POLONIUS      What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIA        He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders

Of his affection to me.

POLONIUS      Affection? Pooh, you speak like a green girl

Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his ‘tenders’, as you call them?

OPHELIA        I do not know, my lord, what I should think.          (1.3.97-103)

What is between you? Give me up the truth. Out with it: what’s going on between you and Hamlet? Tell me the truth. (Polonius is getting fiercer, and he is a man who is used to getting what he wants, and to being obeyed.) Ophelia continues to be scrupulously polite and formal, although there can be a note of defiance: he hath, my lord, of late made many tenders of his affection to me. It’s partly circumlocution as evasion and as formality—tenders of affection rather than declarations of love, for instance—but it’s also a kind of embarrassment and self-protection; she doesn’t come out and say, Hamlet says he loves me! And I think I love him! It’s private! And also, it’s new, and tentative, and I’m not sure what’s going on either. But I don’t want you to laugh at me, so I’m keeping it a bit vague.

Affection? Affection? Pooh, you speak like a green girl unsifted in such perilous circumstance. You naïve little fool, you haven’t got a clue have you? Mocking as well as stern, and worried. Do you believe his ‘tenders’, as you call them? These declarations, these offers? And tender is financial and legal, but it can also bring its other sense here, of tenderness, kindness, comfort. There’s a bit of gaslighting here: you can’t believe what you’ve heard from Hamlet, you can’t trust what you’ve felt when you’re with him. I do not know, my lord, what I should think. Continuing defiance is possible—I know perfectly well what I think but I’m not telling you—or else a crumbling, this is actually the way it goes in this family, what father wants, he gets, and what he wants is control, everyone on the same page. You’re going to tell me what to think, aren’t you? Or, actually, yes, I’m a bit out of my depth here, dad. Hamlet’s in such a mess and I’ve been trying to help but he’s all over the place.