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And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of ?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.-Soft you, now
The fair Ophelia. - Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remembered.

Oph.

Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

Ham. I humbly thank you; well, well, well. Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours,

That I have longéd long to re-deliver;

I pray you, now receive them.

Ham.

I never gave you aught.

No, not I;

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Oph. My honoured lord, you know right well you did;

And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed 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.
There, my lord

Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest ?

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Oph. My lord!

Ham. Are you fair?

Oph. What means your lordship?

Ham. That if you be honest, and fair, your

honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

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

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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 sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

SO.

Oph. Indeed, my lord, you made me believe

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.

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Ham. Get thee to a nunnery, why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent 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 thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. - Where's your father?

Oph. At home, my lord.

Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.

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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. Go, 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.

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Oph. O heavenly powers, restore him ! Ham. I have heard of your paintings too, well enough: God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname God's creatures, and make your wantonness 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, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go. [Exit.

Oph. O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown! The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue,

sword;

The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion, and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

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That sucked the honey of his music vows,

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason, Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh; That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth Blasted with ecstacy: 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;

Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a

little,

Was not like madness. There's something in his

soul

O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;

And I do doubt the hatch, and the disclose

Will be some danger: which for to prevent,

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down.

England

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He shall with speed to

For the demand of our neglected tribute:
Haply, the seas, and countries different,
With variable objects, shall expel

This something-settled matter in his heart, Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus 180 From fashion of himself. What think you

on't?

Pol. It shall do well; but yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. - How now, Ophelia You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; We heard it all. - My lord, do as you please, But, if you hold it fit, after the play, Let his queen mother all alone entreat him To show his griefs : let her be round with him; And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear Of all their conference. If she find him not, To England send him; or confine him where Your wisdom best shall think.

King.

It shall be so :

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

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[Exerunt.

Scene II.- A Hall in the Same

Enter HAMLET and three of the 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 your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines Nor do not

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