I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2. In Shakespeare’s classic masterpiece Hamlet, many people debate whether Hamlet is mad, or if he just pretending to be mad. Polonius, in speaking to the King and Queen, Claudius and Gertrude, seems to be in little doubt about it. Ironically, the pompous old windbag, normally given to overelaborate speech, is brief and to the point here.