Really? How longéd long could that be? She just started refusing his letters and access, etc – a few days before it would seem. Has it been ages, really? Did she long to return them as soon as they were sent?
It raises some questions for me, this line. Is it a word for word line reading from her father? Did Polonius drill her on her opening lines before sending her out as Hamlet bait?
What exactly does Polonius think is going to happen? That Ophelia returns Hamlet’s letters and he falls on his knees with love? That somehow Hamlet will read them to her, beg her to stay, try to win her back? Even if this love scene weren’t being observed (which, very likely, both Hamlet and Ophelia are aware of) it would not necessarily prove a love relationship. Sometimes when you look at people breaking up, they don’t resemble the people they were before at all. It’s sometimes hard to imagine them having been lovers at all as the darkness pours in – the vitriol, the heartbreak, the recriminations, whatever.
I would like to see a scene in which Polonius rehearses what he thinks this scene will be, where he plays Hamlet and tries out all of theories while making Ophelia say her lines properly.
The Hamlet Project 