Hamlet

reading.

POLONIUS Away, I do beseech you both away:

I'll board him presently. O, give me leave180.--

Exeunt King and Queen

How does my good lord Hamlet?

HAMLET Well, God-a-mercy182.

POLONIUS Do you know me, my lord?

HAMLET Excellent, excellent well: you're a fishmonger184.

POLONIUS Not I, my lord.

HAMLET Then I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUS Honest, my lord?

HAMLET Ay, sir: to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one

man picked out of two thousand.

POLONIUS That's very true, my lord.

HAMLET For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a

good kissing carrion192-- Have you a daughter?

POLONIUS I have, my lord.

HAMLET Let her not walk i'th'sun: conception194 is a blessing,

but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to't.

Aside

POLONIUS How say you by that? Still harping on my

daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a

fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I

suffered much extremity for love, very near this. I'll speak to

him again.-- What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET Words, words, words.

POLONIUS What is the matter202, my lord?

HAMLET Between who?

POLONIUS I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLET Slanders, sir, for the satirical slave says here that old