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"wretched, rash, intruding fool"
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Act 3,
Scene 4
Lines 31b-39

A discussion of Hamlet's description of Polonius after killing him in Act 3, Scene 4 of myShakespeare's Hamlet. 

myShakespeare | Hamlet 3.4 “wretched, rash, intruding fool”

Hamlet

                        Ay, lady, 'twas my word.       
[To Polonius’s body] Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.    
[To Gertrude] Leave wringing of your hands. Peace, sit you down, 
And let me wring your heart, for so I shall
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damnèd custom have not brazed it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.    
Video Transcript: 

RALPH: Hamlet's final words to Polonius are a kind of brief and bitter eulogy to the older man.

SARAH: He calls him a wretched, rash, intruding fool... all of which have some justification in Polonius's behavior.

RALPH: Hamlet says, I took thee for thy better, meaning I mistook you for your superior, that is the King. But it might also suggest that Hamlet assumed he had a more serious and dangerous opponent behind the curtain.

SARAH: Hamlet's final words to Polonius are indeed harsh: he says that he deserves his fate, and that "to be too busy" - to be a meddlesome busybody - is indeed dangerous.