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Table of Contents

Act III

Ophelia
My lord?
Hamlet
Are you fair?
Ophelia
What means your lordship?
Hamlet
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.
Ophelia
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
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.
Ophelia
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
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.
Ophelia
I was the more deceived.
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