CLAUDIUS      Do you think this?

GERTRUDE                It may be, very like.

POLONIUS      Hath there been such a time – I would fain know that –

That I have positively said ’tis so

When it proved otherwise?

CLAUDIUS      Not that I know.

POLONIUS      Take this from this if this be otherwise.

If circumstances lead me I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed

Within the centre.     (2.2.149-156)

Claudius brings Gertrude in; after all she knows her son better than he does: do you think this? is it plausible that Hamlet’s state is all down to unhappiness in love? Gertrude might be eager, seizing on this explanation as an alternative to her own guilty diagnosis, that Hamlet’s been destroyed by his father’s death and her remarriage: it may be, very like. Yes, that could absolutely make sense, although there’s still room for a note of doubt. Polonius is back in control, affronted (or perhaps performing a kind of affront, jocular and reassuring rather than offended): hath there been such a time—I would fain know that, go on, tell me, I can take it—that I have positively said ’tis so when it proved otherwise? Have I ever been wrong or mistaken in cases such as this? Claudius is allowed to be amused at this pomposity, or else he could needle back a bit, suggesting that it’s not that Polonius is never wrong, it’s that he knows how to cover his tracks, the old fox: not that I know. But Polonius is undaunted, confident, full sail: take this from this if this be otherwise. Cut off my head if I’m wrong! (Ophelia, if present, is allowed an eye-roll or a hard-stare at this self-delusion, self-aggrandizement, especially as her father has just given his own somewhat edited account of her relationship with Hamlet.) If circumstances lead me I will find where truth is hid: I will assemble the evidence and get to the bottom of this—though it, truth, were hid indeed within the centre. I am unstoppable, indefatigable! The centre is the centre of the earth, the most inaccessible place—but here it also suggests a kind of anatomising, a searching inward, below the surface, one of the play’s characteristic conceits. I’ll not stop until I’ve found the heart of the matter, says Polonius.