Fell into a sadness, then into a fast, / Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness, / Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension, / Into the madness wherein now he raves, / And all we wail for.
Act II, Scene 2 · Polonius
Context
Polonius describes to Claudius and Gertrude the stages by which Hamlet supposedly descended into madness after Ophelia rejected him.
Analysis
The anaphora of 'Thence to' makes Hamlet's decline sound mechanical, as if one symptom automatically produces the next. This chain-reaction model of madness is too neat—it reflects Polonius's need for clear cause-and-effect, not the ambiguity of Hamlet's actual behavior.
Essay Tip
Use this to argue that the court imposes narratives on Hamlet that serve their own needs—Polonius's tidy sequence ignores Hamlet's grief, his father's murder, and his mother's remarriage because those explanations would implicate the people in power.