Though this be madness, yet there is method in't

This is another very short scene, of less than thirty lines; the shortest in the entire play, in fact. Hamlet describes the body of Polonius as 'Safely stowed' in the opening line. It's an odd description: indicating something neatly stored or packed away - perhaps concealed - but with the suggestion of later use. Hamlet's speech is disordered and irrational. He speaks in non-sequiturs and riddles when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern arrive, emphasising his distrust of former friends in his depiction of them as foolish: mere sponges who 'soak up the king's countenance' but will get their just desserts when they are squeezed out 'dry' in the end. Gone is the iambic pentameter that has mostly shaped Hamlet's speech previously,  but there is an interesting use of double syntax or syntactic slide   at the end of the scene.  (This is where meaning is created in one line and then recreated differently in the next - one of my favourite th...