1 PLAYER       Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods

In general synod take away her power,

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven

As low as to the fiends.

POLONIUS      This is too long.

HAMLET         It shall to the barber’s with your beard. Prithee say on – he’s for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on, come to Hecuba.          (2.2.431-439)

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! You whore! O the inconstancy and uncertainty of the world! All you gods in general synod take away her power—can’t you control her? can’t you act together to stop this, the terrible chance and uncertainty and fickleness of things? You could break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel, dismantle it utterly, and bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven, cast its hub from the heights of Mount Olympus, as low as to the fiends. Break the wheel of fortune and throw the pieces into hell! End this! (It’s a magnificent image, on a cosmic scale—and it teeters near bathos, the broken wheel, the bowling ball crashing into hell, surprising fiends going about their legitimate fiendish business.)

Polonius makes an intervention which always gets a laugh, because it’s Shakespeare mocking himself too: this is too long. All very well, but, some edits? Hamlet’s not troubled by the length, he’s gripped, slapping Polonius down in a pretty perfunctory way: it shall to the barber’s with your beard. We’ll have it trimmed, then, old man, old grey-beard. (Hamlet could also be addressing the Player. It doesn’t matter.) Prithee say on—keep going, man! Polonius is no judge of dramatic quality, he has low tastes; he’s for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. He likes the silly, crude stuff—mostly he’ll just have a nap in the stalls. But say on—come to Hecuba. Keep going; I want to hear the part about Hecuba…