Line 1637 - 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.”
7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations.
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Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
| 1637 Ile tent him to the quicke, if a {doe} <but> blench | 2.2.597 |
|---|
1710 gildon
1637 blench] Gildon (1710, p.lxviii) defines "blenches" in his glossary as "faults" and "to blench" as "sin, fear."
1743 mf3bl
1637 blench] mF3BL (1743, f.8): “blench seems the same with flinch to give way.”
1747- mtheo4
mtheo4
1637 blench] If a doe blench”—at first sight of this mode of exhibiting the masculine pronoun of the third person, no more may be inferred, than that it indicates the familiar utterance of the time: but it does more, it proves that the present more stately delivery of tragic sentiment was then unknown; and that the cue for passion was always followed by the just, natural, and usual tone and pronunciation. Whenever the verse seemed to threaten the sentiment with either contractions or dilatations, (as to speak like human creatures was essential to his actors,) he had no hesitation about writing the most sublime thoughts in prose. See, particularly, “What a piece of work is man!”
In his last works he seemed to be a convert to uniformity, and frequently constrains his matter into verse, to the evident stiffness both of the expression and the metre. See, all the tragedies on roman subjects, passim.”
1765 john1
1637
tent]
Johnson (ed. 1765): “Search his wounds.”
1637
blench]
Johnson (ed. 1765): “If he
shrink.”
1765- davies
1637 Davies (1765-): “To tent is a Country phrase which signifies to look for—to examine to attend to— And this is explained by what Hamlet says to Horatio in the third Act—‘For I, my eyes will rivet fast to his—’ ”
v1773=JOHN1+
1637 blench] Steevens (ed. 1773): “If he shrink. The word is used by B. and Fletcher in the Wild Goose Chase: ‘Your sister, sir? Do you blench at that?’--
Again, The Night-Walker: ‘Blench at no danger, though it be the gallows’.”
1778 v1778
v1778=v1773+
Steevens (ed. 1778): Again in Gower, De Confessione Amantis, lib. vi. fol. 128:
‘Without blenchinge of mine eie’.”
1784 ays
ays
1637 tent him to the quicke] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “i.e. search his wounds.”
1638 if a doe blench] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “i.e. if he shrink, or start.”
1784 davies
davies
Davies (1784, p.62): "Dr.
Johnson interprets tent to be the searching his conscience, as tents are applied to probe wounds. This meaning I shall not contradict. But to tent is a north-country phrase, which signifies, to look to, to attend to. Ray, from
Cheshire Dialogues, gives this prover: ’I’ll tent thee, quoth Wood:’ that is, I’ll watch thee narrowly. And perhaps this meaning may be farther confirmed by what Hamlet afterwards says to Horatio, in the next act:"For I my eyes will rivet fast to his" To take tent is a Scotch phrase, at this day, for advising a person to be attentive to a particular business."
1785 v1785
Steevens (ed. 1785): “If he shrink, or start. See vol. ii. p. 141. iv. p. 321.”
ix. p. 10.
1790- mtooke
1637 Tooke (ms. notes, ed. 1790): blench “blinking”
1791- RANN
rann
1637 tent him to the quick] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—probe, search, watch him narrowly; and if I find him shrink, if once he startles.”
1793-
1637 if he do blench] Steevens (ms. notes, ed. 1793) adds: “Chaucer in his Knighte s Tale, v. 1080. seams to use the verb--to blent in a similar sense: ‘and theewith al he blent and cried, a!’”
1826 sing1
sing1
1637 Singer (ed. 1826): “To tent was to probe, to search a wound.”
1637 Singer (ed. 1826): “To blench is to shrink or start. Vide Winter’s Tale, [1.2.333. (431)].”
1832- anon.
1637 I’ll tent him] Anonymous [possibly Thomas Carlyle ](ms. notes, ed. 1832): “—If the wound close up Tent it with double force & search it deeply. Ford’s Broken Heart IV.2.”
1843 col1
col1
1637 Collier (ed. 1843): “Both ‘tent’ and ‘blench’ are words that have occurred in previous plays. To ‘tent’ is to search or try, and to ‘blench’ to start or start away. See Vol. vi. pp. 14, 45, and 47.”
1845 hunter
hunter
1637 blench]
Hunter (1845, p. 236): <p. 236>“The word occurs in other plays of Shakespeare, and the meaning here and elsewhere is the same. We should now say, ‘if he do
flinch,’ and perhaps in saying so we are in fact saying ‘If he do
blench.’
“The illustrations appended by Wase to his translation of the Cynegeticon of Gratius, 1654, shew the meaning of the word. ‘We know that if one set up a piece of white paper, it will make the deer blench, and balk that way.’ p. 77.”</p. 236>
1847 verp
verp
1637 Ile tent him to the quicke, if a doe blench]
Verplanck (ed. 1847): “
Tent, to probe, a phrase of ancient surgery.
Blench, to start, or shrink; as, in Fletcher, ‘Blench at no danger.’”
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
hud1
Hudson (ed. 1856): "To tent was to probe, to search a wound. To blench is to shrink or start."
1865 hal
hal
Halliwell (ed. 1865): “ Shakespeare seems to use blench in the sense of, to wink, to glance. Quotes Glower, ed. 1554, f. 128.”
1869 romdahl
romdahl
1637 tent] Romdahl (1869, p. 30): “(Lat. tentare) is a now almost obsolete verb, borrowed from the art of surgery, properly signifying , to search a wound, and in this passage metaphorically used about the wounds of the mind; so also in Coriolanus A. III. Sc. I, 236.”
1637 blench] Romdahl (1869, p. 30): “shrink. As twinkling seems to be the fundamental sense of the word, it must only be a secondary form of to blink. ‘And thus thinkende I stonde still Without blenchinge of mine eie.’ Gower. Compare other passages of Sh, for instance, Troil. and Cress. A. I. Sc. I, 28. The word, although used as lately as by Burke (an author in the middle of the last century) must certainly be considered as obsolete; so are at least its derivatives, blench (a shrinking), and blencher (somebody or something that frightens), used by Beaumont and Fletcher.”
1872 cln1
cln1
1637 tent] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “probe. Compare Cymbelline, iii. 4. 118: ’Nor tent to bottom that.’ "
blench] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “flinch. See Troilus and Cressida, ii. 2. 68: ’There can be no evasion To blench from this and to stand firm by honour.’ And see also the same play, i. 1. 28, and Measure for Measure, iv. 5. 5."
1877 clns
clns
1637 tent] Neil (ed. 1877): “either probe deeply or watch narrowly, as in the Scotch phrase, tak’ tent, take exceeding care.”
1882 elze
ezle
1637 if a doe blench] Elze (ed. 1882): “In my opinion to blench in the present passage does not mean to shrink, start, or flinch, although Milton’s Comus, l. 656: if he but shrink might be quoted in support of this interpretation, but it seems used in the sense of blinking, winking, or twinkling. See the passage from Gower cited by Halliwell and Stratmann, Dict. s. Blenchen. Hamlet means to say that the very slightest movement, even a twinkling of the eye, shall not remain undetected in the king, but shall betray him. ‘Mine eies, says Horatio in QA,‘shall still be on his face, And not the smallest alteration That shall appeare in him, but I shall note it.’
“It may, however, be conceded that the reading of QA (bleach) is apt to lead us on a different track and that its insertion in the text might be defended on no despicable grounds.”
1885 macd
macd
1637 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “In the 1st Q. Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, says, And if he doe not bleach, and change at that,—Bleach is radically the same word as blench:--to bleach, to blanch, to blench—to grow white.”
1899 ard1
ard1
tent] Dowden (ed. 1899): “probe, as in Cymbeline, III. iv. 118.”
blench] Dowden (ed. 1899): “flinch, quail; used specially of the eyes.”
1934a cam3
cam3
1637 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Not ‘turn pale’ but ‘flinch,’ i.e. from the ‘tenting’ (=probing). Often used of the eye.”