¶ … madness, then there is method, to it, reflects Polonius in Act 2. In other words, even this old and foolish courier sees through Hamlet's charade of madness. Hamlet calls Polonius a fishmonger, slang for a keeper of a brothel, and indeed Polonius has been playing a cat and mouse game of his daughter's sexuality with the prince, advising her to be coy with Hamlet, and then saying that the girl's beauty is the cause of the young man's madness. Hamlet himself says that he will assume a guise of madness after the appearance of his father's ghost, but the extremity of the situation, and the lack of clarity of how this secures him an advantage at court -- to say nothing of his uncontrolled performance with his mother after "The Mousetrap" suggests that although Hamlet plays at madness, his reasons for deliberately seeming mad often are entirely illogical, and shift from moment to moment.
Question
Polonius counsels his son to keep his own counsel, not to borrow from others, and basically to be a selfish individual. To thine own self be true is not a truth of one's true, internal self, but to be true to one's own interests. He tells Laertes to keep his good friends close to his heart, but Polonius' definition of friendship is not so much of fellowship, but who can prove politically advantageous to the young man.
Question
Two examples of sublime reasoning in the play are when Hamlet says to his old school friends before the arrival of the players that Denmark is a prison, simply because he feels that it is -- in other words, place and quality of place is a state of mind, rather than having an extrinsic reality. and, in regards to the players, Hamlet says they must be treated better than they deserve, in Act 2, because if they did not, who would escape "whipping." However, for faulty logic, Laertes is unparalleled, as he blames Hamlet alone not only for Polonius' death, but for Ophelia's madness as well, and willingly goes along with Claudius' underhanded plans to kill Hamlet in a slanted duel -- which, if he is as good a fighter as Claudius' says Laertes is, he should not need to cheat at
