ACT 2
Scene 1
Enter old Polonius with his man Reynaldo.

POLONIUS    
Give him this money and these notes, Reynaldo.
REYNALDO    I will, my lord.
POLONIUS    
You shall do marvelous wisely, good Reynaldo,
Before you visit him, to make inquire
Of his behavior.
REYNALDO    My lord, I did intend it.
POLONIUS    
Marry, well said, very well said. Look you, sir,
Inquire me first what Danskers are in Paris;
And how, and who, what means, and where they
keep,
What company, at what expense; and finding
By this encompassment and drift of question
That they do know my son, come you more nearer
Than your particular demands will touch it.
Take you, as ’twere, some distant knowledge of him,
As thus: “I know his father and his friends
And, in part, him.” Do you mark this, Reynaldo?
REYNALDO    Ay, very well, my lord.
POLONIUS    
“And, in part, him, but,” you may say, “not well.
But if ’t be he I mean, he’s very wild,
Addicted so and so.” And there put on him
What forgeries you please—marry, none so rank
As may dishonor him, take heed of that,
But, sir, such wanton, wild, and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known
To youth and liberty.
REYNALDO    As gaming, my lord.
POLONIUS    Ay, or drinking, fencing, swearing,
Quarreling, drabbing—you may go so far.
REYNALDO    My lord, that would dishonor him.
POLONIUS    
Faith, no, as you may season it in the charge.
You must not put another scandal on him
That he is open to incontinency;
That’s not my meaning. But breathe his faults so
quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimèd blood,
Of general assault.
REYNALDO    But, my good lord—
POLONIUS    Wherefore should you do this?
REYNALDO    Ay, my lord, I would know that.
POLONIUS    Marry, sir, here’s my drift,
And I believe it is a fetch of wit.
You, laying these slight sullies on my son,
As ’twere a thing a little soiled i’ th’ working,
Mark you, your party in converse, him you would
sound,
Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence:
“Good sir,” or so, or “friend,” or “gentleman,”
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country—
REYNALDO    Very good, my lord.
POLONIUS    And then, sir, does he this, he does—what
was I about to say? By the Mass, I was about to say
something. Where did I leave?
REYNALDO    At “closes in the consequence,” at “friend,
or so,” and “gentleman.”
POLONIUS    
At “closes in the consequence”—ay, marry—
He closes thus: “I know the gentleman.
I saw him yesterday,” or “th’ other day”
(Or then, or then, with such or such), “and as you
say,
There was he gaming, there o’ertook in ’s rouse,
There falling out at tennis”; or perchance
“I saw him enter such a house of sale”—
Videlicet, a brothel—or so forth. See you now
Your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth;
And thus do we of wisdom and of reach,
With windlasses and with assays of bias,
By indirections find directions out.
So by my former lecture and advice
Shall you my son. You have me, have you not?
REYNALDO    
My lord, I have.
POLONIUS    God be wi’ you. Fare you well.
REYNALDO    Good my lord.
POLONIUS    
Observe his inclination in yourself.
REYNALDO    I shall, my lord.
POLONIUS    And let him ply his music.
REYNALDO    Well, my lord.
POLONIUS    
Farewell.Reynaldo exits.