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Enter HAMLET, reading.

QUEEN. But, look, where sadly the poor wretch
comes reading.

POL. Away, I do beseech you, both away;
I'll boord him presently:"-O, give me leave.-
Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants.

How does my good lord Hamlet?

HAM. Well, god-'a-mercy.

POL. Do you know me, my lord?

HAM. Excellent, excellent well; you are a fishmonger.b

POL. Not I, my lord.

HAM. Then I would you were so honest a man.
POL. Honest, my lord?

HAM. Ay, sir: to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of two thousand.

POL. That's very true my lord.

HAM. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion,—Have you a daughter?

POL. I have, my lord.

* bord.

+ ten. 4tos.

HAM. Let her not walk i'the sun: conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may con- but as. ceive, friend, look to't.(23)

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

HAM. Words, words, words.

a I'll boord him presently] i. e. accost, address, Fr. aborder. See Tw. N. I. 3. Sir Tob.

b a fishmonger] i. e. a wencher. "Senex fornicator," an "old fishmonger." Barnabe Rich's Irish Hubbub.

4tos.

* read. 4tos.

+ rogue. 4tos.

twith

POL. What is the matter, my lord?
HAM. Between who ?a

POL. I mean, the matter that you mean,* my lord.

HAM. Slanders, sir: for the satirical slave† says here that old men have grey 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 with most weak hams: All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set for your-down for you yourself, sir, should § be old as I grow old. am, if like a crab, you if like a crab, you could go backward.

weak.

1623,

32.

self shall

4tos.

POL. Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. [Aside.] Will you walk out of the air, my lord? HAM. Into my grave?

POL. Indeed, that is out o'the air.-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 suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.-My honourable 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; except my life, except my life, my life.

POL. Fare you well, my lord.

HAM. These tedious old fools!

Enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN.

POL. You go to seek the lord Hamlet; there he is.
Ros. God save you, sir!

[TO POLONIUS. [Exit POLONIUS.

a between who] Used indifferently for whom. advance." Temp. V. 2. Prosp.

"Who to

b how pregnant his replies] i. e. big with meaning. We have "dull and unpregnant" at the end of this scene. Haml. “Quick and pregnant capacities." Puttenham's Arte of Poesie. p. 154.

GUIL. My honour'd lord!—

Ros. My most dear lord!—

HAM. My excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how ye both?

do

Ros. As the indifferent children of the earth.a GUIL. Happy, in that we are not overhappy; On fortune's cap we are not the very button. HAM. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

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HAM. Then you live about her waist, or in the wast. middle of her favours?

GUIL. 'Faith, her privates we.

b

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 dooms-day near: But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular: What have you, my good friends, deserved 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 of the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

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

a the indifferent children of the earth] i. e. who, not lifted too high, are, as is said, indifferently well off.

b 'Faith, her privates we] One sense at least here is the military one, of not being in authority or command.

O. C.

* So, 4tos.

Why any thing. But

to the pur

32.

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.(24)

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 outstretch'd heroes, the beggars' shadows: Shall we to the court? for, by my fay, I

cannot reason.

Ros. GUIL. We'll wait upon you.

HAM. No such matter: I will not sort with you 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 Elsinore?

you at

Ros. To visit you, my lord; no other occasion. 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 inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak. GUIL. What should we say, my lord? HAM. Any thing-but to the purpose.* were sent for; and there is a kind of confession in

You

a Then are our beggars bodies—and our outstretch'd heroes the beggars' shadows] i. e. at this rate, and, if it be true, that lofty aims are no more than air, our beggars only have the nature of substance; and our monarchs and those who are blazoned so far abroad, as to be thought materially to fill so much spare, are in fact shadows, and in imagination only gigantic.

b beaten way of friendship] i. e. plain track, open and unce. remonious course.

too dear a halfpenny] i. e. at a halfpenny; at so small, or, indeed at any price. If valued as the return for any thing, such cost is beyond their, or its, worth.

your looks, which your modesties have not craft enough to colour: 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, by the consonancy of our youth, by the obligation 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. What say you? To GUILDENSTERN. HAM. Nay, then, I have an eye of you; [Aside.] -if you love me, hold not off.

GUIL. My lord, we were sent for.

gone

discovery

queen:

HAM. I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery,* and your secrecy to So 4tos. the king and queen moult no feather. I have of late, of your se(but, wherefore, I know not,) lost all my mirth, for- crecyall custom of exercises: and, indeed, it goes 1623, 32. so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly + So 4tos. frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; heavenly. this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging, this majestical roof fretted with to'erhanggolden fire,(25) why, it appears no other things to me, ment. 4tos. ing firmathan a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. Sappeareth What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! nothing. how infinite in faculties! in form, and moving, how 4tos.

a rights of our fellowship and consonancy of our youth] i. e. habits of familiar intercourse and correspondent years.

b

a better proposer] i. e. an advocate of more address in shaping his aims, who could make a stronger appeal.

c even] i. e. without inclination any way.

d Nay then, I have an eye of you] i. e. upon or after you, a sharp look out.

e so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king moult no feather.] i. e. be beforehand with your discovery, and the plume and gloss of your secret pledge be in no feather shed or tarnished. The reading is from the 4tos.

1623, 32.

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