CLAUDIUS      Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUS      He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave

By laboursome petition, and at last

Upon his will I sealed my hard consent.

I do beseech you give him leave to go.

CLAUDIUS      Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine

And thy best graces spend it at thy will.      (1.2.57-63)

This continues to be all about Polonius; perhaps Claudius doesn’t much care what Laertes does, even. Have you your father’s leave? What says Polonius? Does your dad say you can go? He’s the one whose opinion really matters here. (Claudius, family man, attentive to the bond between fathers and sons.) He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave by laboursome petition: he wore me down eventually, and at last upon his will I sealed my hard consent. He can go, with my permission and my blessing. It’s a good introduction to Polonius, his tendency to pomposity and verbosity—although he can play it lightly, with a note of mockery, reducing Laertes to a child begging please dad, please please please, and making himself out to be the stern legalistic father. Laertes can react fondly—and there can also be a note of real sadness in Polonius’s response; he doesn’t want Laertes to go away again, but he’s not going to stop him. I do beseech you give him leave to go. Oh families and their complexities. SO GOOD.

Take thy fair hour, Laertes, time be thine and thy best graces spend it at thy will. Off you go: it’s your time, and I know you’ll make the absolute most of every opportunity that you have. Smooth, magnanimous, quite paternal.