POLONIUS      [aside] Though this be madness yet there is method in’t. — Will you walk out of the air, my lord?

HAMLET         Into my grave.

POLONIUS      [aside] Indeed, that’s out of the air. How pregnant sometimes his replies are – a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and my daughter. – My lord, I will take my leave of you.

HAMLET         You cannot take from me anything that I will not more willingly part withal – except my life, except my life, except my life.            (2.2.202-212)

He’s got a point and he’s making a kind of good sense, speaking logically, Polonius has to concede: though this be madness yet there is method in’t. Will you walk out of the air, my lord? Come inside? There’s been no need to specify whether the scene is indoors or outdoors; this is mostly to enable Hamlet’s bleak reply: walk out of the air? well yes, that’s what I’ll have done when I’m in my grave, when I’m dead. (Hamlet’s quibbling on will as volition, would you like to, as opposed to, will as future action.) Or, as some editors suggest, into my grave? what, right now? Polonius is again quietly impressed, marvelling at Hamlet’s ability to make sense: indeed, that’s out of the air, a grave is, by definition, underground after all. How pregnant sometimes his replies are, logical and coherent and, even more, full of a kind of profundity, full of meaning. But he reassures himself, perhaps: that’s a happiness that often madness hits on—after all, a stopped clock is still right twice a day, it’s just good luck or coincidence that he seems to be making sense—which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. Isn’t it odd, unfair, even, that mad people are seen to be in possession of great wisdom, while perfectly sane, reasonable people have no such luck in having their opinions and advice attended to. I will leave him and my daughter—the encounter with Ophelia may not be imminent (it is in Q1), but perhaps it could be played as Polonius reminding himself of next steps, thinking aloud about what he has to set up.

My lord, I will take my leave of you. Nice chatting, but I’d best be off, if you don’t mind? And Hamlet seizes on Polonius’s obsequious formality with a kind of savage glee for a final bitter quibble; he could deliver his lines with ferocity, or with a quiet, wondering desolation, or many shades in between: take your leave of me? you cannot take from me anything that I would not more willingly part withal—except my life, except my life, except my life. I can’t think of anything I’d rather lose, or have taken from me (it might take a moment for the force of Hamlet’s rudeness to land) than your company. Although, relatively speaking, in this moment at least—I’d prefer death even to that blessed release. Witty and bleak; it’s not much fun playing mad.