Polonius: The Counsellor Who Talks Too Much

Polonius is often played for laughs, and he is funny. His advice to Laertes in Act 1, Scene 3, with its string of maxims culminating in 'to thine own self be true,' is the comic pinnacle of a man who mistakes platitude for wisdom. But he is also genuinely dangerous. He uses his own daughter as a spy. He hides behind arras listening to private conversations. He is the kind of courtier who survives by telling kings what they want to hear.

His death in Act 3, Scene 4, is almost farcical: stabbed through a curtain while eavesdropping, killed by a prince who thought he was killing the king. It is the act that breaks Ophelia and gives Laertes his grievance against Hamlet.

Shakespeare is careful not to make Polonius entirely stupid. His instinct that Hamlet's madness is love-related is more perceptive than Claudius's political reading. He is just too pleased with his own cleverness to stop and think about consequences.