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And he befeech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and fee the matter.

KING. With all my heart, and it doth much content me To hear him fo inclin❜d.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,

And drive his purpose into these delights.

Ros. We fhall, my lord.

KING. Sweet Gertrude leave us too;
For we have closely fent for Hamlet hither,
That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia.

Her father, and myself, lawful espials,
Will fo bestow ourselves, that, seeing, unfees,
We may of their encounter frankly judge;
And gather by him as he is behaved,
If't be th' affliction of his love, or no,
That thus he suffers for.

QUEEN. I fhall obey you:

And for my part, Ophelia, I do wish,

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet's wildness! fo fhall I hope, your virtues
May bring him, to his wonted way again

To both your honours,

OP H. Madam, I wish it may.

POL. Ophelia, walk you here.

[Exeunt.

[Exit Queen.

-Gracious, so please ye,

We will bestow ourselves-Read on this book,

[To Ophelia.

That shew of fuch an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We're oft to blame in this,
'Tis too much prov'd, that with devotion's visage,
And pious action, we do sugar o'er

The devil himself,

KING. Oh, 'tis true.

How smart a lash that speech doth give my confcience !

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastring art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it.
Than is my deed to my most painted word.

Oh heavy burden!

POL. I hear him coming; let's withdraw, my lord.

[Afide.

[Exeunt all but Ophelia.

SCENE II. Enter Hamlet.

HAM. To be, or not to be? that is the question.-
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer
The flings and arrows of outrageous fortune;
Or to take arms against a fea of troubles,
And by oppofing end them?-To die,-to fleep-
No more; and by a fleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a confummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die-to fleep

To fleep? perchance, to dream. Ay, there's the rub;
For in that fleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us paufe. There's the respect,
That makes calamity of fo long life.

For who would bear the whips and fcorns of time,
Th' oppreffor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pang of defspis'd love, the law's delay,
The infolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy takes ;
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardles bear,

To groan and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
That undiscover'd country, from whose bourne,
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;

And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus confcience doth make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of refolution
Is ficklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action-Soft you, now!

[Seeing Ophelia with a book.

The fair Ophelia ? Nymph, in thy orifons
Be all my fins remembred.

OP H. Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

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. No, I never gave you aught.

OPH. My honour'd lord, you know right well, you did; And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd,

As made the things more rich; that perfume loft,

Take these again; for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind.
-There, my lord.

HAM. Ha, ha! are you honeft?

OPH. My lord.

HAM. Are you fair?

OPH. What means your lordship?

1

HAM. That if you be honest and fair, you should admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPH. Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

HAM. Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will fooner transform honefty from what it is, to a bawd; than the force of honefty can tranflate beauty into its likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives its proof. I did love you once.

OP H. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe fo.

HAM. You should not have believed me. For virtue cannot fo inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it. I lov'd you not.

OPH. I was the more deceiv'd.

HAM. Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of finners? I am myself indifferent honeft; but yet I could accuse me of fuch things, that it would be better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should fuch fellows, ac I, do crawling hetween heav'n and earth? we are errant knaves, believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

OPH. At home, my lord.

HAM. Let the the doors be fhut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewel.

OPн. Oh help him, you sweet heav'ns!

HAM. If thou doft marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou fhalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, farewel; or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wife men

know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewel.

OP н. Heav'nly powers restore him!

HAM. I have heard of your painting too, well enough. God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another. You jig, you amble, and you lifp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonnefs your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't, it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages. Those that are married already, all but one, fhall live; the reft fhall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit Hamlet. OP H. Oh, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

The courtier's, foldier's, fcholar's, eye, tongue, sword;

Th' expectancy and rofe of the fair state,

The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,

Th' observ'd of all obfervers! quite, quite down!
I am of ladies most deject and wretched,
That fuck'd the honey of his musick vows:
Now, fee that noble and most sov'reign reason,
Like fweet bells jangled out of tune, and harsh;
That unmatch'd form, and feature of blown youth,
Blasted with ecstasy. Oh, woe is me!

T' have seen what I have seen; fee what I fee.

SCENE III. Enter King and Polonius.

KING. Love! his affections do not that way tend,
Nor what he fpake, tho' it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. Something's in his foul,
O'er which his melancholy fits on brood;
And, I do doubt, the hatch and the difclofe
Will be fome danger, which, how to prevent,
I have in quick determination

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