_Pol._ Hath there been such a time (I'd fain know that,) That I have positively said, _'tis so_, When it proved otherwise?
_Pol._ Take this from this, if it be otherwise:
If circumstances lead me, I will find Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed Within the centre.
_Pol._ You know, sometimes he walks for hours together Here in the lobby.
_Pol._ At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him: Mark the encounter: if he love her not, And be not from his reason fallen thereon, Let me be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm, and carters.
_Queen._ But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading.
_Pol._ Away, I do beseech you both, away: I'll board him presently.[25]
_Ham._ Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.[26]
_Ham._ Then I would you were so honest a man.
_Ham._ Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.
_Ham._ For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god, kissing carrion,----Have you a daughter?[27]
_Ham._ Let her not walk i'the sun: conception is a blessing; but as your daughter may conceive,--friend, look to't, look to't, look to't.
_Pol._ (_Aside._) Still harping on my daughter:--yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger.
I'll speak to him again.--What do you read, my lord?
_Pol._ I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.
_Ham._ Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue[28] 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 of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am, if, like a crab, you could go backward.
_Pol._ (_Aside._) Though this be madness, yet there's method in it. Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
_Pol._ (L.) Indeed, that is out o' the air.--How pregnant sometimes his replies[29] 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.