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