Scene summary
Polonius gives a purse of money to Reynaldo and sends him to Paris to watch Laertes: he must seek out the Danes who live there, pretend to know the young man vaguely, and launch light slanders at him, such as gambling, drinking, brawls and fencing, to hear what the others reply. When Reynaldo finds the mission strange, Polonius explains the trick, loses the thread in the middle of the explanation, and needs the servant to remind him where he stopped. Then Ophelia enters, frightened. She says that Prince Hamlet appeared in her room poorly dressed, pale, with his knees knocking, gripped her wrist, stood a long time looking at her face, sighed deeply and left without taking his eyes off her. Polonius concludes that it is madness of love and asks whether she treated him harshly. Ophelia answers that, on his orders, she returned the letters and refused the visits. Polonius regrets having suspected the prince and takes his daughter to the king, because the king must know.
Analysis
Polonius explains Ophelia’s fright by what he himself did: she returned the letters and refused the visits on his orders, so the prince went mad from rejected love. The conclusion serves twice: it names what she saw, and it puts Polonius before the king as the one who discovered the cause. The remorse for having suspected Hamlet turns into haste to tell.
See you now; / Your bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth;
(II.1)
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