Act I, Scene 3 — Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be

My necessaries are embarked. Farewell. And, sister, as the winds give benefit and convoy is assistant, do not sleep but let me hear from you.

Do you doubt that?

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.

No more but so?

Think it no more. For nature crescent does not grow alone in thews and bulk, but as this temple waxes the inward service of the mind and soul grows wide withal. Perhaps he loves you now, and now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch the virtue of his will; but you must fear, his greatness weighed, his will is not his own, for he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself, for on his choice depends the safety and health of this whole state. 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 unmastered 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.

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, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, and recks not his own rede.

O, fear me not.

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 any unproportioned thought his act. 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 judgement. 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 a 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. 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.

Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

The time invests you. Go, your servants tend.

Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you.

'Tis in my memory locked, and you yourself shall keep the key of it.

Farewell.

What is't, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

So please you, something touching the Lord Hamlet.

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 way of caution—I must tell you, you do not understand yourself so clearly as it behoves my daughter and your honour. What is between you? Give me up the truth.

He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me.

Affection? Pooh! You speak like a green girl, unsifted in such perilous circumstance. Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

I do not know, my lord, what I should think.

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, running it thus—you'll tender me a fool.

My lord, he hath importuned me with love in honourable fashion.

Ay, fashion you may call it. Go to, go to.

And hath given countenance to his speech, my lord, with almost all the holy vows of heaven.

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. 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.

I shall obey, my lord.