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Line 1211 - Commentary Note (CN) More Information

Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.
1211 Ham. Excellent <excellent> well, you are a Fishmonger.2.2.174
1765- davies
davies
1211 Fishmonger] Davies (1765-): does not mean that Polonius was a [huckster?] of fish [?]. for mens thought,
Hamlet ^seems to insinuates here that He was not a seller of Fish but an Angler ^ a spy [scratch] employed by the King to fish Secrets from him—”
1784 Davies
Davies ≈ Davies
1211 Fishmonger] Davies (1784, p.43): "The word fishmonger is made use of by Hamlet to disguise his real meaning, which is,’You are a fisherman, and angle for me; you want to know my real designs, or to pluck out the heart of my mystery.’”
1790 anon.
anon.
1211 Fishmonger.] Anon (ms. notes, ed. 1790): “See Jonsons Masque of Christmas p. 277.”
1791- rann
rann ≈ Davies
1211 Fishmonger.] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—a fisherman, and mean to angle out of my secrets.”
1794 Whiter
Whiter ≈ Davies, anon
1211 Fishmonger] Whiter (1794, pp. 152-3 n; rpt. 1967, pp. 132-3 n. 1 ): <p. 132>“Why should Hamlet mistake Polonius for a Fishmonger? Though I am not able to inform the reader respecting the full force and nature of the exquisite reason, which belongs to this denomination; yet I can certainly convince him that some reason (such as it is) existed in the mind of the Poet. In Jonson’s Christmas Masque, (595 [1616]) Venus is introduced as a Tire-Woman [Fire-Woman /Sp. I. 1794], and thus speaks of her son Cupid. ‘I had him by my first husband; he was a Smith, forsooth; we dwelt in Do-little-lane then: He came a month before his time, and that may make him somewhat imperfect: But I was a Fishmonger’s Daughter.’—We see now, that some opinion prevailed, which induced Hamlet, who is still harping on the daughter of Polonius, to </p. 132> <p. 133> mistake the father for a Fishmonger; though I shall leave others to discover the peculiar notion which was attached to this matter. Probably it was supposed, that the daughters of these tradesmen, who dealt in so nourishing a species of food, were blessed with extraordinary powers of conception.—I am surprised that this passage has escaped the diligence of our Critics.” </p. 133>
1818-19 mclr2
mclr2 ≈ Davies +
1211-19 Coleridge (ms. notes 1819 in Ayscough, ed. 1807; rpt. Coleridge, 1998, 12.4:846-7): <p. 846>“—i.e. You are sent to fish out the secret./ This is Hamlet’s meaning. The purposely obscure lines--For if the Sun &c. I rather think refers to some thought in Hamlet’s mannind contrasting the lovely daughter with such a tedious old fool, her Father: as he represents Polonius to himself.—‘Why, fool as he is, he is some degrees in rank above a dead dog’s carcase—and if the Sun, being a God that kisses carrion can raise life out </p. 846><p. 847> of a dead Dog, why may good fortune, that favors fools, have raised a lovely Girl out of this dead-alive old fool.[‘]—”</p. 847>
1819 cald1
cald1
1211 Fishmonger] Caldecott (ms. notes in CALDECOTT ed. 1819)“i.e. a wencher. ‘Senex fornicator, an old fishmonger.’ Barnaby Risk’s Irish Hubbub.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = cald1 (without attribution)
1211 you are a Fishmonger] MALONE (apud. ed. 1821): “Perhaps a joke was here intended. Fishmonger was a cant term for a wencher. So, in Barnaby Rich’s Irish Hubbub: ‘Senex fornicator, an old fishmonger.”
1843 col1
col1
1211 Excellent well,] Collier (ed. 1843): “The folio spoils the line, if line were intended, by repeating ‘excellent.’”
1847 verp
verp = Coleridge
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
hud1: coleridge
1211 you are a Fishmonger] Hudson (1851-6) cites Coleridge: "‘That is,’ says Coleridge, ‘you are sent to fish out this secret. This is Hamlet’s own meaning."
1872 hud2
hud2 ≈ hud1 + Fishmonger definition
1211 Fishmonger] Hudson (ed. 1872): “Fishmonger meant an angler as well as a dealer in fish. Hamlet probably means that Polonius has come to fish out his secret.”
1874 Corson
Corson ≈ col1 + Osric note
1211 Excellent well,] Corson (1874, p. 17): “The repetition of ‘excellent’ in the F. seems to express better the impact, don’t-trouble-me mood of the speaker. In 5.2. 173. when the absequious courtier, Osic, whom he despises, takes leave of him, there is a repetition of ‘yours’ with the same contemptuous coloring: ‘Osr. I commend my duty to your Lordship. Ham. Yours, yours;’ [Exit Osric. Then turning to Horatio,] ‘he does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s turn.’”
1877 clns
clns
1211 Fishmonger] Neil (ed. 1877): “He had been fishing for Hamlet’s secret, and was about to sell it (when caught) for royal favour.”
1881 hud3
hud3 = hud2 minus Polonius note
1211 Fishmonger] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Fishmonger meant an angler as well as a dealer in fish.”
1882 elze
elze
1211 you are a Fishmonger] Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare Dekker, The Honest Whore (Middleton, ed. Dyce, III, 114) where Bellafront, who assumes the mask of insanity, on being asked what the visitors to Bethlem Monastery are, answers: They’re fish-wives.”
1885 macd
macd
1211 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Now first the Play shows us his affected madness. He has a great dislike to the selfish, time-serving courtier, who, like his mother, has forsaken the memory of his father—and a great distrust of him as well. The two men are moral antipodes. Each is given to moralizing—but compare their reflections: those of Polonius reveal a lover of himself, hose of Hamlet a lover of his kind; Polonius is interested in success; Hamlet in humanity.
1890 irv
irv : Coleridge, malone, Whiter
1211 Fishmonger] Symons (in Irving & Marshall ed. 1890): “The word fishmonger is no doubt used in some entendre, but there are several meanings which can be assigned to it. Coleridge understands Hamlet to mean: ‘you are sent to fish out this secret.’ Malone cites a slang meaning of the word from Barnabe Rich’s Irish Hubbob: ‘Senex fornicator, an old fishmonger.’ Whiter (apud Furness) gives a passage from Johnson’s Masque at Christmas (vol. vii. P. 227, ed. Gifford), where Venus says she was ‘a fishmonger’s daughter,’ and observes that ‘probably it was supposed that the daughters of these tradesmen, who dealt in so nourishing a species of food, were blessed with extraordinary powers of conception.’ Probably the joke arose rather from the prolific nature of fish.
1899 ard1
ard1 = malone + : Whiter, Joubert
1211 fishmonger] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Malone: ‘Fishmonger was a cant term for wencher’; he cites B. Rich’s Irish Hubbub: ‘him they call Senex fornicator and old fishmonger.’ Farmer and Henbley’s Slang Dictionary gives obscene meanings under ‘fish’ and ‘fish market,’ which suggest that fishmonger may have meant bawd, but I have found no example. There are Elizabethan references to the smell of fishmongers, which here could be easily indicated by an actor, as if Polonius had brought an ill air with him. Presently, however, Hamlet discources on procreation, connecting Ophelia with his talk. Perhaps the following from Platt’s Jewell House, 1594 (p. 97, ed. 1653), may be cited: ‘And some hold the opinion that the females . . . do conceive only by licking of salt. And this maketh the Fishmongers’ wives so wanton and beautiful.’ Whiter notices that in Johnson’s Masque of Christmas, Venus, as a tire woman, says, ‘I am a fishmonger’s daughter.’ Does Johnson only mean sea-born, or mean wanton and beautiful? Joubert ( Secondie partie des erreurs populaires, 1600, p. 169) considers the popular opinion ‘que l’usage du poisson engendre beaucop de smence.’ See Apuleius’ curious defence against the charge that he had made a magical uses of fish in his courtship of a widow.”
1909 subbarau
subbarau
1210-1259 Subbarau (ed. 1909): “Commentators have met with many a stumbling-block in understanding this and the following interviews of Hamlet with Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the Players, Ophelia, etc., and no wonder, with their imperfect and incorrect comprehension of the events which transpired during the two months’ interval between the appearance of the Ghost and the return of the ambassadors. These will be fully revealed in the Exposition, but it may be as well to hint here — though it would sound quite strange — that Hamlet knows all about the advice given to Ophelia by her father and brother, that a new suitor had been introduced to her by her father at the instance of the King, that she had silently and without any open dissent received his addresses, and the rumour went forth that she accepted him and was to marry him very soon. Ophelia was, however, unshaken in her love to Prince Hamlet, and Hamlet had no misgivings whatever on that score, though he did not like that she should at all have permitted the new suitor’s addresses in obedience to her father.”
1211 Fishmonger] Subbarau (ed. 1909): “This word has been the subject of a good deal of random surmise and commentation. It is here used in a double sense. The outward meaning (to Polonius) is ‘you are a dealer in fish.’ The inner meaning (to Hamlet) is slang — ‘you are a bawd’ — and refers to the old man’s having introduced a new lover to his daughter. There may possibly be a secondary inner meaning, ‘you are a dealer in fished-out secrets,’ Hamlet suspecting Polonius to be a spy on him for finding out the cause of his madness.”
1934a cam3
cam3 : malone
1211 Fishmonger] Wilson (ed. 1934): “fishmonger i.e. fleshmonger, bawd. Malone quotes Barnaby Rich’s Irish Hubbub, ‘Senex fornicator, on old fishmonger’; and Dowden, his Herodotus, 1584 (ed. Lang, p. 131) . ‘Such arrant honest women as ate fishe for every man (i.e. harlots).’ Cf. also B. Jonson’s Masque of Christmas, in which Venus plays a ‘tire--woman’ and ‘ a fishminger’s daughter,’ and Middleton’s Anything for a Quiet Life, in which Margarita, the French bawd, is likewise the daughter of a fishmonger. A ‘fishmonger’s daughter’ therefore = a prostitute, and a ‘fishmonger’ = ‘a seller of woman’s chastity’ (Herford). The epithet has an added point as applied to one fishing for secrets.”
1982 ard2
Ard2 : Kitteridge, Coleridge, Malone, M.C. Andrews, D. Wilson, Dowden
1211 Fishmonger ] Jenkins (ed. 1982): "The shattering incongruity of calling Polonius a fishmonger wins an inevitable laugh, establishes Hamlet’s ’madness’, and might be point enough. But, Kittredge notwithstanding, it is natural to suspect some further implication. The view of Coleridge and others that Hamlet gibes at Polonius for fishing (for information) has provoked the just objection that fishing is no what a fishmonger does. Contemporary references make it easier to see that there was a joke attached to a fishmonger, and especially to having a fishmonger for your father, than to grasp what the joke was. Malone, citing Barnabe Rich, The Irish Hubbub (’him that they call Senex Fornicator, an old Fishmonger, that many years since engrossed the French pox . . . ’) is certainly right to say that a fishmonger could mean a wencher (see also Trivium, III, 94-100), which is a secondary meaning here (cf. l. 176n.). But a fishmonger was not only given to venery ; he was the cause of venery in others. It is generally supposed, though the evidence falls well short of proof (see Shaaber, SQ, XXII, 179-81, but in support
“M. C. Andrews in Renaiss. Papers, 1977, pp. 59-68), that a fishmonger, like a flesh-monger, was a trader in women’s virtue, i.e. a bawd ; and this sense too, as Dover Wilson insists, has its aptness here when Polonius is planning to ’loose’ his daughter to the prince. But more to the present point is the belief that the trade of the fishmonger was a particular stimulus to breeding, as is suggested by a remarkable passage in Sir Hugh Platt’s The Jewel House (1594) : ’Salt doth greatly further procreation, for it doth not only stir up lust, but it doth also minister fruitfulness . . . And Plutarch doth witness that ships upon the seas are pestered and poisoned oftentimes with exceeding store of mice. And some hold opinion that the females, without any copulation with the males, do conceive only by licking salt. And this maketh the fishmongers’ wives so wanton and so beautiful.’ This was tentatively cited by Dowden, seemingly without a full grasp of its relevance ; but if we perceive that the connection of ideas is salt, sea, fertility of mice at sea, fishmongers’ wives, we shall also see that fishmongers’ wives, simultaneously beautiful and wanton (cf. III. i. 107-14), are not only seductive but fertile. And (with daughter for wife and delivery for conception) this is obviously the point of Venus’s remark, in Jonson’s Christmas Masque, about the birth of her son Cupid, ’He came a month before his time . . . but I was a fishmonger’s daughter’. Fishmonger’s daughters, it appears, equally with fishmonger’s wives, had advantages in the matter of procreation. Hence the deeper significance of fishmonger here is to introduce the sequence fishmonger>daughter>breeding (conception). Thoughts of mating and breeding, focusing on Ophelia, are seen to haunt Hamlet’s mind. this ’method’ of exploiting his madness does not of course imply that Hamlet must be aware of Polonius’s plan for Ophelia ; to suppose so would be to misunderstand the ’method’. What Hamlet is all the time (even obsessively) aware of is that Polonius is Ophelia’s father. Cf. below ll. 399ff., where, with the fishmonger and his daughter replaced by Jephthah and his daughter, the same question is raised, about the fate of Polonius’s daughter, through the converse illustration. All this prepares for the putting of the question to Ophelia herself (III. i. 121-2). For fuller discussion, see ’Hamlet and the Fishmonger’, Sh. Jahr. (West), 1975, 109-29. Cf. Intro., pp. 150-1."
1985 cam4
cam4 : mal, cam3
1211 fishmonger] Edwards (ed. 1985): “ When Hamlet calls Polonius a fishmonger, he means fishmonger and not something else. It is the zany inappropriateness of supposing this dignified and self-important councillor an unsavoury low-class seller of fish that makes the joke. Since Malone’s time it has been commonly thought that Hamlet uses the term to mean wencher, bawd or fleshmonger. It seems true that fishmongers were thought of as a disreputable class (see Wilson’s note) but it is important not to let secondary meanings and connotations—which are far from certainly established—invade and overwhelm primary meanings and diminish the main point of a passage. Compare the very similar case of‘nunnery’, in the next scene.”
1211

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