If Polonius had taken his own advice to be true rather than false and kept his command to his daughter to avoid Hamlet, Ophelia and the royal family might still be alive.
The phrase “To thine own self be true” is familiar to almost everyone, having taken on a life of its own after William Shakespeare’s Hamlet became the most revered play in the English language. Generally speaking, it’s seen as a piece of good advice, a statement of purpose about being the sort of person we want to be in life, but few, it seems, actually consider what it means taken either literally or figuratively. On the surface at least, it implies being honest with yourself and following your heart’s desires, but what would applying that broadly look like in the real world? What if everyone was actually true to themselves? Should a murderer or a rapist be true to their insane, dangerous predilections? How about a thief or a gambler? A drug addict or a womanizing cheat? Clearly, some level of falsehood to the self and others is required for society to function, even if the statement on its own blithely dismisses that reality, but perhaps even more incredibly, reading the statement in the context of the play and the events set off as a result of the scene reveals an even darker side of its meaning. To begin with, the line is delivered by Polonius, King Claudius’ boot-licking, scheming, prevaricating, self-aggrandizing advisor, who conspires with him against Prince Hamlet, making the source of the quote immediately suspect even if we might not know it at the time. The line itself is spoken early in the play as part of a long list of suspect advice Polonius imparts to his son, Laertes who has recently been given permission to depart Denmark for France, making it almost impossible to separate the good from the bad. He begins the rather lengthy speech by urging his son to take “these few precepts in thy memory” and then offering a few pieces of reasonable if rather bland guidance, encapsulating his penchant for taking simple thoughts and dressing them up in the language of the court to sound important. First, Laertes should “Look thou character” and “Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act.” From there, he urges his son to a series of further fine sounding platitudes, which while not bad in isolation become more pontificating as the speech wears on. “Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar,” meaning Laertes should not overstay his welcome anywhere or be uncouth in anyway while enjoying himself to some extent. He should also choose his friends carefully, and those he knows well, “Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel” and yet be wary of those who are only acquaintances, potentially pushing him to “unhatched, unfledged” acts. In a similar vein, Laertes should avoid fights, though once engaged in one, make his opponent fear him. Finally, the portion of what we might consider reasonably good advice concludes with listening to people but not letting them speak on his behalf and taking criticism from others but refrain from criticizing others yourself, “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.”
If Polonius had chosen to end there, we might give him some credit for offering a few bits of reasonably obvious fatherly advice that could probably be distilled into something simpler like everything in moderation and trust but verify. Instead, he proceeds into a bizarre discussion about fashion and lending before delivering the famous line, and even more bizarrely both pieces of advice run contrary to the literal meaning of the famous line itself. First, he urges Laertes to manage his money and not buy things he can’t afford, but then he encourages some kind of taste test for his clothing and other accoutrements, not fancy, not gaudy, but rich, “For the apparel oft proclaims the man and And they in France of the best rank and station Are of a most select and generous chief in that.” In this regard, he is essentially advising his son to be a social climber like he most certainly is himself, putting on an outward show that might not well match his inward capabilities. From there, he delivers another famous line, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” This particular bit of advice is almost impossible to take at face value in an era when much of the upper class’s existence is based on borrowing and lending, binding families, countries, and much of the international order of the day by shared debt, facts surely Polonius is aware of as the king’s chief counselor and yet he says them anyway. Even so, he concludes with the most famous line of them all, which in its entirety is even worse and more nonsensical than the shortened version, “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Setting aside that “thine own self” might well be a liar and Polonius himself promptly proceeds to deal falsely with Hamlet and his own daughter, the statement makes even less sense in context. During what we may call the good advice portion of the speech, Polonius urged Laertes to caution and curb his appetites, basically telling him to not to say what he truly thinks or do what he truly wants, before advising him that clothes can make him more than he appears and that a key to social climbing in France is dressing the part. In other words, he is urging his son to be false at almost every turn, but how is that in any sense being true to one’s own self? Even if we were to somehow grant it was actually the case, what would that have to do with whether it automatically follows one cannot be false to any man if they are true to themselves, especially when Polonius himself is false to Hamlet and presumably others? While it will take until the fourth act of the play for this to come to fruition, Polonius’ literally false dealing with Hamlet, as in hiding behind a curtain to spy upon him and his mother, leads directly to this death. Is Polonius merely a hypocrite, giving his son advice he doesn’t heed himself?
While that might be one way to see things, he pretty clearly follows the advice of putting on a show to demonstrate your prestige and power, and though he speaks in an overly complicated fashion to demonstrate his wisdom, he rarely does so out of turn, at least in public exhibiting the probity he urges in his son. Complicating matters further, Polonius delivers his advice to Laertes immediately after Laertes delivers some select advice to his sister, the doomed Ophelia concerning her love affair with Hamlet. He begins by telling her that the dalliance on the prince’s part is merely a “fashion and a toy in blood, A violet in the youth of primy nature, forward, not permanent.” When she asks him how he’s sure this is the case, he tells her it’s the nature of growing up as a royal because at some point, he will marry for position and power rather than his own romantic inclinations. “Perhaps he loves you now, And now no soil nor cautel doth besmirch The virtue of his will; but you must fear, His greatness weighed, his will is not his own, For he himself is subject to his birth. He may not, as unvalued persons do, Carve for himself, for on his choice depends The safety and the health of this whole state.” After, he repeats again that Hamlet may well love her at the moment, but it will end and the result will be a “loss your honor may sustain If with too credent ear you list his songs Or lose your heart or your chaste treasure open To his unmastered importunity. Fear it, Ophelia; fear it, my dear sister, And keep you in the rear of your affection, Out of the shot and danger of desire.” Like his father will in a few moments, Laertes closes his warning with platitudes dressed up in fancy language. “The chariest maid is prodigal enough If she unmask her beauty to the moon. Virtue itself ’scapes not calumnious strokes. The canker galls the infants of the spring Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, And, in the morn and liquid dew of youth, Contagious blastments are most imminent.” Therefore, she should be wary because the “best safety lies in fear.” In response, Ophelia promises to do as he says, but then aware that he might be a hypocrite – potentially like her own father – urges him to “Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads.” Interestingly, Laertes himself doesn’t acknowledge his father’s advice after it’s given, saying only, “Most humbly do I take my leave, my lord” and then telling Ophelia once again to “remember well What I have said to you.”
This prompts Polonius to question Ophelia about their conversation. While she doesn’t reveal the full contents, she does say that it was “something touching the Lord Hamlet.” Polonius, however, isn’t surprised, saying that he is aware the prince has “Given private time to you, and you yourself Have of our audience been most free and bounteous” even as it might not behoove his “daughter” and “honor.” “What is between you? Give me up the truth.” When Ophelia reveals that Hamlet has “made many tenders Of his affection to me,” her father isn’t amused, saying she speaks “like a green girl.” Ophelia, clearly confused, claims to not know what to think, prompting her father to tell her once again that his own honor is at risk, “Tender yourself more dearly, Or (not to crack the wind of the poor phrase, (Running it thus) you’ll tender me a fool.” After, he claims to understand her position as a young woman, “I do know, When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter, Giving more light than heat, extinct in both Even in their promise as it is a-making, You must not take for fire.” Ironically, considering how the story will unfold, he then commands her to avoid Hamlet and “Be something scanter of your maiden presence. Set your entreatments at a higher rate Than a command to parle.” He concludes, “I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth Have you so slander any moment leisure As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. Look to ’t, I charge you. Come your ways.” Though Ophelia dutifully agrees to obey him, Polonius chooses to exploit her in this manner shortly afterwards, attempting to leverage Hamlet’s affection for her in his scheming with the king to root out whether or not Hamlet is truly made and hence dangerous. Rather than protecting her, he tells both Claudius and Gertrude that Ophelia has given him a letter from Hamlet professing his love for her. Typically, he protests that he’d commanded Ophelia to avoid Hamlet because he was too far above her station, but then he tells them that “You know sometimes he walks four hours together Here in the lobby…At such a time I’ll loose my daughter to him.” While the arranged meeting proceeds, he and the king will “behind an arras then. Mark the encounter. If he love her not, And be not from his reason fall’n thereon, Let me be no assistant for a state, But keep a farm and carters.” During this, Hamlet, suspecting he is subject to the scheming of the king and Polonius, and told by the ghost that the king killed his father, spurns Ophelia brutally, telling her to go to nunnery rather than pretend to be his love, setting her on the first step towards madness and ultimately suicide. Ophelia’s death then prompts Laertes, returned from France, to take revenge on Hamlet, leading directly to his own death along with Hamlet, Claudius, and Gertrude.
Thus, if Polonius had taken his own advice to be true rather than false and kept his command to his daughter to avoid Hamlet, his daughter and the royal family might still be alive. Instead, because he is unable to be anything except false and scheming, tragedy ensues. Shakespeare, as ever, defies easy interpretation by transforming an ill-conceived platitude into one of the hinges of the play’s entire plot, further embedding that platitude in a scene in which the various participants’ refusal to take their own advice results in all of their deaths, and several others. While we might look at each statement on a standalone basis, the reality is we must always consider the source, the context, and the overall dynamics, which are quite frequently not what they seem, as we have seen in this famous, though frequently misinterpreted sequence. Finally, if we might distill one lesson in a play that avoids easy lessons on purpose, perhaps we should actually do what we say and practice what we preach, rather than being the ungracious pastor doomed Ophelia imagines.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 