POLONIUS                  Marry, sir, here’s my drift –

And I believe it is a fetch of wit –

You laying these slight sallies on my son

As ’twere a thing a little soiled with 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.   (2.1.37-47)

So Polonius starts to explain why he wants Reynaldo to go about his enquiries in such a roundabout way. Marry, sir, here’s my drift—and I believe it is a fetch of wit: the rationale behind my plan, which I think is a very cunning plan, though I do say so myself—is this. You laying these slight sallies on my son, as ’twere a thing a little soiled with working—if you accuse Laertes of these minor misdemeanours, the ordinary rough and tumble, wear and tear of being a young man abroad, bound to pick up a bit of grime along the way—just you see, mark you, your party in converse (him you would sound) the guy you’re talking to, the one whose opinions and intelligence you want to probe—well, if he has ever seen in the prenominate crimes, all of those things I’ve just listed, the drinking and gambling and women and so forth—if he’s ever seen Laertes, the youth you breathe of guilty, involved in that sort of thing, be assured he closes with you in this consequence: he, unlike me, will come straight out with it, without the slightest qualm; he’ll trust you. Of course, he (like me) won’t be too direct, first of all he’ll be formal, considered in his manner of address: ‘good sir’ (or so, something like that), he might say, or perhaps ‘friend’ or ‘gentleman’, according to the phrase or the addition of man and country. How he addresses you will depend on lots of things, what sort of man he is, what the customs of the country are. Monsieur, will he say? Or mon ami? Will it be a familiar tu or a formal vous? Now I come to it, there’s lots of considerations…

Very good, my lord, is all Reynaldo can say, with resignation, slowly losing the will to live. (He knows what he’s going to do: bribe Laertes’s landlady or servant and get a nice quick report, none of this indirection and subterfuge.)