A typical Polonian flourish, where he loses focus just at the point where he has gone too far in detailing some matter or expanding upon some phrase.

The Arden Shakespeare editors contend that this line begins as verse, “consistently with the preceding dialogue, then lapses into prose when [Polonius] realizes he has lost his thread.”

i.e., sunspots.

…if aster signify a spot of light [from the Greek for “star”]…disaster must, by reversal, be a spot of darkness, and ‘disasters in the sun’ no other than what we should call spots upon his disk.

–Horace Howard Furness, ed., Hamlet (1877).

Justin Alexander of the American Shakespeare Repertory believes that this line is misprinted in standard texts:

In preparing our script from the Complete Readings of William Shakespeare, however, I realized that, while Hibbard was on the right track, he’d misidentified which word had its final character misread by the compositor. Here is the correct reading of the passage:

…As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood
Disaster’d in the sun…

Those who had groped to find the missing verb in this morass (darkening, dimming, and distempering the word “disasters” in their efforts) were also on the right track… they just didn’t realize that the verb was staring them in the face, cleverly hidden by a “d” that had metamorphosed into an “s”.

Wherefore: Why.

Raising a question, Reynaldo injects a politic “good” into his usual “my lord.”

Claiming he sleeps with prostitutes, Reynaldo worries, would injure his reputation and stain his honor.

The bar is dressed up as a comfortable, homey environment, which its patrons imagine as a kind of “fort” (notice the military overtones) against the danger outside. In reality it can provide neither comfort nor protection against the world’s evils.

Jalousie windows, also known as louvre windows.

Image via Wikimedia

For that reason, we should have a backup plan that will ensure success in case the first one fails.

blast in proof: “blow up while being tried (a metaphor from gunnery)” [Riverside Shakespeare].

In this case, “plan B” will be poisoned drink.

Larry Kramer borrowed this phrase for the title of his famous 1985 play about the AIDS crisis, The Normal Heart.

Is this a poem about a higher Divinity worshipped by man, or man’s own Divinity?