POLONIUS      And then, sir, does ’a this, ’a 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’.

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 ’a 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.        (2.1.48-59)

If this scene is being played in full, then perhaps more than any other, it requires serious decisions about the character of Polonius. Is he slipping into senility, repeating himself, losing his train of thought? Is he drunk? In either case, how much power and authority does he now have at the Danish court? Here, he seems to have lost it, imagining a hypothetical conversation with a hypothetical Dane in Paris, and then, sir, does ’a this, ’a does—what was I about to say? By the mass, I was about to say something! Where did I leave? What was I saying? There can be real fear—knowing that he’s losing his grip—and it’s reinforced by the colloquial ’a, for he—an accent slipping, even—and perhaps also his oath, by the mass, old-fashioned, perhaps ill-advised in Protestant England at least.

Reynaldo might be smooth, cynical, looking at his watch; he might be aghast at this deterioration of his boss, perhaps his mentor; there’s a potential laugh if he’s reading back from the notes he’s been scribbling: you got as far as ‘closes in the consequence’, ‘he says, therefore’. Ah yes, gotcha, ay, marry, he closes thus, this is what he might say, responds Polonius. ‘I know the gentleman, I saw him yesterday, or th’other day, or then, or then, with such or such’. Yes, I’ve seen him, he was with—these particular people. Polonius can see this, hear this in his mind’s eye, in his head; there’s a slight pathos in imagining this conversation about his son, which he’s not going to be able to have himself.

‘And as you say’ (says this hypothetical Dane in Paris) ‘there was ’a gaming, there o’ertook in’s rouse, there falling out at tennis’: yes, I saw him gambling, and falling down drunk, getting into a quarrel on the tennis court, or even, perchance (and here Polonius might steel himself, or look resigned, or just carry on, completely in the world of this fantasy conversation) ‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’, videlicet, by which I mean, a brothel. Yes, it might come to that, be prepared, Reynaldo. Or so forth. Whatever.

This inevitably gets trimmed in performance, but there’s such scope for depth and complexity and perhaps pathos in Polonius’s character—and this long, wandering exchange with Reynaldo can be crucial in setting up what happens later in the scene, and indeed the play…