Polonius

A stained glass representation of Polonius

Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. He is King Claudius's chief counsellor, and the father of Ophelia and Laertes. Polonius connives with Claudius to spy on Hamlet. The latter eventually murders Polonius, provoking Ophelia's suicide and the climax of the play: a duel between Laertes and Hamlet.

Although it is generally regarded that Polonius is wrong in all the judgements that he makes over the course of the play, he is described by William Hazlitt as a "sincere" father, but also "a busy-body, [who] is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent." In Act II Hamlet refers to Polonius as a "tedious old fool" and taunts him as a latter day "Jeptha."

Character

Father of Ophelia and Laertes, and Lord Chamberlain to King Claudius, he is described as a windbag by some and a rambler of wisdom by others. It has also been suggested that he only acts like a "foolish prating knave" in order to keep his position and popularity safe and to keep anyone from discovering his plots for social advancement. It is important to note that throughout the play, Polonius is characterized as a typical Renaissance "new man," who pays much attention to appearances and ceremonious behaviour. Some adaptations show him conspiring with Claudius in the murder of King Hamlet, although Shakespeare himself gives no indication of this.

Polonius's most famous lines are found in Act 1, Scene 3, when he gives advice to his son Laertes, who is leaving for France, in the form of sententious maxims. He finishes by giving his son his blessing, and is apparently at ease with his son's departure. However, in Act 2, Scene 1, he orders his servant Reynaldo to travel to Paris and obtain information about whether Laertes is involved in vice there.

Laertes is not the only character that Polonius spies on. He is fearful that Hamlet's relationship with his daughter will hurt his reputation with the king and instructs Ophelia to "lock herself from [Hamlet's] resort." He later develops the belief that Ophelia's rejections of Hamlet's affections have caused the prince to lose his wits, and tells this to Gertrude and Claudius, claiming that his reason for commanding Ophelia to reject Hamlet was that Hamlet was above her station. He tests his theory with spying and interrogations.

In his last attempt to spy on Hamlet, Polonius hides himself behind an arras in Gertrude's room. Hamlet deals roughly with his mother, causing her to cry for help. Polonius repeats the request for help and is heard by Hamlet, who stabs through the arras and kills him (due to mistaking him for Claudius).

The death of Polonius causes Claudius to fear for his life, Ophelia to go mad, and Laertes to seek revenge (leading to the duel in Act 5 Scene 2).

Sources

The literary origins of the character may be traced to the King's counselor found in the Belleforest and William Painter versions of the Hamlet legend. However, at least since the 19th century scholars have also sought to understand the character in terms of Elizabethan court politics.

The first recorded theory, which has also subsequently gained by far the most support (although not without generating controversy), identifies the character as a parody of Queen Elizabeth's leading counselor, Lord Treasurer, and Principle Secretary William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Since 1864 this theory has frequently been repeated with supplemental arguments, and sometimes disputed.

Israel Gollancz first proposed the theory that the source for the name and sententious platitudes of Polonius (Latin for "Polish") was De optimo senatore, a book on statesmanship by the Polish courtier Wawrzyniec Grzymała Goślicki, which was translated into English in 1598 under the title "The Councellor". However, Gollancz also supported the identification of Polonius as a character based on Burghley.

In the first quarto of Hamlet, Polonius is named "Corambis" (meaning "double-hearted" in Latin), perhaps a mocking pun on the Cecil motto "Cor Unum, Via Una" ("One Heart, One Way).

Both the Polish the Cecil theories have been widely repeated, but also disputed. Arden editor Harold Jenkins, for example, emphatically declares that the character "cannot have been Burghley." Most recently, however, Mark Andre Alexander has reviewed the entire history of the case, concluding that

the character of Polonius in Shakespeare's Hamlet so strongly mirrors William Cecil, Lord Burghley, that no reasonable person would deny that the author of the Shakespeare plays to a great extent consciously modeled Polonius after Burghley, with no other interpretation coming nearly as close to having such circumstantial support.

Stage and film portrayals

In most productions of the 20th century, up to about 1980, Polonius was played as a somewhat senile, garrulous man of about seventy-five or so, and those productions sometimes got a few laughs out of the character's depiction. More recent productions have tended to make him slightly younger, and to emphasise his shiftiness rather than any so-called senility. This harks back to the traditional way Polonius has been played. Until the 1900s there was a tradition for the actor who plays Polonius to also play that most famous of quick-witted clowns, the grave digger in Act V. This bit gives some evidence that the actor who played Polonius was an actor used to playing clowns much like the Fool in King Lear: not a doddering old fool, but an alive and intelligent master of illusion and misdirection. Polonius adds a new dimension to the play and is a controlling and menacing character.

One key to the portrayal is a producer's decision to keep or remove the brief scene with his servant, Reynaldo, which comes after his scene of genial, fatherly advice to Laertes. He instructs Reynaldo to spy on his son, and even suggest that he has been gambling and consorting with prostitutes, in order to find out what he has really been up to. The inclusion of this scene portrays him in a much more sinister light; most productions, including Laurence Olivier's famous 1948 film version, choose to remove it. The respective productions starring Richard Burton and Kenneth Branagh both include it. Although Hume Cronyn plays Polonius mostly for laughs in the Burton production, Polonius is more sinister than comic in Branagh's version. The recent 2008 version of the play from the Australian company Bell Shakespeare portrays him as a rambling fool.

It is suspected that Zazu from The Lion King is based on this character (The Lion King was based on Hamlet, as well as another Shakespeare play, Richard III). here Hamlet kills Polonius and he says 'O, I am slain by the Dane.'

Famous lines

He is also known for uttering the immortal words: "To thine own self be true," as well as a few other phrases still in use today such as "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" and "brevity is the soul of wit."

• See all of Polonius's lines.

Notable Portrayals

• Hume Cronyn won a Tony Award for playing Polonius opposite Richard Burton's Hamlet in John Gielgud's 1964 Broadway production. No other actor has ever won an award for playing Polonius in any professional American stage version of Hamlet, nor for playing him in a film version of the play.
• Phil Silvers did a memorable send-up of Polonius' "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" speech in a Gilligan's Island episode, playing a producer who does a musical version of Hamlet while on the island.
• Actors who have played Polonius on film and television include Bill Murray, Ian Holm, Michael Redgrave, and Richard Briers.