Hamlet is intelletaal Pal is

dull

Hemi's hot for Ophelia

Ham. Well, God-a-mercy.

Pol. Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.

Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.
Pol. Honest, my lord.

Ham. Aye, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, 180
is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead
dog, being a god kissing carrion-Have you
a daughter?

Pol. I have, my lord.

Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun: conception is
a blessing; but as your daughter may con-
ceive, friend, look to 't.

Pol. [Aside] How say you by that? Still 190
harping on my daughter: yet he knew me
not at first; he said I was a fishmonger: he
is far gone: and truly in my youth I suf-
fered much extremity for love; very near
this. I'll speak to him again.—What do
you read, my lord?

Ham. Words, words, words.

Pol. What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. Between who?

Pol. I mean, the matter that you read, my lord. 200
Ham. Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says

here that old men have gray beards, that
their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging
thick amber and plum-tree gum, and that
they have a plentiful lack of wit, together

шаро

with most weak hams: all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward. Pol. [Aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.-Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Ham. Into my grave.

210

Pol. Indeed, that's out of the air. [Aside]
How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a
happiness that often madness hits on, which
reason and sanity could not so prosperously
be delivered of. I will leave him, and sud-
denly contrive the means of meeting between 220
him and my daughter.-My honorable lord,
I will most humbly take my leave of you.
Ham. You cannot, sir, take from me any thing
that I will more willingly part withal: ex-
cept my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. Fare you well, my lord.

Ham. These tedious old fools.

Re-enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Pol. You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.
Ros. [To Polonius] God save you, sir!

[Exit Polonius.

219-220, 249–281. The reading of Ff.; omitted in Qq.-I. G. 222. "take my leave of you”; such is the folio reading; the quartos give the latter part of the speech thus: "I will leave him and my daughter. My lord, I will take my leave of you."-In the next speech, the folio has, “except my life, my life." Coleridge says of the quarto reading,-"This repetition strikes me as most admirable.” -H. N. H..

Han. finds

out he is

aut

being checked * for the King position

Guil. My honored lord!

Ros. My most dear lord!

230

Ham. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz!

Good lads, how do you both?

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.
Guil. Happy, in that we are not over-happy;

On Fortune's cap we are not the very button.
Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in the 240 middle of her favors?

Guil. Faith, her privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O,
most true; she is a strumpet. What's the
news?

Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's
grown honest.
Ham. Then is doomsday near: but your news

is not true. Let me question more in par-
ticular: what have you, my good friends, de- 250
served at the hands of Fortune, that she
sends you to prison hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is 260

nothing either good or bad, but thinking
makes it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one;
'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God, I could be bounded in a nut-shell
and count myself a king of infinite space,
were it not that I have bad dreams.
Guil. Which dreams indeed are ambition; for
the very substance of the ambitious is merely
the shadow of a dream.

Ham. A dream itself is but a shadow.
Ros. Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and
light a quality that it is but a shadow's
shadow.

Ham. Then are our beggars bodies, and our
monarchs and outstretched heroes the beg-
gars' shadows. Shall we to the court? for,
by my fay, I cannot reason.

270

Ham. No such matter: I will not sort you with 280 the rest of my servants; for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended. But, in the beaten way of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion.

275. "Then are our beggars bodies," etc. If the ambitions are shadows, "beggars"-the "antitypes of ambition”—are substance, and as such throw shadow; it is Hamlet's caprice to identify the shadowy ambitious "monarchs and outstretch'd heroes" with the "beggars' shadows,”—a caprice which he impatiently dismisses the next moment: "for, by my fay, I cannot reason."-C. H. H.

282. "dreadfully attended"; by his "bad dreams."-C. H. H. 284. "what make you"; what do you.

773

Ham. Beggar that I am, I am even poor in
thanks; but I thank you: and sure, dear
friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.
Were you not sent for? Is it your own in-
clining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal 290
justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.
Guil. What should we say, my lord?

Ham. Why, any thing, but to the purpose.
You were sent for; and there is a kind of
confession in your looks, which your modes-
ties have not craft enough to color: I know
the good king and queen have sent for you.
Ros. To what end, my lord?

Ham. That you must teach me. But let me
conjure you, by the rights of our fellowship, 300
by the consonancy of our youth, by the obli-
gation of our ever-preserved love, and by
what more dear a better proposer could
charge you withal, be even and direct with
me, whether you were sent for, or no.
Ros. [Aside to Guil.] What say you?
Ham. [Aside] Nay then, I have an eye of
you.-

If you love me, hold not off.
Guil. My lord, we were sent for.

Ham. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipa

tion prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late-but wherefore I

310

288. "too dear a halfpenny”; i. e. at a halfpenny.—C. H. H. 313. “moult no feather"; that is, not change a feather; moult being an old word for change; applied especially to birds when putting on