SCENE III. A Room in POLONIUS' House.

Enter LAERTES and OPHELIA.

Laer. My necessaries are embark'd; farewell: And, sister, as the winds give benefit,

And convoy is assistant, do not sleep,

But let me hear from you.

Oph.

Do you doubt that?

Laer. 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.

Oph.
Laer.

No more but so ?

Think it no more:

For nature, crescent, does not grow alone

2

In thews, and bulk; but, as this 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 besmirch3
The virtue of his will: but you must fear;
His greatness weigh'd, his will is not his own;
For he himself is subject to his birth:

This is the reading of the quartos. The folio omits perfume and. It is plain that perfume is necessary to exemplify the idea of sweet, not lasting. The suppliance of a minute" should seein to mean supplying or enduring only that short space of time; as transitory and evanescent. The simile is eminently beautiful.

That is, sinews and muscular strength. See the Second Part of King Henry IV., Act iii. sc. 2, note 12.

3 Cautel is cautious circumspection, subtlety, or deceit. Minsheu explains it, "a crafty way to deceive." See Coriolanus, Act Besmirch is besmear, or sully.

v. sc. 1, note 3. This line is

found only in the folio.-"This scene," says Coleridge, "must be regarded as one of Shakespeare's lyrie

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself; for on his choice depends
The safety and health of the whole state;"
And therefore must his choice be circumscrib'd
Unto the voice and yielding of that body,
Whereof he is the head.

you,

Then, if he says he loves

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 your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and dauger 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,

movements in the play, and the skill with which it is interwoven with the dramatic parts is peculiarly an excellence with our Poet. You experience the sensation of a pause, without the sense of a stop. You will observe, in Ophelia's short and general answer to the long speech of Laertes, the natural carelessness of innocence, which cannot think such a code of cautions and prudences necessary to its own preservation."

н.

5 Thus the quartos; the folio has sanctity instead of safety, supposing the metre defective. But safety is used as a trisyllable by Spenser and others Thus Hall in his first Satire :

"Nor fish can dive so deep in yielding sea,

Though Thetis self should swear her safety."

The folio has "peculiar sect and force" instead of “partic

ular act and place."

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

B

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 th' effect of

As watchman to my heart.

this good lesson keep,

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

Laer.

O! fear me not

I stay too long;-but here my 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 stay'd for. There; my blessing with

you;

[Laying his Hand on LAERTES' Head.

And these few precepts in thy memory

Look thou character.9 Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:

10

Read was often thus

H.

That is, regards not his own lesson. used as a substantive, for the thing read. 9 That is, mark, imprint, strongly infix. 10 Vulgar is here used in its old sense of common. In the second line below, divers modern editions have hooks instead of hoops, the reading of all the old copies. It is not easy to see what is gained by the unauthorized change.

H

.1

Beware

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-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear 't, that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure,' 12 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 in that.13
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 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 this in thee!11

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

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

11 "Do not blunt thy feeling by taking every new acquaintance by the hand, or by admitting him to the intimacy of a friend." 12 Censure was continually used for opinion.

H.

13 The old copies read, "Are of a most select," &c., the destruction of both measure and sense.

H.

"It is more

14To season, for to infuse," says Warburton. than to infuse, it is to infix in such a manner that it may never wear out," says Johnson. But hear one of the Poet's contemporaries : To season, to temper wisely, to make more pleasant and acceptable." BARET. This is the sense required, and is a bet ter commentary than the conjectures of the learned critics.

--

Oph.

"Tis in my memory lock'd,

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Laer. Farewell.

[Exit LAERTES.

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 boun

teous.

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? pooh! you speak like a green girl,

Unsifted 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, 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.15

15 Instead of Wronging, the folio has Roaming; an evident roaming from sense. Mr. Collier some years ago conjectured running to be the right word, and has since found running in his second olio; a coincidence that may be read running. The quartos have Wrong, which has been changed rightly, we doubt not, to Wronging. It should be noted that thus refers to what goes before, not what follows; as if he had said, " and so wrong it," or, "thereby