Faculty of English

POLONIUS                  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 bonds The better to beguile.            (1.3.122-130) For Lord Hamlet—and there can be emphasis on Lord, remember […]

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 parle.    (1.3.114-122) Those vows Hamlet’s making to you? springes […]

POLONIUS      Marry, I will 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, Wronging it thus – you’ll tender me a fool. OPHELIA        My lord, he hath importuned me with love In honourable fashion. POLONIUS      Ay, ‘fashion’ you may call it. Go to, go […]

POLONIUS      What is between you? Give me up the truth. OPHELIA        He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me. POLONIUS      Affection? Pooh, you speak like a green girl Unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his ‘tenders’, as you call them? OPHELIA        I do not know, my lord, what I should think.          (1.3.97-103) What is […]

POLONIUS      What is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you? OPHELIA        So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet. POLONIUS      Marry, well bethought: ’Tis told me he hath very oft of late Given private time to you, and you yourself Have of your audience been most free and bounteous. If it be so – as so ’tis put on me, And that in […]

POLONIUS      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. Farewell, my blessing season this in thee. LAERTES        Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord. POLONIUS      The time invites you. Go, your servants tend. LAERTES        Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well What […]

POLONIUS      Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy But not expressed in fancy – rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man And they in France of the best rank and station Are of all most 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.          (1.3.69-76) […]

POLONIUS      Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar; Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel, But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in, Bear’t that th’opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure but reserve thy […]

Enter Polonius. LAERTES                    But here my father comes. A double blessing is a double grace: Occasion smiles upon a second leave. POLONIUS      Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard for shame! The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee, And these few precepts in thy memory Look thou character: give thy thoughts no tongue Nor […]

OPHELIA        I shall the effect of this good lesson keep As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother, Do not as some ungracious pastors do Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven Whiles, a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads And recks not his own rede. LAERTES                                O fear me not. I stay too long.           (1.3.44-51) Ophelia’s quite polite, at least initially, although she can be just […]