Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 124+6 {In the most high and palmy state of Rome,} | 1.1.113 |
|---|
1723 pope1
pope1
124+6 palmy] Pope (ed. 1723): “in the other editions flourishing.”
1736 Stubbs
Stubbs
124+6-124+18 Stubbs (1736, p. 12): “The Description of the Presages which happen’d to Rome, and the drawing a like Inference from this supernatural Appearance, is very nervous and Poetical.”
1744 han1
han1 = pope1 without attribution
124+6 palmy]
1745 han2
han2 = pope1 but credits the gloss to Warburton
124+6 palmy]
1747 warb
warb = pope1
124+6 palmy]
1752 Anon.
Anon.
124+6-124+18 Anon. (1752, pp. 12-13): <p. 12> “
Shakespeare seems to have had before him
Virgil’s Description of the Prodigies preceding the Assassination of
Julius Caesar: As it is highly beautiful and poetical, I make no Doubt but the classical Reader will easily pardon me for inserting it. ‘—Sol extincto miseratus Caesare Romam, Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, Impiaque aeternam timuerunt secula noctem. Tempore quanquam illo telus quoque & aequora ponti, Obscaenique canes, importunaeque volucres Signa dabant. Quoties Cyclopum effervere in agros Vidimus undantem ruptis fornacibus AEtnam, Flammarumque globos, liquefactaque volvere saxa? Armorum sonitum toto Germania cœlo Audiit: Insolitis tremuerunt motibus Alpes. Vox quoque per Lucos vulgo exaudita silentes Ingens, & simulacra modis pallentia miris Visa sub obscurum noctis; Pecudesque locutae Infandum! Sistunt Amnes, terraeque dehiscunt; Et Maestum illacrymat templis ebur, aeraque sudant. Proluit insano contorquens vortice sylvas </p.12 ><p. 13> Fluviorum ex Eridanus; camposque per omnes Cum stabulis armenta tulit. Nec tempore eodem Tristibus aut extis fibrae apparere minaces, Aut puteis manare cruor cessavit; & alte Per noctem resonare, lupis ululantibus, urbes. Non alias cœlo ceciderunt plura sereno Fulgura; nec diri toties arsere cometae.’ Geor. Lib. I.” </p. 13>
1752 Dodd
Dodd: Anon without attribution + Virgil (Dryden), Ovid (Garth)
124+6-124+13 Dodd (1752, 1:213-15): <p. 213>“The learned reader will easily recollect the accounts, given by the
historians, of the prodigies preceding the death of
Julius Caesar: our author seems neither to have been unacquainted with that fine digression in
Virgil’s
first
Georgic concerning them, nor the account of them in
Ovid, which ’tis probable he might have imitated from
Virgil: I shall beg leave to subjoin them both.
“He [The Sun] first the fate of Caesar did foretel,
And pitied Rome, when Rome in Caesar fell.
In iron clouds conceal’d the publick light,
And impious mortals fear’d eternal night.
Nor was the fact foretold by him alone;
Nature herself stood forth, and seconded the sun:
Earth, air and seas with prodigies were sign’d,
And birds obscene and howling dogs divin’d.
What rocks did AEtna’s bellowing mouth expire,
From her torn entrails; and what floods of fire!
What clanks were heard in German skies afar,
Of arms and armies rushing to the war! </p. 213> <p. 214>
Dire earthquakes rent the solid Alps below
And from their summits shook th’ eternal snow;
Pale spectres in the close of night were seem,
And voices heard of more than mortal men.
In silent groves dumb sheep and oxen spoke,
And streams ran backward, and their beds forsook:
The yawning earth disclos’d th’ abyss of hell,
The weeping statues did the war fortel,
And holy sweat from brazen idols fell,
Then rising in his might the king of floods,
Rush’d thro’ the forests, tore the lofty woods,
And rowling onward, with a sweepy sway,
Bore houses, herds, and lab ring hinds away:
Blood sprang from wells, wolfs howl’d in towns by night,
And boding victims did the priests affright;
Such peals of thunder never pour’d from high,
Nor forky lightnings flash’d from such a sullen sky.
Red meteors ran across th’ ethereal space
Stars disappear’d, and comets took their place. Dryden.
Garth’s Ovid, B. 15. p. 354.
Among the clouds were heard the dire alarms
Of echoing trumpets, and clanging arms:
The sun’s pale image gave so faint a light,
That the sad earth was almost veil’d in night;
The aether’s face with fiery meteors glow’d,
With storms of hail were mingled drops of blood:
A dusky hue the morning-star o’erspread,
And the moon’s orb was stain’d with spots of red:
In every place the marble melts to tears,
While in the groves, rever’d thro’ length of years,
Boding and awful sounds the ear invade,
And solemn music warbles thro’ the shade:
No victim can attone the impious age;
No sacrifice the wrathful gods assuage:
Dire wars and civil fury threat the state,
And every omen points out Caesar’s fate:
Around each hollow’d shrine and sacred dome,
Night-howling dogs disturb the peaceful gloom;
Their silent seats and wand’ring shades forsake.
And fearful tremblings the rock’d city shake.
(Welsted [not in alphabib[?])
“The originals consist, the first of 23 lines, the latter of 16, the translations of 31 and 22 lines:
Shakespear has but eight: and perhaps, were we to say he was as expressive as
Virgil and </p. 214><p. 215>
Ovid on this subject, we might not be tax’d with too great partiality to him: however, it may be no disagreeable amusement to the reader to compare these three passages together, allowing for the great spirit the ancients must lose in a translation. See too [
JC 2.2.18 (1005]. ” </p. 215>
Dodd= warb without attribution
124+6 palmy]
1753 Blair
1753 = pope1; warb
124+6 palmy]
1755 Johnson Dict.
Johnson
124+6 palmy] Johnson (1755): “Bearing palms.”
1765 john1
john1 = pope1
124+6 palmy]
1771 han3
han3 = pope without attribution
124+6 palmy] Hawkins (ed. 1771, 6: Glossary): “victorious.”
1773 v1773
v1773 = john
124+6 palmy]
1778 v1778
v1778 = v1773
124+6 palmy]
1784 ays1
ays1 = pope without attribution
124+6 Palmy] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “Palmy for victorious, Flourishing.”
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778
124+6 palmy]
1787 ann
ann = v1785
124+6 palmy]
1790 mal
mal = v1785
124+6 palmy]
1791- rann
rann
124+6 palmy] Rann (ed. 1791-): “prosperous, triumphant.”
Ed. note: rann is the 1st to use his own synonyms
1793 v1793
v1793 = Pope’s def. only—minus the variant flourishing
124+6 palmy]
1819 cald1
cald1: standard
124+6 palmy] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Outspread, flourishing. Of victory palm branches were the emblem.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = jen without attribution +
124+6 palmy] Boswell (ed. 1821): “Mr. Rowe altered this poetical epithet to flourishing.”
Ed. note: The first players’ quarto introduced the variant in 1676. As late as 1821, many editors did not know the players’ texts.
v1821
124+6 palmy] Malone (apud Boswell, ed. 1821): “‘This tree [the palm ] is of a most aspiring nature: it will beare no coales. It resisteth all burden, bearing it upward with his arms and boughes. Therefore it is an hyeroglyphick or emblem of victory or conquest.’ Dyet’s Dry Dinner, by H. Buttes. 8vo, 1599.”
1822 Nares
Nares: standard + in magenta underlined
124+6 palmy] Nares (1822): “Grown to full height; in allusion to the palms of the stag’s horns, when they have attained their utmost growth. [quotes 124+6]
“It might, however, mean no more than glorious, in allusion to the palms of victory; and it must be allowed that a contemporary of Shakespeare has so employed it: ‘These days shall be ’bove other far esteem’d, And like Augustine’ palmy reign be deem’d.’ Drummond’s Forth Feasting, p. 131. ed. 1791.”
1826 sing1
sing1 = Pope, Mal +
124+6 palmy] Singer (ed. 1826): “i.e. victorious: the Palm being the emblem of victory. Chapman, in his Middle Temple Masque, has ‘high-palmed hearts.’ ”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1; Malone in v1821 +
124+6 palmy]
Caldecott (ed. 1832): “ ‘Like Augustus’
palmy reign be deem’d.’ Drummond’s
Fourth Feasting. Nares
Gloss.”
1833 valpy
valpy: standard
124+6 palmy] Valpy (ed. 1833): “Victorious.”
1844 verp
verp ≈ sing1 without attribution
124+6 palmy]
Verplanck (ed. 1844): “Victorious, triumphant; the palm being the emblem of victory.”
1845 Hunter
Hunter ≈ Anon. 1752 (except Hunter has Lucan not Virgil)
124+6-124+13 Hunter (1845, 2: 214): “I wonder that the commentators should have overlooked so obvious an origin of this passage as Lucan’s description of the prodigies which preceded the death of Caesar. We have the tenantless graves, the sheeted dead seen in the streets, the stars with trains of fire, and the moon’s eclipse. See the first book of the Pharsalia. It is of little moment to ask if Lucan had been translated when Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. The earliest published translation I believe is that of Sir Arthur Gorges in 1614.”
1849 Blackwood Mag.
John Wilson: Virgil’s
pulcherrima Roma +
124+6 state]
John Wilson (
Blackwood’s 66 [August 1849]: 252-4); <p.252> “Write henceforth and for ever State with a towering Capital. . . . ‘Most high and palmy State is precisely and literally [Virgil’s] ‘
Rerum Pulcherrima.’ State, properly republic, here specifically and pointedly means Reigning City. The ghosts walked in the city, not the republic. [. . .] </p. 252> <p. 253> [See 54]
“The Ghost has come and gone; and the Scholar addresses his Mates the two Non-Scholars. And show me the living Scholar who could speak as Horatio spake. Touching the matter that is in all their minds oppressively,
he will transport
their minds a flight suddenly off a thousand years, and a thousand miles or leagues—their untutored minds into the Region of History. He takes them to Rome—
a little ere’ and, therefore, before naming Rome, he lifts and directs their imagination—‘In the most high and palmy
State.’ There had been Four Great Empires of the World—and he will by these few words evoke in their minds the Image of the last and greatest. And now observe with what decision, as well as with what majesty, the nomination ensures—
of Rome. [. . .] Try [. . .] to render “State” by any other word, and you will be put to it. You may analogise. It is for the Republic and City, what Realm or Kingdom is to us—at once Place and Indwelling Power. ‘State’—properly Republic—here specifically and pointedly means Reigning City. [. . .]Now suppose that, instead of the solemn, ceremonious, and stately robes in which Horatio attires the Glorious Rome, he had said simply, ‘in Rome,’ or ‘at Rome,’ where then [. . .] </p. 253> <p. 254> his leading of their spirits? Where his own scholar-enthusiasm, and love, and joy, and wonder? All gone! [. . .] Every hackneyer of this phrase—
state—as every man alive hackneys it—is a nine-fold Murderer. He murders the Phrase—he murders the Speech—he murders Horatio—he murders the Ghost—he murders the Scene—he murders the Play—he murders Rome—he murders Shakspeare—and he murders Me.
[. . .]
“Why, suppose Horatio to mean—“in the most glorious and victorious condition of Rome, on the Eve of Caesar’s death, the graves stood tenantless’—You ask—Where? See where you have got. A story told with two determinations of Time, and none of Place! Is that the way that Shakspeare, the intelligent and the intelligible, recites a fact? No. But my explanation shows the Congruity or Parallelism. ‘In the most high and palmy State,’—that is, City of Rome—ceremonious determination of Place—‘a little ere the mightiest Julius fell,’—ceremonious determination of Time.”
“Talboys. But is not the use of State, sir, for City, bold and singular?
“North. It is. [. . .] Horatio wants the notion of Republicl because the Republic is high and palmy, and not the wood, stone, and marble. So he manages an expeditious word that shall include both, and strike you at once. The word of a Poet strikes like a flash of lightning—it penetrates—it does not stay to be scanned—‘probed, vexed, and criticized,’—it illuminates and is gone.” </p. 254>
1853 N&Q
J. M. B.:
John Wilson in
Blackwood’s [see above]
124+6 state] Anon. [J. M. B] (1853, p. 409): “Professor Wilson proposed that . . . state should be taken in the sense of city . . . .
“Query, Has this reading been adapted by our skilled Shakspearian critics?
“Coleridge uses state for city in his translation of The Death of Wallenstein, Act III. Sc, 7.: ‘What think you? Sat, shall we have the State illuminated In honour of the Swede?’ J.M.B.”
1856 hud1
hud1 ≈ sing1 minus analogue without attribution
124+6 palmy] Hudson (ed. 1856): “That is, victorious; the Palm being the emblem of victory.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc = hud1 without attribution (minus “That is”)
124+6 palmy]
1872 hud2
hud2 = hud1
124+6 palmy]
1877 v1877
v1877 see 124+1; = Hunter
124+ 6 - 124+18
v1877:
John Wilson via
cln1124+6 state]
1879 Clarke & Clarke
Clarke & Clarke: standard
124+6 palmy] Clarke & Clarke (1879, p. 59): “The palm being the emblem of victory, and the palm being often mentioned as typical of flourishing . . . [see 3542], our author here forms the poetical epithet ‘palmy’ to combinedly express ‘victorious and flourishing.’”
124+6 3542
1881 hud3
hud3 ≈ hud2, variation in magenta
124+6 palmy] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Palmy for victorious; the palm being the old badge of victory.”
1899 ard1
ard1 ≈ v1877; Wilson
124+6 state] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Wilson (Christopher North) pleads for “State” meaning Reigning City.”
1904 ver
ver
124+6 Verity (ed. 1904): “as if he meant ‘when Rome was at her zenith.’”
1909 subb
subb = ard1 +
124+6 state] Subbarau (ed. 1909): quotes Wilson (‘Christopher North’) at length, with some bracketed explanations: “. . . . ‘The Ghosts walked in the City,—not in the Republic . . . . [sic] Every hackneyer of this phrase,—State,—as every man alive hackneys it [[by using it in the sense of condition]], is a ninefold Murderer! He murders the Phrase; he murders the Speech; he murders Horatio; he murders the Ghost; he murders the Scene: he murders the Play; he murders Rome; he murders Shakespeare; and he murders Me.’ [[But the learned professor has murdered the phrase, ‘in the Roman streets’[124+9] for it cannot well remain along with ‘in the State (City) of Rome.’ [The line as a whole] “means nothing more than ‘in the most flourishing period of the Roman state.’]]”
1912 dtn3
dtn3: standard
124+6 Deighton (ed. 1912): “When Rome was at its height of power and glory.”
dtn3: standard
124+6 palmy]
dtn3 contra John Wilson
124+6 state] Deighton (ed. 1912): “Wilson would print ‘State’ with a capital, taking it as reigning city; but it is the time rather than the place which is here indicated; and the meaning is just as was the case with Rome when at the zenith of its power, so with us who have reached a higher point than at any previous time, omens give warning of approaching troubles.”
1913 tut2
tut2: standard
124+6 palmy]
tut2 ≈ Wilson and contra Wilson without attribution
124+6 state] Goggin (ed. 1913): “‘commonwealth,’ though the meaning may be ‘condition.’”
tut2
124+6-124+13 Goggin (ed. 1913): “For the omens that follow Shakespeare is indebted to North’s Translation of Plutarch’s Lives and Marlowe’s translation (1600) of Lucan’s Pharsalia, Book I.”
1931 crg1
crg1
124+6 high and palmy] Craig (ed. 1931): “triumphant sovereignty.”
1934 cam3
cam3: standard
124+6-124+9 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Cf. [JC 2.2.18ff. (1005ff.)]. One of the indications of the close connexion between the two plays. Both owe something to North’s Plutarch (‘Julius Caesar’).”
1935 Wilson
Wilson WHH: Lavater
124+5-124+13 Wilson (1935, p.77) contrasts Horatio’s bookish knowledge of spirits (possibly via Lavater) to Marcellus’s folk knowledge.
1939 kit2
kit2: standard
124+6 palmy] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "flourishing, triumphant."
1980 pen2
pen2
124+6-124+18 Spencer (ed. 1980): “Horatio discourses impressively to the two soldiers from his reading of Roman history. Perhaps he also shows an unexpectedly superstitious side.”
1980 pen2
pen2
124+6 Spencer (ed. 1980) declares that “Julius Caesar was regarded as the first Roman emperor and his rule as the high point of Roman prosperity (ordained by Divine Providence to produce a world at peace in readiness for the birth of Christ).” But then Spencer adds, “But Horatio means simply, ‘in ancient Rome, whose glories we all know about.’”
1982 ard2
ard2: North ≈ ard1
124+6 state]
1982 ard2
ard2: Muir on S&A; ≈ cam3
124+6 - 124+13 Jenkins (ed. 1982): LN refers to Wilson on analogues. It’s hard to see if there is anything original here.
1987 oxf4
oxf4
124+6-124+13 Hibbard (ed. 1987) conjectures that Sh. recalls the portents from memory, derived ultimately from Plutarch and Ovid.
1987 Mercer
Mercer
124+6 - 124+18 lemma] Mercer (1987, p. 131): “ . . . although this visitation is the precursor of feared events . . ., it does not really belong among this catalogue of eschatological and astronomical horror. The night sky of Denmark is not full of bloody portents . . . It is a solidly material world, which seems far more to be threatened by a local territorial dispute than to be engulfed by apocalypse”
1992 fol2
fol2: standard
124+6 palmy] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “triumphant, worthy to ’bear the palm’ “
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: standard; OED
124+6 palmy] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “flourishing, worthy to ’bear the palm’, a traditional symbol of triumph (a Shakespearean coinage, according to OED ”
