"Pol. I have, my lord.
"Ham. Let her not walk i' the sun. Conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to it.
"Pol. How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone." [aside].
There has been much discussion of this passage, but no satisfactory solution of it. It is a good sample of the enigmatic style of speech characteristic of Hamlet, which presumably the audiences of Shakespeare's day comprehended, which of course the astute Polonius did not understand, and which puzzles later generations because they have lost the ancient significance of certain words. Polonius is so prejudiced in favor of his theory that it was "the very ecstacy of love" that troubled Hamlet, that he does not even attempt to fathom his allusions. And yet Hamlet's last remark, warning him about his daughter, rivets his attention, and he demands to know what is meant by it; but it is only for an instant, his illusion again diverts him from the matter, and the chance of explanation thus escapes.
Malone says that "fishmonger" was a cant term for a "wencher"; and in Barnabe Rich's 'Irish Hubbub' is the expression "senex fornicator, an old fishmonger." Possibly this is its primary significance in Hamlet's mind, for shortly afterwards he satirically says of Polonius to the players: "He's for a jig, or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps." In several instances Shakespeare similarly alludes to "fishing"; as in 'Measure for Measure,' i, 2, 91: "Groping for trouts in a peculiar river"; 'Winter's Tale,' i, 2, 195: "And his pond fish'd by his next neighbor"; and possibly in 'Antony and Cleopatra,' i, 4, 4: "He fishes, drinks, and wastes the lamps of night in revels." The word "monger" in compound words, as used by Shakespeare, does not always mean a trader in the article, but sometimes one who merely indulges in the act; as in 'Love's Labour's Lost,' ii, 1, 253: "Thou art an old love-monger"; in 'Romeo and Juliet,' ii, 4, 30: "These strange flies, these fashion-mongers"; and in 'Measure for Measure,' v, 1, 337: "Was the Duke a fleshmonger?" In common usage the word has this double significance, indeed, dependent upon whether its adjunct refers to a thing or to an act; as, for example, cheesemonger and scandalmonger, and other similar compounds which will readily suggest themselves. Hence "fishmonger" means both one given to "fishing" and a trader in fish. And doubtless the latter is its most important significance in Hamlet's mind, when Polonius denies that he is a fishmonger, namely that he is a trader in a food which from time immemorial has been supposed to be an aphrodisiac. Wherefore we are to understand Hamlet as meaning that Polonius is not so honest a man as the fishmonger that Polonius has in mind, or the senex fornicator that he originally had in mind, but that he is a fleshmonger,--a pander, as Tieck puts it;--"traders in flesh" such persons are termed in 'Troilus and Cressida,' v, 11, 46. It is supposed by Tieck that the allusion is to the way in which Polonius threw Hamlet and Ophelia together, by Friesen that it refers to his pandering to the desires of Claudius and the Queen before the old King's death, and by Doering that it points to his promotion of the o'er-hasty marriage of the King and Queen. But the foregoing discussion shows that the secondary thought in Hamlet's mind is that for some personal end Polonius permits Ophelia to accept the King's attentions, knowing the necessary effect of her youth and beauty on his licentious nature; for at his last interview with her he saw her father also, though apparently hiding from both of them, and therefore believes that he was cognizant of the fact that she had gone to the palace privately to meet the King. It is evidently this belief which inspires him with the contempt which he afterwards exhibits towards Polonius.
His next speech manifests this contempt in a notable degree, but it has been unappreciated because of the failure to perceive the significance of the word "sun." It is an argument intended to enforce what he had already said, and, supplying the omitted portion, the whole runs thus: You are not honest, and you cannot be honest; "for if the sun (in the sky) breed maggots in a dead dog, being a (heavenly) god kissing carrion," even so will the sun of this realm (the King) engender misdeeds in you, a corrupt man caressed by an earthly god. In characteristic fashion Shakespeare uses "sun" in a double sense, as he has just used "fishmonger," and again the occult reference is to Polonius as a procurer for the King.
And Hamlet follows this up by the warning concerning Ophelia; "Let her not walk i' the sun (shine of the King's favor); conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive (if she does so)." "Sun" in this passage means "sunshine" or "sunlight," as in ordinary usage it often does, but it is the light of the sun of royalty that he has just mentioned.
Hamlet's meaning is made so plain by this construction, that it scarcely needs argument to enforce it. It may however be remarked that, assuming its correctness in respect of the declaration that Polonius is not so honest as a fishmonger, its correctness as to the sun's breeding maggots in carrion and causing conception in Ophelia necessarily follows. The three enigmatical statements, thus interpreted, complement and explain each other, and therefore tend to prove each other; and the proof is strengthened by the fact that they are the sequelae of a single thought, namely, his belief in an intrigue between Ophelia and the King. On the other hand, conceding such a belief, a man of Hamlet's character would most naturally think these thoughts, and utter them in characteristic style to Ophelia's father:--The King breeds corruption in you as does the sun in a carrion dog, you are risking your daughter's honor to win his favor, and the experiment will probably end in her dishonor. Hence Hamlet's alleged belief, deduced from his three interviews with Ophelia, and these three resulting comments tend to prove each other's correctness.
Again, the sun is plainly credited by Hamlet with a double function, namely, corruptly breeding life in a dead dog and in a living woman, and the only possible means of harmonizing the two' statements, and of making sense out of the latter, is to assume that some man is typified by the second sun. It is generally admitted that an uncompleted argument is introduced by the particle "for," and, such being the case, it is a fair assumption that that also shall contain a reference to "the sun" as doing something which a man may do. On such an assumption, the argument is readily followed up: "For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog," so must "the sun" breed dishonesty in you, and so may "the sun" cause your daughter to conceive. These three propositions are consistent, the logical connection between them is perfect, and their reason and purpose is clear, if the term "sun" may figuratively indicate "the King."
Now, it is to be observed that Shakespeare not infrequently refers to kings as suns, and likens them to gods. When the King has pardoned her son, the Duchess of York exclaims: "A god on earth thou art"; 'Richard II,' v, 3, 136. "Kings are earth's gods," says Pericles; 'Pericles,' i, 1, 103. And again he says of the King, his father, that he "Had princes sit like stars about his throne, And he the sun, for them to reverence," Ibid., II, iii, 40, In 'Henry VIII,' i, 1, 6, Buckingham, referring to the meeting of the Kings of England and France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, styles them "Those suns of glory, those two lights of men." And Norfolk tells of the wondrous deeds done there, "when these suns (For so they phrase them) by their heralds challenged The noble spirits to arms"; Ibid., i, 1, 33. Again, adverting to the manner in which Cardinal Woolsey overshadows all other men in the King's favor, Buckingham says: "I wonder That such a keech can with his very bulk Take up the rays o' th' beneficial sun, And keep it from the earth"; Ibid., i, 1, 56. When the Cardinal has procured the King to arrest him, Buckingham foresees his speedy death, and again uses this metaphor in a passage which has been much misunderstood, Ibid., i. 1, 236: "I am the shadow of poor Buckingham, Whose figure even this instant cloud puts on By dark'ning my clear sun"; that is, whose body was even that moment entombed by the darkening of the King's countenance against him; he was already a dead man. (Compare the thought: "Darkness does the face of earth entomb When living light should kiss it"; 'Macbeth,' ii, 4, 10).[[1]] In like manner, in 'King John,' ii, i, 500, the Dauphin of France refers to himself as King, when he says to his father that his shadow, visible in the eye of the Princess, "Becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow." In Richard II,' iii, 2, 50, the King, likening himself to the sun, says that, as the "eye of heaven" reveals the dark deeds of night when he fires the proud tops of the eastern pines, "So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke ... Shall see us rising on our throne, the east, His treasons will sit blushing in his face." And again, Ibid., iv, 1, 260, transferring the metaphor to Bolingbroke, he wails: "O, that I were a mockery King of snow Standing before the sun of Bolingbroke, To melt myself away in waterdrops." In '1 Henry IV,' iii, 2, 79, the King speaks of "sunlike majesty, When it shines seldom in admiring eyes." In 'Richard III.' i, 1, 1, Gloster says, referring to the King: "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York." In 'Hamlet,' i, 2, 67, the King asks Hamlet: "How is it that the clouds still hang on you?" and he ironically replies: "Not so, my lord, I am too much i' the sun." Here again "sun" means "sunshine," and Hamlet, choosing to understand the King literally, and referring to the fact that clouds are dissipated by a genial sun, sneeringly protests that he is too much in the sunshine of royalty to have clouds hanging about him. Referring to a different effect of the sun's warmth, Prince John speaks of "The man that sits within a monarch's heart And ripens in the sunshine of his favor"; '2 Henry IV,' iv, 2, 12. There are other similar uses of the word "sun," which need not now be cited.