Line 1464-5 - Commentary Note (CN)

Commentary notes (CN):

1. SMALL CAPS Indicate editions. Notes for each commentator are divided into three parts:

In the 1st two lines of a record, when the name of the source text (the siglum) is printed in SMALL CAPS, the comment comes from an EDITION; when it is in normal font, it is derived from a book, article, ms. record or other source. We occasionally use small caps for ms. sources and for works related to editions. See bibliographies for complete information (in process).

2. How comments are related to predecessors' comments. In the second line of a record, a label "without attribution" indicates that a prior writer made the same or a similar point; such similarities do not usually indicate plagiarism because many writers do not, as a practice, indicate the sources of their glosses. We provide the designation ("standard") to indicate a gloss in common use. We use ≈ for "equivalent to" and = for "exactly alike."

3. Original comment. When the second line is blank after the writer's siglum, we are signaling that we have not seen that writer's gloss prior to that date. We welcome correction on this point.

4. Words from the play under discussion (lemmata). In the third line or lines of a record, the lemmata after the TLN (Through Line Number] are from Q2. When the difference between Q2 and the authors' lemma(ta) is significant, we include the writer's lemma(ta). When the gloss is for a whole line or lines, only the line number(s) appear. Through Line Numbers are numbers straight through a play and include stage directions. Most modern editions still use the system of starting line numbers afresh for every scene and do not assign line numbers to stage directions.

5. Bibliographic information. In the third line of the record, where we record the gloss, we provide concise bibliographic information, expanded in the bibliographies, several of which are in process. 

6. References to other lines or other works. For a writer's reference to a passage elsewhere in Ham. we provide, in brackets, Through Line Numbers (TLN) from the Norton F1 (used by permission); we call these xref, i.e., cross references. We call references to Shakespearean plays other than Ham. “parallels” (//) and indicate Riverside act, scene and line number as well as TLN. We call references to non-Shakespearean works “analogues.”

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Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

1464-5 showe you more, for looke where my | {abridgment comes} <Abridgements come>.

1765 john1

john1

1465 abridgment] Johnson (ed. 1765): “He calls the players afterwards, the brief chronicles of the time; but I think he now means only those who will shorten my talk.” [reads plural]

1773 v1773

v1773

1465 abridgment] Johnson (ed. 1730): “He calls the players afterwards, the brief chronicles of the time; but I now think he means only those who will shorten my talk.”

1778 v1778

v1778

1465 abridgment] Steevens (ed. 1778): “An abridgment is used for a dramatic piece in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act. 5. Sc. 1. ‘Say what abridgement have you for this evening?’ but it does not commodiously apply to this passage.”

1465 abstract] Steevens (ed. 1778, 1:[3]31 n. 7) on Wiv. 4.2.? (0000): “—an abstract—] “i.e. a list, an inventory. Steevens.”

1784 ays1

ays1=john+v1778

1465 abridgment comes] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “i.e. as Dr. Johnson thinks, those who will shorten my talk. An abridgment is used for a dramatic piece in the Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V. Sc. I.”

1787 ann

1465 abridgment] HENLEY (1787, p. 69): <p. 69> “Does not abridgment, in Midsummer Night’s Dream, signify amusement to beguile the tediousness of the evening? or, in one word, pastime?—” </p. 69>

1790- mtooke

mtooke≠john

1465 abridgment]Tooke (ms. notes, ed. 1790 “An Abridgement: i.e. that which cuts off further discourse or shortens our conversation. i.e. those who abridge or break off our discourse.”

1791- rann

rann

1464-5 my abridgment] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—my substitute, those that will take up my tale.”

1793 v1793

v1793

1465 abridgment] Steevens (ed. 1793) [adds the following information after the word “passage”: See Vol. V. p. 142, n. 4.]

1805 Seymour

Seymour

1464-65 my abridgment] Seymour (1805): “Hamlet here uses ‘abridgement’ in a double sense: as a dramatic scene—an epitome or brief representation of life; and as the occasion of cutting short his speech to Polonius.”

1819 cald1

cald1

1465 abridgment] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “The compendious views or breviaries ofour lives. They afterwards in this scene are called ‘the abstract and brief chronicles of the time:’ and the term is used in M. N. Dr. V. 1. Thes. The quartos and 1603 read ‘abridgment comes.’”

1826 sing1

sing1

1465 abridgment] Singer (ed. 1826): “The folio reads, ‘abridgements come.’ My abridgement, i.e. who come to abridge my talk.”

-1845 mhun1

mhun1

1464 For...comes.] Hunter (-1845, f. 233v): “Johnson, Thou that will shorten my talk; Steevens, used for a dramatic piece in M. N. d. v. 1. f. 311, but does not well suit this place. Caldecott, The compendious train or breviaries of our lives. An abridgement was a personation or representation, such as was peculiarly the character of the drama and its agents, ‘Whose office is and was & ever will be to hold and turn the mirror up to nature.’ For proof; observe how the word is used by Fuller, a writer who delighted in expressions which in his time was somewhat antiquated. ‘For many years before Sir George had not been such magnificently mounted: I mean the solemnity of his feast most sumptuously observed, than when this Earl [Danby] with the Earl of Morton was installed Knight of the Garter. One might have then beheld the Abridgement of English and Scottish in their attendance. The Scottish Earl, (later Zeny in his picture) covered with all art and worthiness; which our English Earl (later the plain sheur of Apelles) by the gravity of his habit, for the advantage of the gallantry of his arrival with judicious beholden.” Worthies— in Wiltshire f. 154.

“The folio reads my abridgements come: each player an example or a personification of other men.

“This note may serve also for the passage in M.N.D. v.1.311 where the meaning is badly made out in the notes.

“Man was called The Abridgement of the World. This was among the Commonplaces of the time— as having in him something which corresponded to ewe, Mis, in the intricate haction. In Burton c.y.th.1. Sats of Language an. 227.

“My may not refer back to Hamlet himself. Actors were perhaps ebud puntiarly the world’s

1845 hunter

hunter = mhun1

1464 looke...comes] Hunter (1845, p. 233-4): <p. 233>“‘My’ does not necessarily refer back to the speaker, but may be used expletively, as hath been remarked of me upon a former passage. Dr. Johnson is evidently mistaken when he explains ‘abridgement,’ ‘that which will shorten my talk.’ It is equivalent to what Hamlet afterwards says of them, that they are ‘the brief abstract and chronicle of the times.’ Thus Sir Thomas Urquhart says, of Paris, ‘so large a city, which is called the world’s abridgement.’—Discovery, &c. p. 103. Man was sometimes spoken of as the abridgement of the world: and Fuller, speaking of two Earls, a Scottish and an English Earl, admitted at the same time into the Order of the Garter, alluding to their appearance says, </p. 233><p. 234>‘we have there beheld the abridgement of English and Scottish in their attendance.’—Worthies, Wiltshire, p. 154.”</p. 234>

1856 hud1 (1851-6)

hud1

1465 abridgment] Hudson (ed. 1856): "That is, probably, those who will abridge my talk.--’The pious chanson’ is something to be sung or chanted; in the first quarto it is called ’the godly ballad.’--’The first row,’ seems to mean ’the first column.’ H."

1856b sing2

sing2=sing1+

1465 abridgment] Singer (ed. 1856): “Abridgement was used to sifnify a dramatic performance, as in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act v. Sc. 1:—’Say what abridgment have you for this evening’. Hamlet has afterwards termed the players, ‘the abstracts and brief chronicles of this time’.”

1869 Romdahl

Romdahl

1464-5 abridgment comes] Romdahl (1869, p. 27): “Abridgment is by Halliwell 1) interpreted: ‘a dramatic performance; probably from the prevalence of the historical drama, in which the events of the years were so abridged as to be brought within the compass of a play’. Other commentators have interpreted: ‘those who will shorten my talk’; but to us it seems most probable that it only means: those who will shorten my time, divert me, which is also very applicable to Mid. N. Dr. A. V. Sc. I, 39.” 1) I. p. 11.

1872 hud2

hud2

1464 abridgement] Hudson (ed. 1872): “Abridgment was sometimes used in the sense of pastime. Probably Hamlet means it also in the futher sense of abridging or cutting short his talks with Polonius.

1872 cln1

cln1

1464 abridgement] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Hamlet uses the word probably in a double sense. The players by entering abridge his talk. Technically also ’abridgement’ means a dramatic performance. Compare Midsummer Night’s Dream, v. 1. 39: ’Say what abridgement have you for this evening, What masque, what music?’ It was probably so called as abridging the time, an entertainment making time pass swiftly. But in Cymbeline, v. 5. 382, it occurs in the sense of a brief narrative. And in the present scene, line 507, Hamlet calls the players ’ the abstract and brief chronicles of the time.’ It may be noted that the folios read ’ my abridgements come.’ "

1874 Corson

Corson

1464-5 Corson (1874, p. 23): “For looke where my Abridgements come. F. . . . my abridgement comes. C. The singular is used in all the Quartos, and the plural in all the Folios, and it would seem that they were used with a different understanding of their meaning; ’my abridgement,’ they who will cut short my talk, ’my’ being used objecrtively; ’my Abridgements,’ they who are, as Hamlet calls them further on in the Scene, 11. 501, 502, ’the Abstracts and breefe Chronicles of the time,’ ’my’ being ethical.”

1881 hud3

hud3 ≈ hud2 +

1465 abridgment] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Perhaps Hamlet calls the players ‘my abridgements’ in the same sense and for the same reason as he afterwards calls them ‘the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.’ He may have the futher meaning of abridging or cutting short his talk with Polonius. Or, again, he may mean that their office is to abridge the time, or to minister pastimes.”

1882 elze

elze

1464 abridgment comes] Elze (ed. 1882): Abridgement means ‘pastime’. Compare A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, V, I, 39: Say, what abridgement haue you for this euening? What masque? what music?”

1885 macd

macd

1465 abridgment] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “abridgement—that which abridges, or cuts short. His ‘Abridgements’ were the Players.”

1890 irv

irv

1465 abridgment] Symons (in Irving & Marshall ed. 1890): “Ff. print Abridgements come. The sense is probably a mixed one. Hamlet means (or at least expresses by his words) that the players abridge his present talk, and also refers to them by a term used of dramatic entertainments. Compare Midsummer Night’s Dream, v. 1. 39, 40: ‘Say what abridgment have you for this evening? What masque? what music?’ Johnson noted that abridgement might also be used in the sense of ‘brief chronicles of the time.’”

1899 ard1

ard1

1465 abridgment] Dowden (ed. 1899): “See Midsummer Night’s Dream, V. I. 39, where abridgement means an entertainment, which shortens the time. Here it has both this meaning and that of cutting short the talk.”

1909 subbarau

subbarau

1464 abridgment] Subbarau (ed. 1909): “The ostensible reference is of course to the players, but there is an inner reference to the stanza of the ‘pious chanson.’ (1.) Look, the players are coming! (2.) Look in the stanza where I have cut my quotations.”

1464 1465

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