Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

For trewthe telleth that loue . is triacle of hevene;
May no synne be on him sene . that useth that spise,
And alle his werkes he wrougte . with loue as him liste;
And lered it Moises for the levest thing . and moste like to heuene,
And also the plante of pees . moste precious of vertues.
For hevene myghte noughte holden it · it was so hevy of hym-self,
Tyl it hadde of the erthe . yeten his fylle,
And whan it haved of this folde . flesshe and blode taken,
Was neuere leef upon lynde . lighter ther-after,
And portatyf and persant . as the poynt of a nedle,
That myghte non armure it lette . ne none heigh walles.
For-thi is love leder . of the lordes folke of hevene,
And a mene, as the maire is . bitwene the kyng and the comune;
Right so is love a ledere . and the lawe shapeth,
Upon man for his mysdedes . the merciment he taxeth.
And for to knowe it kyndely · it comseth bi myght,
And in the herte, there is the hevede . and the heigh welle.