Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
1862 bailey
bailey= john, v1821 +
1713-14 Or...them] Bailey (1862, pp. 28-42): <p. 28> “Here I am struck at once by a glaring corruption in the text. Not only is there a most incongruous metaphor, from which good sense and good taste have long recoiled, but what is worse, the expressions employed do not contain a consistent meaning. They exhibit, on the contrary, incoherence of thought: what was manifestly in the mind of the author is not brought out: the train of reflection does not takes its natural or logical course: </p. 28><.p. 29> it begins with proposing one thing and ends with substituting another. The fourth and fifth lines [713-14] at once fail in proper purpose, and are such in themselves as no clear-headed thinker could have written. How could anyone entitled to be heard have possibly said or sung, ‘Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them?’
“Let us analyse the passage to show this.
“Hamlet, oppressed by the cruel position in which he is placed, begins his soliloquy by proposing to himself the question whether he shall continue to live or put an end to his life:— indisputably the plain meaning of ‘to be, or not to be.’
“He then proceeds to expand the question; very forcibly amplifying the first branch of the proposed alternative, namely to be, into the words ‘whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune;’ and we naturally expect him to amplify similarly the second branch or not to be, into some corresponding sentence or clause, such as, ‘or whether ‘tis nobler to escape from this multitude of troubles by putting an end to life and them together.’ In brief, whether ‘tis nobler to live or to die by one’s own hand. But when, instead of the matter being so presented, the sentence dissolves into something else, a sort of perplexity comes over the reader. He finds the second branch of the alternative converted into ‘or </p. 29><p. 30> whether ‘tis nobler to take arms against the numerous troubles that beset me and put them down:’ which is abruptly starting off from the natural and logical course of the speaker’s reflections;— an extraordinary and glaring instance of that inconsequence of thought which a superior writer can hardly fall into.
“In short, he first asks ‘shall I live on or commit suicide?’ and then, when he ought to state the same alternative more circumstantially, he proposes a quite different one, namely, ‘shall I live on, quietly suffering the evils of my lot, or, multitudinous as they are, shall I oppose and vanquish them?’
“We may safely conclude that
Shakespeare never committed a blunder of so gross a character, especially in a case where it was so easy, I may say indeed so much easier, to be coherent and correct.
“That he could not have proposed the last-mentioned alternative is further proved by the sequel.
“The subsequent lines all turn on the question whether it is better to live under evil, or die by one’s own hand and so escape from it, not whether the evil should be endured or be resisted and overcome. He shows why it is that we submit to the various grievances of life, when it is at any time in our power to rid ourselves of them ‘with a bare bodkin:’ we ‘rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of.’ Here is not a word about bearing evils in contradistinction to </p. 30><p. 31> opposing them, but a good deal about bearing known evils in preference to encountering unknown and perhaps greater ones by committing suicide.
“The observations which I have now presented to the reader, will be allowed, I think, to establish the conclusion, that the fifth and sixth lines are corrupt; in other words, they are not the lines which
Shakespeare wrote.
“But it is much easier to establish a strong probability that the text is not genuine, than to suggest with plausibility what the reading ought to be.
“After much consideration, trying all sorts of substitutions, and framing numerous hypotheses under the conditions before laid down, I am strongly inclined to regard the following emendation as a near approach at least to the genuine text, if not a complete restoration of it. Let not the reader start off at once at the magnitude of the alteration, but patiently consider the reasons assigned in its favour. ‘To be, or not to be— that is the question; Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against the seat of troubles, And by a poniard end them?’
“Trying this emendation by my own canons, I find that in the first place it corrects the gross inconsistency in the train of thought; it maintains the alternative with which the soliloquy began: in the second place it disembarrasses the passage from </p. 31><p. 32> the monstrous metaphor which is acknowledged by all to be an incoherent deformity. Nor is the emendation at all inferior in tone of thought or force of expression to what it displaces, or to the context in which it is inserted. It does not relax the tension of the soliloquy, notwithstanding its taking away what may be dear to the ears of many a devoted admirer— the sounding phrase a sea of troubles.
“In the next place, the phraseology introduced resembles expressions employed by
Shakespeare in other places. With regard to the word
seat in the proposed phrase
seat of troubles, which so used would of course denote the heart or breast, I find in ‘Twelfth Night’ the heart styled ‘the seat where love is throned.’ In ‘Hamlet’ the clause occurs ‘while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe,’ referring in this case to the head; and we have a similar reference in ‘Coriolanus’ — ‘the seat of the brain.’
“Other instances might be adduced to show the familiar use of the term in a manner analogous to that in which it is employed in the proposed emendation. Seat is a very frequent word in our author’s pages, and is applied in several ways which I shall have hereafter to notice. But the passage which appears to me to lend the greatest support to my emendation, although it does not contain the particular term in question, occurs in ‘Cymbeline’ iii.4, where Imogen is trying to prevail on </p. 32><p. 33> Pisanio to follow the orders of her husband Posthumus to take away her life: ‘Come, fellow, be thou honest; Do thou thy master’s bidding. When thou seest him, A little witness my obedience: look! I draw the sword myself: take it; and hit The innocent mansion of my love, my heart. Fear not; ‘tis empty of all things but grief: Thy master is not there, who was, indeed, The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike!’
“I have next to consider the word
poniard, which it is sufficient for form’s sake to show was employed by
Shakespeare on more occasions than one.
“By the help of Mrs. Cowden Clarke’s very valuable ‘Concordance,’ I find that he uses this word five times; enough to justify the introduction of it into any proposed emendation, as far as mere phraseology is concerned.
“The probability of its having been employed as suggested, rests partly on its accordance with the equivalent phrase bare bodkin, which follows a few lines after in the same soliloquy, and clearly indicates the mode of committing suicide predominant in the thoughts of Hamlet, namely, stabbing himself to the heart, not poisoning or drowning himself.
“It may be added that the expression bare bodkin seems somewhat harsh and abrupt, if it is taken as the first intimation of the particular method of escape from his misery which he was contemplating.
“The alteration in the meaning of the passage by </p. 33><p. 34> the proposed emendation is doubtless great, as it unavoidably must be, for no small alteration in that respect could redress the incoherence of the thoughts, banish the barbarous metaphor and rectify the want of consecutiveness throughout.
“But the verbal alteration by which these defects are removed, and appropriate sense and connexion restored to the soliloquy is in reality small. In the fourth line ‘the seat’ replaces ‘a sea’: in the fifth line ‘a poniard’ replaces ‘opposing.’* Such and no more is the whole extent of the verbal change.
“In point of sound the amended lines are so near the received ones, that the substitution of one for the other amidst the various liabilities to mistake prevailing at the time when the plays were first printed, could not have been difficult. An author
* In the progress of the error a poynard (so spelt in ed. 1604) might have been originally changed into opponing, and afterwards opponing have been replaced by opposing as the more common form of the verb. That the form oppone was occasionally used in that age may be shown by an instance which occurs in Ben Jonson’s ‘Alchemist,’ Act iii. sc. 2. With these old forms the transition from the text (as I propose to make it) to the received reading would be still easier. Let us put the two lines together. ‘And by a poynard end them.’ ‘And by opponing end them.’ How readily the one would be transmuted into the other is plain. The only difference worth notice is that between ard and ing, in itself not very formidable. </p. 34><p. 35> In the present day, would scarcely be surprised to find such errors in a proof from his printer.
In the course of my ruminations on the passage, I soon became satisfied that I had hit upon the right correction of the fourth line; none that I was able to think of could compete with it in claims to be adopted.
I did not however feel at first equally confident about that of the fifth line. Should the emendation of the fourth be admitted, the subsequent line, it occurred to me, might perhaps be considered allowable as it stood. On reflection, nevertheless, I could not help observing that the line in question would lose something of the little force it possesses, through my emendation of the preceding one, for it would be exceedingly weak to talk of ending the troubles by opposition when what the speaker meant has just been so strongly indicated to be suicide. Beside, in the received reading of the passage, taking arms against, which implies attacking, must be considered at the best as but poorly followed up by opposing.
Another reading, effected by a very trifling alteration, suggested itself,— the substitution of ‘deposing,’ for ‘opposing.’ ‘Or to take arms against the seat of troubles, And by deposing end them.’
One of the commonest significations of the word ‘seat’ in
Shakespeare’s writings is ‘throne,’ as </p. 35><p. 36> seen in such expressions as ‘seat of majesty,’ ‘heir to England’s royal seat,’ ‘the crown and seat of France,’ ‘the supreme seat, the throne majestical.’
In the proposed emendation, then, the seat of troubles might be taken figuratively as ‘the throne of troubles,’ and consistently with that metaphor the poet might proceed to speak of deposing them from their throne, the heart, and thus putting an end to their existence. A passage in ‘King John,’ might be adduced to countenance this language, where one of the citizens of Angiers speaks of being ‘King’d of our fear, until our fears resolved Be by some certain king purged and deposed.’ Act. ii. sc. 1.
There would be something in this reading accordant enough with the tendency manifested by
Shakespeare and all men of great wit to push their metaphors beyond the first stage of analogy, and it would also be quite consonant with the prevailing humour of Hamlet; but the prolongation of the figure would imply too light a play of fancy for the mental pressure under which the soliloquy was uttered, and would consequently lower the strength of the passage.*
*Besides the argument in the text, it deserves to be noticed that the last suggested reading, as will be manifest on reflection, would scarcely lapse into the received text more easily </p. 36> <p. 37>
On the whole the reading now proposed, ‘and by a poniard end them,’ appears to me decidedly preferable to either of the others, and this conclusion is strengthened by some further considerations.
The force of the preceding part of the soliloquy requires that in the fifth line the second branch of the alternative should be stated in plain and direct terms. And this is also equally necessary for the sequel. In the common reading no mention has, up to this point, been made of death, except as it is implied in the phrase not to be, and yet the sentence before us is immediately followed by the utterance of the words to die, intended evidently to take up the concluding idea of the antecedent clause. Hence that clause ought to speak of death.
In the received text this is not done, as every reader will at once see: ‘Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die— to sleep— No more’—
[footnote cont.] than the first; particularly if we compare the several readings when put into the old forms before mentioned. ‘And by opponing end them.’ ‘And by deposing end them.’ ‘And by a poynard end them.’ And this remark would hold good even if we were to alter deposing into deponing, although not so conspicuously; ard into ing is not a greater change than de into opp. </p. 37>
<p. 38> Here, then, is no proper transition from the conclusion of one sentence to the beginning of the other. The latter does not take up what the former lays down. ‘To die’ has no connection with opposing, and to find any kindred expression you are thrown back to the commencement not to be.
In the proposed emendation, this defect is wholly removed; the connection is close, the transition natural and direct: ‘Or to take arms against the seat of troubles, And by a poniard end them. To die— to sleep— No more—’
In a word, the expression to die so placed requires to be introduced by the mention of the act of suicide immediately before it, and this condition is fulfilled by the suggested alteration, and not by any other of the readings which have had our attention.
In reference to the incongruous metaphor ‘to take arms against a sea of troubles,’ it may be observed that it has been defended or palliated by bringing instances in which phrases analogous to ‘a sea of troubles,’ have been employed.
Thus, Theobald quotes from Æschylus the expressions ‘[Greek text],’ and ‘[Greek text].’
Shakespeare himself, I may add, has similar phrases: ‘Thus hulling in The
wild sea of my conscience, I did steer Towards this remedy.’
Henry VII. act ii. sc. 4. </p. 38>
<p. 39> ‘Put me to present pain Lest this great sea of joys rushing upon me O’erbear the shores of my mortality, And drown me with their sweetness.’ Pericles, act v. sc. 1.
We find besides, ‘seas of tears,’ and ‘to weep seas,’ which are rather exaggerations than tropes.
If, however, a thousand examples of such language could be adduced, they would not amount to the slightest justification of the condemned metaphor. The objection is not to the metaphorical designation
a sea of troubles, but to the figurative absurdity implied in ‘taking up arms against a sea of troubles,’ or indeed against any other sea, literal or imaginary. I question whether any instance is to be found of such a fight in the whole compass of English literature, previous to Mrs. Partington’s celebrated contention with the Atlantic. The character of her weapon, the only appropriate one that could be wielded in such a contest, is decisive that neither
Shakespeare nor Hamlet had in his head a battle with the ocean.
But were the metaphor unexceptionable, the principal proof of the corruption of the passage would, I repeat, remain; namely, that the lines as they stand do not sustain the alternative which in consistency they ought to have carried out, and which it was in fact the purpose of the soliloquy to expatiate upon.
I would further remark that in the passage cited </p. 39><p. 40> from ‘Pericles,’
Shakespeare shows a consistency in the management of the metaphor there introduced, which in itself, were it needful to urge such a plea in his behalf, would constitute a presumption that he could not have so grossly mismanaged the analogous one in Hamlet’s soliloquy. He carries on the figure through three lines without the slightest vacillation or flaw in the imagery— at least till he comes to the very last word, the incongruity of which with the rest strongly indicates a corruption of the text.
Drown with sweetness is an expression more applicable to a ‘butt of malmsey,’* than to ‘the great salt sea.’
Hence it may be suspected that the poet wrote something very different. It is the greatness, the rushing, the violence, which Pericles fears will overwhelm him, not the deliciousness of the joy. Our author may possibly have written, nay, I will even venture to say, probably wrote, surges, where now we find sweetness. ‘And drown me with their surges.’ or better still— ‘And drown me with its surges.’
What strengthens the probability is that Pericles had before made use of the same word: ‘Thou God of this great vast, rebuke these surges Which wash both heaven and hell.’ Act iii. sc. 1.
* ‘Richard III.’ </p. 40>
<p. 41> It is singular that Dr. Johnson, in his note to Hamlet’s soliloquy, totally misses the drift of the commencement, about which I have been occupied. He construes it as follows:—
[quotes Johnson]
On this comment, Malone very justly remarks:—
[quotes Malone]*
The learned Doctor evidently misapprehends the whole matter: he overlooks the question of suicide altogether, and even supposes possible death from a hostile encounter to have been in Hamlet’s contemplation— an oversight and a misconception which, in such a quarter, would suffice alone to indicate some kind of obscurity or confusion not
*Malone’s ‘
Shakespeare,’ vol. ix. p. 286, Boswell’s ed. </p. 41>
<p. 42>
Shakespearian in the lines that could furnish occasion for them, were such indirect evidence required.”