Page 224 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

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. [35]
The chariest maid is prodigal enough

If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.
The canker galls the infants of the spring
Too oft before their buttons be disclos’d, [40]

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth
Contagious blastments are most imminent.
Be wary then: best safety lies in fear.
Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIA
I shall th’effect of this good lesson keep [45]

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 puff’d and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, [50]
And recks not his own rede.

LAERTES
O fear me not.
I stay too long.

Enter Polonius.

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. [55]
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

And you are stay’d for. There, my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,