Page:Some Textual Difficulties in Shakespeare.djvu/40

22 than a sort of sublimated office boy carrying a message, and when he expands such service into the most sapient achievement and works in at the same time the highest declarations of loyalty, it makes him laughable and frequently such a bore that the queen has to remind him to tell, in direct plain language, what it is that he wishes to say. He is a travesty on the diplomatic cast of mind with its profundity, insincerity and wire-drawn distinctions. Polonius' anxiety to make an impression is a point of character which Shakespeare is always keeping before us. With regard to this line, therefore, that rendition must be correct which carries this point in the depiction of character. If we change it so that it loses its exceedingly logical, closely reasoned point and its involute construction, we have lost what Shakespeare wrote. Besides which there is the apposition between one and both, a method that is characteristic of Shakespeare's work throughout. The amended text loses all this. In short it is one which makes good sense while and does not. Substitute the latter and look at the statement closely. Besides being too tame and flat for Polonius, the whole statement becomes loose and uncertain.

But there is a more important point. The passage as a whole is a study in the art of flattery. Shakespeare has kept in mind certain subtle truths regarding human nature, and by choosing Polonius to put them in practice