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"Came each actor on his ass"
Cultural Allusion
Act 2,
Scene 2
Lines 389-

Hamlet's use of a popular ballad to equate Polonius with an ass in Act 2, Scene 2 of myshakespeare's Hamlet.

“Came each actor on his ass” is a line from a ballad popular at the time. When Hamlet links Polonius’ last two statements (“The actors are come hither … upon my honor”) and uses this line from the ballad to paraphrase them, he’s sarcastically equating Polonius with an ass.