ear.'

11 i. e. mark, imprint, strongly infix. In Shakspeare's 122d Sonnet:

brain

- thy tables are within my
Full character'd with lasting memory.'

And in The Two Gentlemen of Verona :

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I do conjure thee,

Who art the table wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly character'd and engraved.'

12 The old copies read, with hoops of steel,'

13 But do not dull thy palm.' This figurative expression means, 'do not blunt thy feeling by taking every new acquaintance by the hand, or by admitting him to the intimacy of a friend.'

Of each new hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,
Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure 14, but reserve thy judg-

ment.

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 most select and generous, chief 15 in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:

For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry 16.
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 17 this in thee!

14 i. e. judgment, opinion; censura, Lat. Thus in King Henry VI. Part II. :—

"The king is old enough to give his censure.' 15 The quarto of 1603 reads:

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'Are of a most select and generall chief in this.' The folio:

'Are of a most select and generous cheff, in that.' The other quartos give the line:—

'As of a most select and generous, cheefe in that.'

'Or of a most select and generous, cheefe in that.' Malone has tried to torture the passage into a meaning, by supposing an allusion to the chief or upper part of a shield in heraldry. But the redundancy of the line, and discrepancy of the copies, evidently show it to be corrupt. The simple emendation by omitting of a, and the proper punctuation of the line, make all clear. The nobility of France are most select and high-minded (generosus) chiefly in that;' chief being an adjective used adverbially. We have generous for high minded, noble, in Othello, and in Measure for Measure.

16 i. e. thrift, economical prudence.

'It is more

17 To season, for to infuse,' says Warburton. than to infuse, it is to infix in such a manner that it may never

Laer. Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. Pol. The time invites you; go, your servants tend 18

Laer. Farewell, Ophelia; and remember well What I have said to you.

Oph.

'Tis in my memory lock'd,

[Exit LAERTEs.

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell.

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

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.

Oph. He hath, my lord, of late, made many tenders Of his affection to me.

Pol. Affection? puh! you speak like a green girl, Unsifted 19 in such perilous circumstance.

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,

wear out,' says Johnson. But hear one of the poet's cotemporaries: To season, to temper wisely, to make more pleasant and acceptable.'-Baret. This is the sense required, and is a better commentary than the conjectures of the learned critics, Warburton and Johnson, could supply. Thus in Act ii. Sc. 1, Polonius says to Reynaldo, 'You may season it in the charge. And in a former scene Horatio says:

18 Wait.

'Season your admiration for a while.'

19 i. e. untried, inexperienced.

Which are not sterling. Tender yourself more dearly;` Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, Wronging it thus), you'll tender me a fool 20.

Oph. My lord, he hath impórtun'd me with love, In honourable fashion 21.

Pol. Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to. Oph. And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,

With almost all the holy vows of heaven.

Pol. Ay, springes to catch woodcocks 22. I do
know,

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows 23: 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,
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence;
Set
your entreatments 24 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 25 may he walk,

20 Shakspeare makes Polonius play on the equivocal use of the word tender, which was anciently used in the sense of regard or respect, as well as in that of offer. The folio reads, ' roaming it thus;' and the quarto,' wrong it thus.'

21 Ophelia uses fashion for manner; and Polonius equivocates upon the word, taking it in its usual acceptation, for a transient practice.

22 This was a proverbial phrase. There is a collection of epigrams under that title: the woodcock being accounted a witless bird, from a vulgar notion that it had no brains. Springes to catch woodcocks' means arts to entrap simplicity.'

23 How prodigal the tongue lends the heart vows,' 4to. 1603. 24 i. e.' be more difficult of access, and let the suits to you for that purpose be of higher respect, than a command to parley.' How Johnson could conceive entreatments to signify company, conversation, I am at a loss to imagine.

25 i. e. with a longer line; a horse fastened by a string to a stake, is tethered: figuratively with more licence.

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