Original Text
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Modern Text
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Take these again, for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
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their value when the givers turn out not to be so nice. There, my
lord.
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HAMLET
105Ha, ha, are you honest?
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HAMLET
Ha ha, are you good?
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OPHELIA
My lord?
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OPHELIA
Excuse me?
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HAMLET
Are you fair?
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HAMLET
Are you beautiful?
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OPHELIA
What means your lordship?
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OPHELIA
My lord, what are you talking about?
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HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit
no discourse to your beauty.
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HAMLET
I’m just saying that if you’re good and
beautiful, your goodness should have nothing to do with your
beauty.
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OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with
honesty?
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OPHELIA
But could beauty be related to anything better than
goodness?
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HAMLET
Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform
honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty
can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a
paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you
once.
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HAMLET
Sure, since beauty’s power can more easily change a
good girl into a whore than the power of goodness can change a
beautiful girl into a virgin. This used to be a great puzzle, but
now I’ve solved it. I used to love you.
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OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
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OPHELIA
You certainly made me believe you did, my lord.
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HAMLET
You should not have believed me, for virtue cannot so
inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I loved you
not.
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HAMLET
You shouldn’t have believed me, since we’re
all rotten at the core, no matter how hard we try to be virtuous. I
didn’t love you.
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OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.
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OPHELIA
Then I guess I was misled.
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HAMLET
Get thee to a nunnery. Why wouldst thou be a breeder of
sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could
accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had
not borne me.
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HAMLET
Get yourself to a
convent
at once. Why would you want to give birth to more sinners?
I’m fairly good myself, but even so I could accuse myself
of such horrible crimes that it would’ve been better if
my mother had never given birth to me.
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