Polonius

Polonius is a character in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. He is King Claudius's chief counsellor, and the father of Ophelia and Laertes. Polonius connives with Claudius to spy on Hamlet. The latter eventually murders Polonius, provoking Ophelia's fit of madness and death and the climax of the play: a duel between Laertes and Hamlet. Although it is generally regarded that Polonius is wrong in all the judgements that he makes over the course of the play, he is described by William Hazlitt as a "sincere" father, but also "a busy-body, [who] is accordingly officious, garrulous, and impertinent." In Act II Hamlet refers to Polonius as a "tedious old fool" and taunts him as a latter day "Jeptha". In the first quarto of Hamlet, Polonius is...