Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; a *b Good my lord, OPH. HAM. I humbly thank you; well. OPH. My lord, I have remembrances of yours, That I have longed long to re-deliver; I pray you, now receive them. HAM. I never gave you aught. No, not I; OPH. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did; And, with them, words of so sweet breath com pos'd As made the things more rich: their* perfume lost, Take these again; for to the noble mind, Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind. HAM. Ha, ha! are you honest? OPH. My lord? HAM. Are you fair? OPH. What means your lordship? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all] A state of doubt and uncertainty, a conscious feeling or apprehension, a misgiving "How our audit stands." III. 3. Haml. b With this regard their currents turn away, And lose the name of action.] From this sole consideration have their drifts diverted, and lose the character and name of enterprise. • Soft you, now] A gentler pace! have done with this lofty march! awry, 4tos. so 4tos. then, left, 1623, 32. HAM. That if you be honest, and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. (12) OPH. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? HAM. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd, than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness; this was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once. a OPH. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so. HAM. You should not have believed me: for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it: I loved you not. OPH. I was the more deceived. HAM. Get thee to a nunnery; Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indif ferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things, that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have So 4tos. To thoughts to put them in, imagination* to give them put them in shape, or time to act them in: What should such imagination, to give. fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven! 1623, 32. We are arrant knaves all; believe none of us: Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father? . his likeness] See "The noble substance dout to his own scandal." I. 4. Haml. binoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it] So change the original constitution and properties, as that no smack of them shall remain. "Inoculate our stock" are terms in gardening. with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, &c.] With more vitious dispositions, like evil genii at my elbow, and ready at a nod to start into act, than can distinctly be conceived: for, "to put a thing into thought," Johnson says, is" to think on it." Much in the same manner Malcolm disqualifies himself. Macb. IV. 3. OPH. At home, my lord. HAM. Let the doors be shut upon him; that he may play the fool no way but in's own house. where, Farewell. OPH. O, help him, you sweet heavens! HAM. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry; Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery; farewell: Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough, what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go; and quickly too. Farewell. OPH. Heavenly powers, restore him! 4tos. gig, 4to. HAM. I have heard of your prattlings too, well enough; God hath given you one pace, and you make yourselves another: you jig*, you amble, gidge, and you lisp, (3) and nick-name God's creatures, and 1623. 32. make your wantonness your ignorance: Go to; I'll no more of't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. (14) [Exit HAMLET. b OPH. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword: (15) The expectancy and rose of the fair state, d • make your wantonness your ignorance] You mistake by wanton affectation, and pretend to mistake by ignorance. JOHNSON. ball but one shall live] One is the king: the folio of 1632 omits live. the expectancy and rose of the fair state] The first hope and fairest flower. "The gracious mark o' the land." Wint. T. IV. 3. Perd. glass of fashion] Speculum consuetudinis. Cic. STEEVENS. * the mould of form] The cast, in which is shaped the only perfect form. The observ'd of all observers! quite, quite down! And 4tos. And I of ladies most deject and wretched, That suck'd the honey of his musick vows," Have, 1623, 32. Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, * time, 4tos. Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune* and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth, Blasted with ecstasy: (16) O, woe is me! To have seen what I have seen, see what I see! Re-enter King, and POLONIUS. KING. Love! his affections do not that way tend; O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; I have, in quick determination, Thus set it down; He shall with speed to England, This something-settled matter in his heart; Let his queen mother all alone entreat him b Musical, mellifluous. "Thomalin, my liefe, thy music strains to hear." disclose] A term technical in the breeding of fowls, for their peeping through the shell. See V. 1. Queen. To show his grief; let her be round with him ;• Enter HAMLET, and certain Players. HAM. Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do live, O. C. not saw the air too much, your hand thus; but use all gently for in the very torrent, tempest, and (as I may say) whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance, that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul, to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow (17) tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; (18) who, for the most part, are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows, and noise (19) I would have such a fellow whipped for o'er-doing Termagant; (2) it out-herods Herod:(21) Pray you, avoid it. 1 PLAY. I warrant your honour. HAM. Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor; suit the action to the |