THE EXTENT OF HUMAN PERFECTION.

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

CAUTIONS TO YOUNG FEMALES.

For Hamlet, and the trifling of his favour,
Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood:
A violet in the youth of primy nature,
Forward, not permanent, sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a minute:
No more.

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent* ear you list† his songs;
Or lose your heart: or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster'd‡ importunity.

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister;
And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire.
The chariest§ maid is prodigal enough,
If she unmask her beauty to the moon:
Virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious strokes:
The canker galls the infants of the spring,
Too oft before their buttons be disclos'd;
And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.

SATIRE ON UNGRACIOUS PASTORS.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep,
As watchmen to my heart: But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whilst, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own reed. T

ADVICE TO A SON GOING TO TRAVEL.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,

* Believing.

Licentious.

† Listen to.

Il Careless.

§ Most cautious.
Regards not his own lessons.

Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel;
But do not dull thy palm* with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in,

Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judg

ment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,

But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;

And they in France, of the best rank and station,
Are inost select and generous, chief § in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.|
This above all,-To thine own self be true:
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

HAMLET ON THE APPEARANCE OF HIS FATHER'S
GHOST.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us!Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd, Bring with thee airs from heaven, or blasts from hell Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com'st in such a questionable shape,

That I will speak to thee; I'll call thee Hamlet,
King, father, royal Dane: 0, answer me:
Let me not burst in ignorance! but tell
Why thy canoniz'd bones, hearsed in death,
Have burst their cerements! why the sepulchre,
Wherein we saw thee quietly in-urn'd,
Hath op'd his ponderous and marble jaws,
To cast thee up again! What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous; and we fools of nature,

*Palm of the hand. + Opinion.
§ Chiefly. || Economy.

Noble.

T Conversable.

1

So horribly to shake our disposition,*

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

THE MISCHIEFS IT MIGHT TEMPT HIM TO.

What, if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff,
That beetlest o'er his base into the sea?
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason,
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toyst of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain,
That looks so many fathoms to the sea,
And hears it roar beneath.

SCENE. A more remote part of the Platform.
Re-enter GHOST and HAMLET.

Ham. Whither wilt thou lead me? speak, I'll go no further.

My hour is almost come,

Alas, poor ghost!

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

Ham.

Ghost. Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

Ham.

Speak, I am bound to hear.

Ghost. So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt Ham. What?

Ghost. I am thy father's spirit;

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night;

And, for the day, confin'd to fast in fires,

[hear.

Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word

Would harrow up thy soul; freeze thy young blood; Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres;

Thy knotte.l and combined locks to part,

* Frame.

+ Hangs.

Whins.

Like quills upon the fretful porcupine:
But this eternal blazon* must not be

To ears of flesh and blood:-List, list, O list!-
If ever thou didst thy dear father love.-

Ham. O heaven!

Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural mur der.

Ham. Murder!

Ghost. Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Ham. Haste me to know it; that 1, with wings as swift

As meditation, or the thoughts of love,

May sweep to my revenge.

'Ghost.

I find thee apt;

And duller should'st thou be than the fat weed
That rots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

Would'st thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear 'Tis given out, that sleeping in my orchard,t

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abus'd: but know, thou nohle youth,
The serpent that did sting thy father's life,
Now wears his crown.

Ham. O, my prophetic soul! my uncle!

Ghost. Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts, (O wicked wit, and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!) won to his shameful lust The will of my most seeming virtuous queen: O, Hamlet, what a falling-off was there! From me whose love was of that dignity, That it went hand in hand even with the row I made to her in marriage; and to decline Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor To those of mine!

But virtue, as it never will be mov'd,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven;
So lust, though to a radiant angel link'd,

* Display.

† Garden.

Will sate itself in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.

But, soft! methinks, I seent the morning air;
Brief let me be:-Sleeping within mine orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon† in a vial,
And in the porches of mine ears did pour
The leperous distilment· whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man,
That swift as quicksilver, it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body;
And, with a sudden vigour, it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant terttet bark'd about,
Most lazar-like, vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.

**

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch'd:]
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd;tt
No reckoning made but sent to my account
With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not:
Let not the royal bed of Denmark be
A couch for luxury and damned incest.
But, howsoever thou pursu'st this act,
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive
Against thy mother aught; leave her to heaver,
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
And 'gins to pale his uneffectual fire:

Adieu, adieu, adieu! remember me.

* Satiate.

§ Leprous.

+ Henbane.

[Exis

+ Scab, scurf.

Il Bereft.

¶ Without having received the Sacrament
**Unappointed, unprepared.

tt Without extreme unction.