Madness, Then There Is Method,

¶ … madness, then there is method, to it, reflects Polonius in Act 2. In other words, even this old and foolish courier sees through Hamlet's charade of madness. Hamlet calls Polonius a fishmonger, slang for a keeper of a brothel, and indeed Polonius has been playing a cat and mouse game of his daughter's sexuality with the prince, advising her to be coy with Hamlet, and then saying that the girl's beauty is the cause of the young man's madness. Hamlet himself says that he will assume a guise of madness after the appearance of his father's ghost, but the extremity of the situation, and the lack of clarity of how this secures him an advantage at court -- to say nothing of his uncontrolled performance with his mother after "The Mousetrap" suggests that although Hamlet plays at madness, his reasons for deliberately seeming mad often are entirely illogical, and shift from moment to moment.

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Polonius counsels his son to keep his own counsel, not to borrow from others, and basically to be a selfish individual. To thine own self be true is not a truth of one's true, internal self, but to be true to one's own interests. He tells Laertes to keep his good friends close to his heart, but Polonius' definition of friendship is not so much of fellowship, but who can prove politically advantageous to the young man.

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