King. 
We will try it.

Queen. 
But look where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

Pol. 
Away, I do beseech you, both away
I’ll board him presently:—­O, give me leave.

[Exeunt King, Queen, and Attendants.]

[Enter Hamlet, reading.]

How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Ham. 
Well, God-a-mercy.

Pol. 
Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. 
Excellent well; you’re a fishmonger.

Pol. 
Not I, my lord.

Ham. 
Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. 
Honest, my lord!

Ham. 
Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man
picked out of ten thousand.

Pol. 
That’s very true, my lord.

Ham. 
For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god-kissing
carrion,—­Have you a daughter?

Pol. 
I have, my lord.

Ham. 
Let her not walk i’ the sun:  conception is a blessing, but not
as your daughter may conceive:—­friend, look to’t.

Pol.  How say you by that?—­[Aside.] 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?

Ham. 
Words, words, words.

Pol. 
What is the matter, my lord?

Ham. 
Between who?

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

Ham.  Slanders, sir:  for the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber and plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams:  all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Pol.
[Aside.] Though this be madness, yet there is a method in’t.—­
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

Ham. 
Into my grave?

Pol.  Indeed, that is out o’ the air. [Aside.] How pregnant sometimes his replies are! a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.  I will leave him and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.—­My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Ham.  You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal,—­except my life, except my life, except my life.

Pol. 
Fare you well, my lord.

Ham. 
These tedious old fools!

[Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.]

Pol. 
You go to seek the Lord Hamlet; there he is.

Ros.
[To Polonius.] God save you, sir!

[Exit Polonius.]