CLAUDIUS O, speak of that, that do I long to hear.
POLONIUS Give first admittance to th’ambassadors.
My news shall be the fruit to that great feast.
CLAUDIUS Thyself do grace to them and bring them in.
He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son’s distemper.
GERTRUDE I doubt it is no other but the main –
His father’s death and our o’re-hasty marriage.
CLAUDIUS Well, we shall sift him. (2.2.50-58)
Yes, do tell us why Hamlet’s acting So WEIRD, says Claudius (not impossibly with heavy irony, but perhaps entirely straight); o, speak of that, that do I long to hear. I love it when you tell me that you’re going to tell me things rather than just telling me things. But this is Polonius, he’s going to take his time—and also, business of state will always take precedence, something which can be given poignant emphasis if Ophelia is with him, full of anxiety and apprehensiveness. Give first admittance to th’ambassadors, who are just back with good news from Norway, says Polonius, and then my news shall be the fruit to that great feast. An odd image: and for dessert, I’ll tell you why your son’s gone mad! Claudius is smooth, in control; he’s not going to express any frustration at this stage. Thyself do grace to them and bring them in, then, Polonius: go and get them!
And a suggestion that Gertrude is perhaps off to one side, not entirely involved (which can make for an interesting dynamic if a choice has been made to have Ophelia silently present: how might these two women interact silently with one another here, or not?) He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found the head and source of all your son’s distemper. I’m in control now, Polonius is reporting to me, is perhaps a subtext, but partly it’s a recap, giving Polonius time to fetch the ambassadors, or have them summoned. Polonius is going to tell us what’s wrong with your—your—son. Distemper is interesting; it suggests a humoral imbalance, being all out of kilter—out of joint—and it’s also a touch pejorative; dogs suffer distemper.
I doubt it is no other than the main, Gertrude replies, gloomily, guiltily, even (and perhaps the suggestion is that they’ve been talking and talking about this and Claudius hasn’t been listening): it’s his father’s death and our o’re-hasty marriage. This is our fault, at least in part. We should have waited. He was still reeling from his father’s death, and then we hit him with yet another thing. It’s the shock. (If the suggestion is going to be made that their relationship pre-dated Hamlet’s father’s death, this is one moment that allows that, a sense of particular guilt, and that even if the marriage were inevitable, expected even, there would still have been such a thing as a decent interval.) Well, we shall sift him. Let’s see, shall we? We’ll get to the bottom of this; we’ll see what Polonius has to say and question him fully.