Helmet to Polonaise, as the Su

Pol. Do you know me, my lord?

Ham. Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

Pol. Not I, my lord.

Ham. Then I would you were so honest a man.

Pol. Honest, my lord?

Ham. Ay, sir. To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man pick'd out of ten thousand.

Pol. That's very true, my lord.

Ham. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion—Have you a daughter?

This is an untypical paragraph of description. (There are few typical descriptions in a play script)

Helmet here used "fishmonger" to call Polonaise, which is a metaphor with a deep meaning. It is the same rhetoric used in the sentence "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion". We can regard this part as the first dramatic conflict between Helmet and Polonaise. Helmet satirized Polonaise, saying the latter is a dishonest man (by using fishmonger), a social climber (by using dead dog). And Helmet regarded himself as the sun, and could not bear disgusting men like Polonaise. Shakespeare revealed two men's characteristic deeply within such 8 lines of a dialogue.

2016-01-09

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