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Polonius:
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,
Running it thus,—you’ll tender me a fool.
Ophelia:
My lord, he hath importun’d me with love
In honourable fashion.
Polonius:
Ay, fashion you may call it; go to, go to.
Ophelia:
And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord,
With almost all the holy vows of heaven.
Polonius:
Ay, springes to catch woodcocks. I do know,
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,
Giving more light than heat, extinct in both,
Even in their promise, as it is a-making,
You must not take for fire. From this time
Be something scanter of your maiden presence;
Set your entreatments at a higher rate
Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet,
Believe so much in him that he is young;
And with a larger tether may he walk
Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia,
Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile. This is for all:
I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth
Have you so slander any moment leisure
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to’t, I charge you; come your ways.
Ophelia:
I shall obey, my lord.
(Exeunt.)
Scene Four. The platform.
Enter Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus.
Hamlet:
The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.
Horatio:
It is a nipping and an eager air.
Hamlet:
What hour now?
Horatio:
I think it lacks of twelve.
Marcellus:
No, it is struck.
Horatio:
Indeed? I heard it not. It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.
(A flourish of trumpets, and ordnance shot off within.)
What does this mean, my lord?
Hamlet:
The King doth wake tonight and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering upspring reels;
And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumph of his pledge.
Horatio:
Is it a custom?