GUILDENSTERN        Heavens make our presence and our practices

Pleasant and helpful to him.

GERTRUDE                Ay, amen.

Exeunt Rosencrantz, Guildenstern [and one or more Courtiers].

Enter Polonius.

POLONIUS      Th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord,

Are joyfully returned.

CLAUDIUS      Thou still hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUS      Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege

I hold my duty as I hold my soul,

Both to my God and to my gracious King;

And I do think, or else this brain of mine

Hunts not the trail of policy so sure

As it hath used to do, that I have found

The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy. (2.2.38-49)

Guildenstern’s totally on message, even if they are perhaps visibly worrying what they’ve let themselves in for: heavens make our presence and our practices pleasant and helpful to him. Gosh, I really hope we can help! We’ll do our best! Amen to that, adds Gertrude—and there’s opportunity in the manner of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s exit to continue to establish the dynamic of the court: do they leave with a helpful servant, or implicitly under guard, with a minder?

Polonius, with news, but not of Ophelia: th’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, are joyfully returned. That mission you sent them on: success! (A reminder that there is a world elsewhere in the play, that there is the threat of war, that diplomatic efforts, political negotiations are ongoing.) Thou still hast been the father of good news, says Claudius, a rather odd idiom, perhaps forcedly jocular, which seems presciently ironic, given what Polonius is presumably about to say. You always tell me the good stuff, he means, I can count on you. Polonius is ponderously literal, and also vague. Have I, my lord? I assure my good liege—you can be absolutely confident—I hold my duty as I hold my soul, both to my God and to my gracious King. I do my best; I regard my job as a sacred charge. A note of doubt (and this is a key moment for a Polonius who is losing his grip): and I do think, or else this brain of mine hunts not the trail of policy so sure as it hath used to do, so long as I’m still on top of things, every bit as able to find out what’s what as I’ve always been—that being the case, I think that I have found the very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy. I’ve cracked it! I know why he’s gone mad!