I never noticed before, but this is a direct counter-proposal to Claudius. Claudius has said, “England. He’s going to England, that’s it.”
Polonius very diplomatically, doesn’t agree.

What I’d like to understand is why.
Why doesn’t Polonius just agree with The King?
That would be the soundest political strategy, you’d think.
Could it be that Polonius somehow understands what “sending him to England” means euphemistically? Like, is it an accepted code between them – a way to say “send him to sleep with the fishes”
If so, this idea about the queen is a last ditch effort to save Hamlet’s life.
It does seem somewhat more likely that this is just a last ditch effort to prove his own hypothesis that Hamlet is mad because of Ophelia. And it is sort of sweet that Polonius thinks Hamlet will tell his mommy what he wouldn’t say to his girlfriend.

They told us it would be hard.
They told us to choose a back-up career.
They told us the odds weren’t good.
They told us we’d need more than your average amount of luck.
They told us that almost no one succeeds at this sort of thing.
They told us. They warned us.
We cannot say we didn’t know.

We heard it all.
We just didn’t listen.

I suddenly thought, what if Ophelia had been charged with writing down all that Hamlet said. Like, what if, after she indulges in some “woe is me,” she has to sit down and try and transcribe the whole scene for her father.

What if, the whole time Claudius and Polonius are talking, she’s busily writing and remembering what Hamlet said. Maybe editing out a few choice phrases she wouldn’t want her father to see. And then JUST as she’s offering up this piece of text to her father, he rejects it with this.

Has she been sitting there crying on her own all this while? Did those two guys really just emerge after her big sad speech and talk to each other for so long before remembering that this woman is there and in a bit of a state? Or do they somehow not see her before this moment? It seems pretty callous to just leave her there in her misery after she’d been set up to receive it. This line feels like: Oh, you’re still here?

That’s right, man, hold tight to your original hypothesis.
I suppose this is a saving face (so he doesn’t have to go live on a farm as he swore to do if he were wrong.) It’s like, “Yeah, he may not be in love with her now – now he may seem to hate her – but I STILL think it all started with that. So even if it may have shifted, I can still be right.”

There are many politicians like this. Many many. Never acknowledging their mistakes, their wrongs, the change in the landscape.

I was thinking how great it would be if I knew which of the things I made would do well and which wouldn’t. When I start, I have to think whatever I’m starting will be the thing that does well. Then it occurred to me, no one knows what will do well. Ever.

It’s like when I was trying to figure out what makes my blog posts go viral. I was analyzing the ones that hit, trying to work out the common denominators, trying to figure out what I should do to create another viral post. Then I realized that if I knew that I’d be a gazillionaire because no one knows what’s going to go viral.

Marketing companies are spending gazillions of dollars trying to understand the properties of viral videos, posts, ads, what have you –

There are ideas – I read the negative superlatives do vastly better than positive ones. World’s Worst Cheese Grater will draw much more attention than the World’s Best Cheese Grater. Lists also tend to get a lot of clicks – combine that with WORST and you’ve got a hit.
The Top Ten Worst Whatevers will do great.
And someone must have gotten some audience with that “You won’t believe what happens next” thing – because there are a million posts with that phrase. It’s something like what my Facebook friend posted on her wall: “Oh, silly internet. I almost always believe what happens next.” And I think many people are now hip to this plot – so it’s efficacy must be changing.

So I’m making peace with the fact that I have no IDEA what will do well. And I must continue with my self-delusion that each next thing will be the thing that does well.

One of my favorite parts of A Midwinters Tale is when one actor comforts another’s stage anxiety by saying something like, “Whenever I forget my lines. I just say – ‘Crouch we here awhile and lurk.’”  I love this.

And it seems to me that “Let’s withdraw, my lord” might serve in the same way. You know, you don’t know what you’re meant to do anymore. So you just say this and pull the other person back behind a curtain with you for a moment.
Either something else will happen or you can go back there, take a minute to regroup, figure out what in the world is meant to happen next.

Footsteps? Throat clearing? Singing? Banging a drum and generally acting crazy? Already talking to himself as he walks?

How Polonius hears Hamlet coming can dramatically impact how Hamlet will begin the most famous speech in Shakespeare.

It is a little curious that Hamlet walks in to a place where no one appears to be and then starts talking. Like, is this how it goes down? “Let me go ahead and go to the place the king summoned me to – -Doo de doo de do. – Oh. No one’s here. Well, why don’t I sit myself down and philosophize for a while. That’ll pass the time til whatever’s supposed to happen here happens. . .”

This is a funny thing to say to your daughter. Especially the daughter that you’ve just put in the position of pretending devotion. Unless he’s not saying it to Ophelia, but to Claudius. Claudius answers him and certainly takes it to heart.

My text has a note that says (To Ophelia) before “read on this book” and doesn’t switch back and add a (To King) before this one. The king’s a much more likely candidate but a Polonius who says this to his daughter is a very particular sort of Polonius.

Also? Sugaring over the devil calls to mind many delightful images featuring the little red horned cliché devil. In one, he’s covered in powdered sugar, like a Devil Powdered Donut. In another, he’s getting a sugar rub massage and he’s got that massage sugar all over him. In another, he’s a caramelized demon. Or he’s covered in honey. Or he’s got that sugar wax on him, about to have all his hair removed with those waxing strips. Or frozen in an ice tray popsicle cube. Sugared and frozen.

And by “color” does he mean “explain”? Or “enhance”? Or hide something?

It makes me wonder if solitude were a rather unusual thing for an unmarried woman. Could she not be out on her own for a walk without a book? What does the book do that she can’t? It seems to indicate a sort of religiosity given the second line. Has he given her the Bible? Is she meant to have ended up walking on her own because she’s been lost in her devotions?

And what of walking and reading?
It seems rather hazardous – but was it done at a certain point?

As a reader and a walker, I am intrigued by the notion. One would have to walk on familiar ground so as to avoid running into anything or falling off something. But, say, in a garden, on soft grass, where you know where the hedges are? Fantastic.