honest; but yet I could accuse me of such
things that it were better my mother had not 125
borne me. I am very proud, revengeful,
ambitious;[b 1] with more offences at my beck[a 1] than
I have thoughts to put them in, imagination
to give them shape, or time to act them in.
What should such fellows as I do crawling 130
between heaven and earth?[a 2] We are arrant
knaves all;[a 3] believe none of us. Go thy ways
to a nunnery. Where's your father?[b 2]
Oph. At home, my lord.
Ham. Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may 135
play the fool no where[a 4] but in's own house.
Farewell.
Oph. Oh, help him, you sweet heavens![a 5]
Ham. If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague
for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as 140
pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.[b 3]
Get thee to a nunnery, go;[a 6] farewell. Or, if
- ↑ 126,127. very proud, revengeful, ambitious] Hamlet brings general accusations against manhood and womanhood; but these particular vices are ironically named as those of which he has been suspected or calumniously accused: very proud, he who honours the poor Horatio, and hails the actor as a friend, yet he is suspected of treating Ophelia lightly, as an inferior who may be basely used; revengeful, he who groans under the duty of vengeance, yet who is doubtless suspected of revenge by the King; ambitious, he who would go back to Wittenberg, and could be contented in a nutshell, yet whose disappointed ambition has been a subject for the probing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
- ↑ 133. Where's your father] Perhaps an arrow shot at a venture; or perhaps he has caught sight of the King and Polonius as they retire. It is to be considered as a possibility that Ophelia may not have been aware of her father's espionage.
- ↑ 141. calumny] Is this promise of dowry half meant for Polonius's ear? His calumnies of Hamlet will come home to roost on his own house.
