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Hamlet

Page 65

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With this regard their currents turn away,

And lose the name of action. Soft you94 now,

The fair Ophelia.-- Nymph, in thy orisons95

Be all my sins remembered.

OPHELIA Good my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLET I humbly thank you: well, well, well.

OPHELIA My lord, I have remembrances100 of yours,

That I have longed long to re-deliver:

Offers love tokens

I pray you now receive them.

HAMLET No, no: I never gave you aught.

OPHELIA My honoured lord, I know right well you did,

And with them words of so sweet breath composed

As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,

Take these again, for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

Tries to hand over tokens

There, my lord.

HAMLET Ha, ha! Are you honest110?

OPHELIA My lord?

HAMLET Are you fair112?

OPHELIA What means your lordship?

HAMLET That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should114

admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIA Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce116 than

with honesty?

HAMLET Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner

transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of

honesty can translate beauty into his120 likeness: this was



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