Page:Hamlet (1917) Yale.djvu/61

Prince of Denmark, II. ii

Guil. Happy in that we are not over happy;

on Fortune's cap we are not the very button.

Ham. Nor the soles of her shoe?

Ros. Neither, my lord.

Ham. Then you live about her waist, or in

the middle of her favours?

Guil. Faith, her privates we.

Ham. In the secret parts of Fortune? O!

most true; she is a strumpet. What news?

Ros. None, my lord, but that the world's

grown honest.

Ham. Then is doomsday near; but your news

is not true. Let me question more in particular:

what have you, my good friends, deserved at the

hands of Fortune, that she sends you to prison

hither?

Guil. Prison, my lord!

Ham. Denmark's a prison.

Ros. Then is the world one.

Ham. A goodly one; in which there are

many confines, wards, and dungeons, Denmark

being one o' the worst.

Ros. We think not so, my lord.

Ham. Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is

nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes

it so: to me it is a prison.

Ros. Why, then your ambition makes it one;

'tis too narrow for your mind.

Ham. O God! I could be bounded in a nut-

shell, and count myself a king of infinite space,

were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guil. Which dreams, indeed, are ambition,

 237 on button; cf. n.

244 strumpet; cf. n.

