Polonius

Polonius is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. He serves as the Lord Chamberlain and chief adviser to King Claudius in the Danish court. A verbose, loyal, and meddlesome courtier, Polonius embodies the public-facing adviser who values propriety, reputation, and political maneuvering. He is the father of Ophelia and Laertes and is known for dispensing moral counsel, including the line “This above all: to thine own self be true.”

In the play, Polonius seeks to control and monitor others to protect courtly order. He arranges for Ophelia to end her relationship with Hamlet, hoping to prevent political complications and protect his own position. He also dispatches Reynaldo to spy on Laertes in Paris. Polonius himself hides behind the arras to eavesdrop on Hamlet’s discourse with Gertrude, a deception that leads Hamlet to kill him by stabbing through the screen. Polonius’s death accelerates the unfolding tragedy, prompting Ophelia’s decline and Laertes’s return to Denmark, and intensifying Claudius’s schemes against Hamlet.

Scholars and directors often read Polonius as a satirical figure of courtly bureaucracy or as a more complex, sometimes sympathetic, parental counselor. He functions as a foil to Hamlet, illustrating themes of appearance versus reality and the dangers of manipulation. In various productions, actors have depicted him as either a comic, pompous schemer or a sharper, more menacing opportunist, underscoring his role as a pivotal catalyst within the drama’s political and domestic intrigues.