The Hamlet Project

Polonius, mixing his metaphors
Like a mad chef
With a metaphor cupboard
Slinging the ingredients together.
The money metaphor, the clothing metaphor, the religious, so artfully following
And blending one into the other, it’s hard to imagine them as separate ingredients –
Like he’s baked some bread
Such that you can’t tell what was milk
What was flour
What was yeast –
It’s just bread now.
But it’s a pretty hastily stirred batch of dough
And not quite up to Polonius’ normal rhetorical skill.
It feels like he’s casting about, searching
For the right way to sum up his instructions.
Money – yes. Brokers – no, dyes, no clothes, religious clothes, no, not religious,
Like religious – – – ah hell –
It’s like he’s too distraught to even pick a metaphor.
He gives up on them here and turns to plain terms.