SOURCE: Trienens, Roger J. “The Symbolic Cloud in Hamlet.” Shakespeare Quarterly 5, no. 2 (spring 1954): 211-13.

In the following essay, Trienens traces the relationship of the cloud-shaped whale—which Hamlet points out to Polonius– in Hamlet to the Gesta Romanorum's depiction of the whale as a signifier of lust.

When Polonius informs Hamlet of the Queen's urgent desire to see him, Hamlet feigns madness and points to the sky:

HAM.

Do you see that cloud that's almost in shape like a camel? 

POL.

By the mass, and it's like a camel, indeed. 

HAM.

Methinks it is like a weasel. 

POL.

It is back'd like a weasel. 

HAM.

Or like a whale? 

POL.

Very like a whale. 

HAM.

Then will I come to my mother by and by. Aside. They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by. 

(III.ii.393-402)

Hamlet's remarks about...