Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand
1611? Tourneur
Tourneur:
Hamlet echo?
3189- Tourneur (
The Atheist’s Tragedy, 1611?, but possibly earlier, 1878 ed. 1: 106-7,
apud Ingleby et al. 1932, 1: 218): J. N. Hetherington expresses the opinion that the churchyard scene, 4.3, “is suggestive of the churchyard scene in
Hamlet, and the speech of Charlemont . . . seems an echo of
Hamlet’s meditations: ’This graue—Perhappes th’ inhabitant was in his life time the possessour of his owne desires. Yet in the midd’st of all his greatnesse and his wealth; he was lesse rich and lesse contented, then in this poore piece of earth, lower and lesser then a Cottage . . . . And there.—In that graue lies another. He (perhaps) was in his life as full of miserie as this of happinesse. And here’s an end of both. Now both their states are equall.’ Sig. H3v-H4 ”
Ed. note: this passage seems a commonplace of medieval thought rather than a reference to
Hamlet.
c. 1639 mWright
mWright
3189ff Enter two Clownes]
Wright (ms. notes, 1639-): <
sig. 85v> “and [th]e scene in [th]e beginning of [th]e 5 act beetweene
Hamlet and [th]e grauemaker a good sceane but since betterd in [th]e iealous lovers.” </
sig. 85v>
1733 Voltaire
Voltaire:
3189ff Enter two Clownes]
Voltaire (1733, p. 126-7) : <p. 126> “You know that in
HAMLET Prince of Denmark, two Grave-Diggers made a Grave, and are all the Time drinking, singing Ballads, and making humourous Reflexions, (natural indeed enought to Persons of their Profession) on the several Skulls they throw up with their Spades; but a Circumstance which will surprize you is, that this ridiculous Incident has been imitated. In the Reign of King
Charles the Second, which was that of Politeness, and the Golden Age of the Liberal Arts;
Otway, in his </p. 126> <p. 127> VENICE PRESERV’D, introduces
Antionio the Senator, and
Naki his Curtezan, in the Midst of the Horrors of the Marquis of
Bedemar’s Conspiracy.
Antonioa, the superannuated Senator plays, in his Mistress’s Presence, all the apish Tricks of a lewd, impotent Debauchee who is quite frantic and out of his Senses. He mimicks a Bull and a Dog; and bites his Mistress’s Leg, who kicks and whips him. However, the Players have struck these Buffooneries (which indeed were calculated merely for the Dregs of the People) out of
Otway’s Tragedy.” </p. 127> [
Stubbs] (1736, p. 37): <p. 37> “The Scene of the Grave-Diggers, (p. 344) I know is much applauded, but in my humble Opinion, is very unbecoming such a Piece as this, and is only pardonable as it gives Rise to
Hamlet’s fine moral Reflections upon the Infirmity of human Nature.” </p. 37>
1736 Stubbs
Stubbs
3189ff Enter two Clownes] [
Stubbs] (1736, p. 37): <p. 37> “The Scene of the Grave-Diggers, (p. 344) I know is much applauded, but in my humble Opinion, is very unbecoming such a Piece as this, and is only pardonable as it gives Rise to
Hamlet’s fine moral Reflections upon the Infirmity of human Nature.” </p. 37>
[this page is keyed to THEO1])
1752 Misc. Ob
Anon.
3189ff Enter two Clownes]
Anon. [
Grey?] (1752, pp. 46-8): <p. 46> “Though this Scene is full of Humour, and had not been amiss in low Comedy, it has not the least Business here. To debase his sublime Compositions, with wretched Farce. Commonplace Jokes, and, entire Action. Indeed the Adventure incident to human Life, often, as they follow unmeangraveing Quibbles, seems to have been the Delight of the laurelled, the immortal Shakespeare. Some of his foolish bigotted Admires, have endeavoured to excuse him, by saying, that it was more the Fault of the Age than his, that the Taste of the People was to the highest Degree vitious, when he wrote, that they had been used to Buffoonery, and would not be pleased without it, and that he was obliged to comply with the prevailing Taste for his own Emolument. This instead of excusing, aggravates his Crime. He was conscious </p. 46> <p. 47> he acted wrong, but meanly chose to sacrifice Audience, and gain the Applause of a Herd of Fools, rather than approach too near to Purity and Perfection. To mix Comedy with Tragedy is breaking through the farced Laws of Nature, nor can it be defended. The Ancients universally agreed in their Definition of Tragedy, that it was the Imitation of one
grave, entire Action. Indeed the Adventures incident to human Life, often, as they follow each other, form a motley Scene: But it is the Business of the Poet to select the grave from the mean. It certainly must be a great Honour to a Man, who has an absolute Command over the Passions, to profane his noble, moral Scenes, with trifling, vain and impertinent Witticisms; who, when he had caused all Hearts to melt, and all Eyes to swim, as the well-painted Representation of human Woe, Sake of a miserable Jest. A modern Author speaks very justly of him when he says. “Pride of his own, and wonder of this Age, / Who first created, and yet rules the Stage, / Bold to design, all powerful to express, /
Shakespeare each Passion drew in ev’ry Dress: / Great above Rule, and imitating none, / Rich without borrowing, Nature was his own. / Yet is his Sense debas’d by grofs Allay; / As Gold in Mines lies mix’d lies mix’d with Dirt and Clay. / </p. 47> <p. 48> Now, Eagle-wing’d this Heav’n-ward Flight he takes, / The big Stage thunders, and the Soul awakes: / Now, low on Earth, a kindred Reptile creeps, / Sad
Hamlet quibbles, and the Hearer sleeps.”
Essay on verbal Criticism. This incoherent Absurdity will for ever remain an indelible Blot in the Character of our Poet; and warn us no more to expect Perfection in the Work of a Mortal, than Sincerity in the Breast of a Female.” </ p. 48>
1770 Gentleman
Gentleman Voltaire
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Gentleman (1770, I :27-28): <p. 27> “Notwithstanding Mr. Voltaire’s objections to the first scene of the fifth act, as being inconsistent with the dignity and decorum of tragedy, are in a great measure true; yet the characters are so finely drawn; such pointed satire and such instructive moral sentiments arise, as give it grat estimation and raise it far above insipid property; some expressions of the grave digger in answer to
Hamlet’s </p. 27> <p. 28> question, how long a corse will be in the ground before it rots; however true, are offensively indelicate.” </p. 28>
1773 gent
gent : Voltaire
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .] Gentleman (apud Bell, ed. 1773) : “These gentry, and their quibbling humour, certainly trespass upon decorum; but the moral reflections occasioned by the grave, &c. make ample amends; and though their dialogue is often stigmatized as mere gallery stuff, yet we think that sensible boxes may be pleased and instructed by it; for which reason it is cause of concern to think Mr. Garrick has too politely frenchified his alteration, by endeavouring to annihilate what, though Mr. Voltaire could not like it, has indubitable merit.”
1773- Walpole
Walpole
3189-3404 Walpole (c. 1773; rpt. 1940, pp. 5-7): <p. 5>“In 1773, Mr. Garrick produced his
Hamlet altered, in which he had omitted the scene of the grave diggers, from injudicious complaisance to French critics, and their cold regularity, which cramps genius. Objections made to that admirable scene of nature, is, that it is burlesque, unheroic, and destroys and interrupts the interest of the action, and diverts
Hamlet from his purpose on which he ought only to think, the vengeance due to the murder of his father. Not one of these objections are true. If Garrick had really been an intelligent manager, he would have corrected the vicious buffoonery which lay in his actors, not in the play. The parts of the grave-diggers have long been played by the most comic buffon actors in the company, who always endeavoured to</p.5><p.6> raise a laughter from the galleries by absurd mirth and gesticulations. The parts ought to be given [to them] who could best represent low nature seriously, and at most the jokes between the men themselves previous to
Hamlet’s entry might have been shortened, tho those very jests are natural and moral, for they show that habit can bring men to be cheerful even in the midst of the most melancholy exercise of their profession. That the scene is not unheroic, tho in prose, is from the serious remarks it draws from
Hamlet. Is every low character inconsistent with heroic tragedy? What has so pathetic effect as the fool in Lear? In how many Greek and modern tragedies are the nurse, a shepherd, a messenger, essential to the plot? Mirth itself, especially in the hands of such a genius as Shakespeare, may excite tears not laughter,and ought to do so. The grave-digger’s account of Yorick’s ludicrous behaviouris precisely an instance of that exquisite and matchless art, and furnishes an answer too to the last objection, that the humour of the grave-digger interrupts the interest of the action and weakens the purpose of
Hamlet. Directly the contrary; the skull of Yorick and the account of his jests</p. 6><p.7>could have no effect but to recall fresh to the Prince’s mind the happy days of his childhood, and the court of the King his father, and thence make him [see] his uncle’s reign in a comparative view that must have rendered the latter odious to him, and consequently the scene serves to whet his almost blunted purpose. Not to mention that the grave before him was destined to his love Ophelia – what incident in this scene but tends to work on his passions? – O ignorance of nature, when the union of nature and art can make critics wish for art only!” </p. 7>
This is from Eric’s 1999 BL trip and is Walpole’s Notes by Horace Walpole on Several Characters of Shakspeare, reprinted in 1940.
1777 St. James’s Chr
Anonymous
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Anon. (
St. James’s Chr. No. 2526 [Saturday-Tuesday May 17-20, 1777]: “If Hogarth had painted Shakspeare’s History of
Hamlet, would he have omitted the obnoxious scene of the Grave-digger? Or did any Man of real Taste, fine Feelings, and sound Judgement ever wish in reading
Hamlet that this scene had not been written?”
2. a letter regarding one Dr. Beckenhout’s preface to his Biographia Literaria, in which Beckenhout counters Voltaire’s recent attacks on Sh. (see #2441, #2457). : [3189ff]
1784 Davies
Davies
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Davies (1784, pp. 130-1): <p. 130>“The making a grave upon the stage, and the dialogue of the Grave-diggers,
Voltaire censures as the most absurd violation of all dramatic rules. And indeed, were the scene to be weighted in Aristotle’s scales, or finally discussed by the French writers, who are always chewing the husks of the Greek androman critics, much could not be said in behalf of our author. But Shakspeare was a man to whom Aristotle would have fallen down and worshipped, as the author of the Essay on Falstaff has pleasantly said.</p. 130>
<p. 131>“Candid foreigners will be pleased to reflect, that, when this man wrote, the English stage was in its infancy; that plays, written according to time, place, and action, were then almost unknown; and writers, who had the skill to combine the unities, had little else to recommend them to their audiences.”</p. 131>
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Davies (1784, pp. 133-7): <p. 133> “Augustine Sly, Tarleton, Kempe, or some old actor of the comic cast, was the original Grave-digger. Cabe Underhill, a comedian, whom Sir William Davenant pronounced to be one of the truest players for humour he ever saw, acted this part forty years successively. Underhill was a jolly and droll companion, who divided his gay hours between Bacchus and Venus with no little ardour; if we may believe such historians as Tom Brown. Tom, I think, makes Underhill one of the gill-drinkers </p. 133> <p. 134>of his time; men who resorted to taverns, in the middle of the day, under pretence of drinking Bristol milk (for so good sherry was then called) to whet their appetites, where they indulged themselves too often in ebriety. Underhill acted till he was past eighty. He was so excellent in the part of Trinculo, in the Tempest, that he was called Prince Trinculo. He had an admirable vein of pleasantry, and told his lively stories, says Brown, with a bewitching smile. The same author says, he was so afflicted with the gout, that he prayed one minute and cursed the other. His shambling gait, in his old age, was no hindrance to his acting particuar parts. He retired from the theatre in 1703. Some years before he died, he solicited a benefit, which was recommended to the public by the kind-hearted Steele. The part he chose was the Grave-digger in
Hamlet; but Cabe was so unlike his former self, that he appeared the ghost of what he had been, and was dismissed with compassion. </p. 134><p. 135>Colley Cibber, who, in his admirable account of the old actors, has spoken at large of Underhill’s merits, says he died, about four or five years afterwards, a pensioner of Sir Richard Steele and the players who obtained a patent from George I.
“That chaste copier of nature, B. Jonson, the comedian, for above forty years, gave a true picture of an arch clown in the Grave-digger. His jokes and repartees had a storng effect from his seeming insensibility of their force. His large speaking blue eyes he fixed steadily on the person to whom he spoke, and was never known to have wandered from the stage to any part of the theatre. Jonson was the Hemskirk or D. Teniers of the theatre; the honest Dutch painter, who contents himself with giving a portrait of mere nature. I should have observed, that Jonson was originally a painter by profession.
“Next to this excellent man, Mr. Yates must be placed. In manner they strongly resembled each other. They were disciples </p. 135><p.136>of the same school.—Nature was their guide, and to her alone they paid their devotion.
“Parsons and Quick are actors born to relax the muscles and set mankind a tittering. They are equally happy in the Grave-digger, but with more heightening than the two former. Edwin is chaster in his outline than both, for he does not colour so warmly.
“To rank a country actor with these gentlemen of the established London theatres may seem bold and unprecedented, but I am not afraid to name, among men of comic genius, Mr. James Robertson, of York; a man, like Yorick,
of infinite wit and of most excellent fancy. What gentleman, of the county of York, does not know Jemmy Robertson? What critic so sour as not to be pleased with his sallies of humour, whether his own or faithfully given from his original author on the stage? His being a very pleasing actor, and a lively companion, forms but a small part</p.136><p.137>of his character.—He is respected for merit of a more durable kind: for his honesty, worth, and friendly disposition.” </p. 137>
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Davies (1784, pp. 145-7): <p. 145>“Mr. Garrick, about eight or nine years since, offered the public an amendment of Shakespeare’s
Hamlet. The respect, which the public owed to so eminent a genius, disposed them to receive his alterations favourable. . . . Little or no change, in language or scenery, was attempted till the fifth act, in which Laertes arrives and Ophelia is distracted, as in the old play. The plotting-scenes, between the King and Laertes, to destroy
Hamlet, were entirely chagned, and the character of Laertes rendered more estimable.
Hamlet, having ,</p. 145>escaped from Rosencraus and Guildenstern, returns with a firm resolution to avenge the death of his father. the Grave-diggers were absolutely thrown out of the play. The audience were not informed of the fate of Ophelia; and the Queen, instead of being poisoned on tthe stage, was led from her seat, and said to be in a state of insanity, owing to her sense of guilt. When
Hamlet attacks the King, he draws his sword and defends himself, and is killed in the rencounter. Laertes and
Hamlet die of their mutual wounds.
“To such material chagnes, in this favourite tragedy, the audience submitted during the life of the alterer; but they did not approve what they barely endured. The scenes and characters of Shakspeare, with all their blemishes, will not bear radical or violent alteration. The author had drawn Claudius a coward, as well as avillain and usurper; and this strong check upon guilt and stigma upon wickedness ought by no means to be removed. Garrick, if I remember right, used to say, that, before </p. 146> <p. 147> his alteration of
Hamlet, the King used to be stuck like a pig on the stage: but, by giving the murderer courage, this great actor did not see that he lessened the meanness of his character, which the author takes care to inculcate throughout the play. The brave villain, like Rich. III. we justly hate, but we cannot despise him. Why the fate of Ophelia should be left uncertain, as well as that of the Queen, I cannot conceive. But the spectators of
Hamlet would not part with their old friends, the Grave-diggers. The people soon called for
Hamlet as it had been acted from time immemorial.” </p. 147>
1815 Freron
Freron : see also n. 3466ff
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Freron (1815, p. 13): <p. 13>“Two grave diggers come upon the stage to dig the grave of his mistress, the young princess. After some skirmishing of quibbles, one of these important personages begins his digging with a song characterized by nonsense and buffoonery. The prince comes in with one of his friends, makes several unmeaning inquiries of the grave diggers, which brings out from them replies filled with dull equivocations and vulgar wit. They are interrupted by the funeral ceremony attended by all the court. It is then
Hamlet begins to be apprised of his loss. He expresses his grief in some bombastic phrases, which are dictated by any thing but real feeling: [cites 3466-68; 3471-81].”</p. 13>
1815 Avoniensis
[Avoniensis] : Freron
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .] [
Avoniensis] (1815, p. 442): <p. 442>“The namby pamby critics whose flimsy tastes cannot encounter the robust beauties of Shakspeare may ridicule the pleasantries of the grave-digger in
Hamlet, and call them untimely and ridiculous; but assuredly it is not so ridiculous by half, taking it to the full extent of their misconceptions of it, as Theseus in the midst of plagues and famine adoring and paying toilet compliments to the pretty
eyes (
les beaux yeux) of the princess Dirce.—Both excite laughter, but on different grounds—we laught
with the former—we laught
at the latter.” </p. 442>
1818-19 mCLR2
mCLR2
3189 Coleridge (ms. notes 1819 in
Ayscough, ed
. 1807; rpt.
Coleridge, 1998, 12.4:858): <p. 858>“The contrast between the Clowns and
Hamlet as two extremes—the mockery of Logic, the traditional wit valued like [? truth] for its Antiquity, and treasured up like a Tune for use—”</p. 858>
1841 knt1 (nd)
knti:
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Knight (ed. 1841) : “Garrick omitted the grave-diggers. He had the terror of
Voltaire before his eyes. The English audience compelled their restoration. Was it that ‘the groundlings’ could not endure the loss of the ten waistcoats which the clown had divested himself of, time out of mind?--or, was there in this scene something that brought
Hamlet home to the humblest, in the large reach of his universal philosophy? M. Villamain, in his
Essay on Shakspere, appears to us utterly to have mistaken this scene: We translate from the last edition of his Essay. Paris 1839 ed. [note: Knight then quotes Villemain:] ‘Strike not out from the tragedy of
Hamlet, as Garrick had attempted to do, the labours and the pleasantries of the grave-diggers. Be present at this terrible buffoonery; and you will behold terror and gaiety rapidly moving an immense audience. . . . Youth and beauty contemplate with insatiable curiosity images of decay, and minute details of death; and then the uncouth pleasantries which are blendd with the action of the chief personages, seem from time to time to relieve the spectators from the weight which oppresses them, and shouts of laughter burst from every seat. Attentive to this spectacle, the coldest countenances alternately manifest their gloom or their gaiety; and even the statesman smiles at the sarcasm of the grave-digger who can distinguish between the skull of a courtier and a buffoon.’
“This is may be the
Hamlet of the theatre; but M. Villemain should have looked at the
Hamlet of the closet. The conversation of the clowns before
Hamlet comes upon the scene is indeed pleaantry intermixed with sarcasm; but the moment that
Hamlet opens his lips, the meditative richness of his mind is poured out upon us, and he grapples with the most familiar and yet the deepest thoughts of human nature, in a style that is sublime from its very obviousness and simplicity. Where is the terror, unless it be terrible to think of ‘the house appointed for all living;’ and what is to provoke the long peals of laughter, where the grotesque is altogether subordinate to the solemn and the philosophical? It is the entire absorption of the fellow who ‘has no feeling of his business,’ by him of ‘daintier sense,’ who considers it ‘too curiously,’ that makes the scene so impressive to the reader.”
1846 Schlegel
Schlegel
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Schlegel (1811, rpt. 1846, p. 404): <p. 404>“The only circumstance from which this piece might be found less theatrical than other tragedies of Sh. is, that in the last scenes the main action either stands still or appears to retrograde. This, however, was inevitable, and lies in the nature of the thing. The whole is intended to show that a consideration, which would exhaust all the relations and possible consequences of a deed to the very limits of human foresight, cripples the power of acting.’</p. 404>
1846 Ulrici
Ulrici
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Ulrici (1846, 224): <p. 224>“In the first place we will notice—which, after our previous disquisition scarcely called for further refutation—the objection which has been brought against Shakspeare, even by Goethe, that in the last act he has unnecessrily entangled and spun out the course of action by
Hamlet’s voyage to England, his adventures at sea, and his return,&c. These, however, appear indispensable, when we remember that the very purpose of the piece is to show that the poor plans and intentions of man do not miscarry merely through the weakness of their authors, but their baseless projects are also, by an intrinsic necessity, as frequently crossed and frustrated by the eqully baseless empire of chance.”</p. 224>
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Ulrici (1846, pp. 225-26): <p. 226> “While Ophelia’s death exhibits the terrific and fatal effects of the attempt [at “absolute sovereignty of self-will”], its ridiculous aspect is held up to view in the conceited folly of Polonius. The latter, however, is still more strikingly elucidated in the scene with the grave-diggers: how completely does it lay bare the vanity of that intellectual pride which thinks it so easy and so grand to hold in hand and guide the course of life, and, nevertheless, cannot defend itself against the busy tooth of the maggot and the worm! How profound and rare is the humour of the saucy clowns, parodying in their songs and riddles the grave toil and troubles which the mind imposes on itself in order to climb the giddy height, on which, however, it cannot steady itself! How deeply significant, too, is the meeting of
Hamlet with Laertes at the grave of Ophelia, which immediately follows—how instructive is the lesson afforded by his sudden fall from the calm height of philosophical reflection on the frailty of human life, into the degrading depths of youthful passion and inconsiderateness! In every respect this scene involves so profound a meaning, and its poetic justification is so full and perfect, that it is to my mind utterly inconceivable how it could even have been regarded as superfluous, and as impeding the proper march of the action.”</p. 226>
1848 Strachey
Strachey
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Strachey (1848, pp. 87-8): <p. 87>“It is one of the characteristics of poetry, that it gilds every thing that it touches, not only producing a beautiful result in the end, but employing </p. 87> <p.88> beautiful materials in every detail : it does not use brick and mortar, but costly marbles and precious gem, for the walls of the temple it builds: it exhibits the greatest beauty in each part which is consistent with the greatest beauty in the whole. But though pipe-clay is fused into sapphire, and charcoal into diamond., by the poet’s touch, yet they lose not their identity for all their transmuta-tion. Shakspeare opens his mouth to speak of clowns and grave-diggers, and pearls and diamonds drop from it, which yet prove on analysis to be lime and coal. His clowns are of the earth, earthy, thorough flesh and blood, and yet they are as much poetic creations as Titania or Ariel. They open this scene, partly to carry on the action of the piece, partly to form, by their utter indifference to the tragedy that is enacting, a back-ground which shall throw that tragedy and its actors into strong relief; and in particular to bring out
Hamlet’s character by contrasting it with such extreme opposites, and to give him occasion to dwell so long and variously on the utter vanity of human life, with all its hopes and fears, its joys and woes. The chief clown is a very shrewd fellow, and a true
filius terræ, ever drawing fresh vigour from his habitual contact with his mother earth. His wit is (as Coleridge points out) like his songs, traditional, and valued and treasured up for use, without any very great niceness in adapting it to the occasions on which he brings it out. Still, like his songs (to be recognised as mutilated scraps of a fine old ballad) his wit has in the main both force and fitness, though it is eked out with shreds of nonsense, just as his songs are, as often as the word or the line which the tune requires has slipped out of his memory. This union of shrewd sense with ludicrous want of logic, is not uncommon, even among lords and gentlemen whose education has been carried on by things rather than books; and in the sturdy, hard-working, though not unthinking peasant, I suppose it must always be found. Such a man <.o, 88> <p. 89>is like some
sbozzo of Michael Angelo, in which the half- sculptured form of a hero or god has been left hopelessly imbedded in the block of brute stone, because the impatient artist had too hastily hewn away a part of the block indispensable to the completion of some limb or feature.
“In this, as in the other like scenes,
Hamlet’s genius displays itself in common conversation: it reminds one of Dr. Johnson’s remark about Burke, that the hostler to whom he spoke while feeding his horse would notice that he was no ordinary man.”</p. 89>
1854 del2
del2
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Delius (ed. 1854,
Nachwort) : “Der alte Corrector macht sich in dieser Scene durch wiederholte Streichungen um den Dichter verdient, von denen unter andern, besonders charakteristisch, auch die Stelle zu leiden hat, welche den Grund der Wegsendung
Hamlet’s nach England angiebt. Der alte Corrctor strich dieselbe vielleicht in prophetischem Geiste, damit sie bei der künftigen Entdeckung seiner Emendationen keine Anwendung finde auf den gläubigen Enthusiasmus, mit welchem der Collier’sche Fund inEngland, wenigstens theilweise, begrüsst wurde.”[“The old Corrector serves the poet well in this scene through repeated erasures, of which among others, besides characteristic, the place has to endure which mentions the reason for
Hamlet’s departure for England. The old Corrector erases the very same in a prophetic spirit, by that he through the artful discovery of his emendations finds no use for hopeful enthusiasm, with which the Collier discovery in England was greeted, at least to some extent.”]
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .] Delius (ed. 1854) : “Die Bühnenweisung ist von Rowe vervollständigt. ‘Spaten und Hacke’ bezeichnete die stehende Theaterfigur des Clown oder Rüpels, die in keinem Drama Sh.’s zzu fehlen pflegt, zugleich für diesen einzelnel Fall in ihrem Geschäft als Todtengräber.” [“The stage direction was introduced by ROWE and ‘spades and mattocks’ were the standard theatre figures of the clown or boors, which were not absent in dramas in Shakespeare’s time, together with the single occurrence in their occupation as the gravedigger.”]
1857 elze1
elze1: Nares
3189 Elze (ed. 1857): Enter Two Clowns, with Spades, &c.]] "So lautet die Bühnenweisung vermutlich in FA; Rowe hat noch hinzugefügt: And Mattocks. In StR steht bloss: Enter two Clownes.—Ueber den Charakter des Clown ((vom lat. Colonus)) s. Nares s. Clown." ["So reads the stage direction in F1; Rowe added still, ’And Mattocks.’ In StR it stands merely, ’Enter two Clownes.—Concerning the character of the clown ((from Latin Colonus)), s. Nares s. Clown."
So Elze is wrong here ∑; F1 reads as Q2 does, without the "spades" addition.
1865 hal
hal
3189 Enter two Clownes] Halliwell (ed. 1865) : “Until within a very recent period, it was customary for one of the gravediggers to preface his labours by divesting himself of about a dozen waistcoats, an operation which always created great merriment, and which perhaps had come down by tradition from the players of Shakespeare’s own time. The Doctor, in the Dutchess of Malfi, according to a stage direction in ed. 1708, ‘puts off his four cloaks, one after another,’ a similar stratagem to create the laughter of the audience.”
1869 stratmann
stratmann : Q6 [notes that Act 5.1 division and attributes it to Q6]
1869 Hall
Hall
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
Hall (1869, pp. 32-3) : <p. 32> “The introduction of the grave-diggers into the play, has been condemned by some writers, but their condemnation carries with it its own refutation, in showing how little they understood the piece. They have complained that it was vulgar, the wit of the grave-diggers low, and that the comedy which they pourtray, interfered with the harmony and destroyed the solemnity of the play. In real life, we perceive the joys and sorrows, the tragic and the comic phrases mingle together; the ridiculous treading hard upon the heroic, as night followeth hard upon the day; and the poet to be true, must not forget to display this.* His work to be perfect must be harmony with nature, ‘and so in there must as in an April day, be sunshine, and cloud, and shadow, and the play of children, and the sorrows of the soul, and the house of mourning next to the wedding house, and men must go from one to the other: thus that grave-digging scene is just and beautiful in its place—is obedient to the law of life, shows us what life truly is, makes us accept its uncertainties, and learn that great lesson—how different are the laws of the construction of this world from what they would be if made by our unlearned art. If out of life we can shake vain and unseemly jests, then out of our play we may shake </p. 32> <p. 33> the clowns and the jesters, who are always there in Shakspere’s plays to teach us the lesser side of life, to show us the harmonic whole, and teach us to call nothing common or unclean.”* </p. 33>
*<n>“Gerald Massey, in one of his poems, called Husband and Wife, beautifully pourtrays this idea: ‘The suns will shine, and the rains will fall, One the loftiest, lowliest spot! And there’s mourning and merriment mingled for all That inherit the human lot.’”</n>
*<n>“Rev. G. Dawson on
Hamlet”</n>
1869 tsch
tsch
3189 SD mattocks Tschischwitz (ed.1869): “mattock, ags. mattue; Kyrm. mattog; gäl madag. S. Koch I. § 2. Einl. cf. lat. matea, mateola. Diez I. 270.” [mattock, A.S. mattue, Cymraeg (Gaelic) mattog; Gaelic madag. S. Koch I.§2. Insert, Compare Latin matea, mateola. Diez. I. 270.”]
1870 Miles
Miles
3189ff Miles (1870, 72): <p. 72>“. . . the development of the Fifth Act was inconceivably more difficult [than the Fourth Act]: it is the creation of a world, not out of mental chaos, but out of nothing. In this wonderful Act, paltry accessaries, small side-bits of detail, are so exalted, transfigured and divinely illuminated, that they assume the dignity of events. Here, in marked perfection we see—’The grace and versality of the man.’ ‘His power and consciousness and self-delight.’ We accept as matters of course,—we make no marvel now over those wonderful clowns, and Yorick’s skull; the funeral procession, the grapple in the grave, and Osric: but viewed solely as dramatic contrivances, they are miracles of construction. The deep funereal gloom, the weird sepulchral torch light, which was thrown around the first three acts by means of the ghose, is extended over the last two by means of Ophelia.” </p. 72>
1872 del4
del4 = del2
3189ff Enter two Clownes . . .]
1872 Hudson
Hudson
3189ff Hudson (1872, p. 404): “The only circumstance from which this piece might be found less theatrical than other tragedies of Sh. is, that in the last scenes the main action either stands still or appears to retrograde. This, however, was inevitable, and lies in the nature of the thing. The whole is intended to show that a consideration, which would exhaust all the relations and possible consequences of a deed to the very limits of human foresight, cripples the power of acting.”
3189ff Hudson (1872, p. 311): <p. 311>The heterogeneous, oddly--assorted elements that are brought together in the grave-digging scene; the strange mixture of songs and witticisms and dead-men’s bones, and the still stranger transitions of the sprightly, the meditative, the solemn, the playful, the grotesque, make up such a combination as Shakespeare only could conceive. Here we have the hero’s profound discourse of thought, his earnest moral reflectiveness, and his most idiomatic humour, all working out together. As illustrating his whole character, in all its depth and complexity, the scene is one of the richest and wisest in the play.” </p. 311>
1875 Marshall
Marshall
3189ff Marshall (1875, pp. 91-93): <p. 91> “The fifth act commences with the well-known scene between the two ‘Clowns,’ or ‘Grave-diggers.’ This scene has ben much censured by some critics, on the ground that its broad humour is out of place in a tragic work. But here is the very excellence of Shakespeare’s genius—that he does not shrink from mingling the humorous with the pathetic; in fact, he does not shrink from portraying human life as it really is.Ø He knew mankind in general as well as he knew that portion of it which forms the audience of a theatre; he knew that if his plays were to attract spectators they must be varied, and not monotonous: we may admire such tragedies as Voltaire’s in the closet, but on the stage they crush us under their massive weight of lugubriousness. But this system of brightening up tragedy, by an infusion of the comic element, is contrary to all canons of foreign criticism. Any one who has seen ‘
Hamlet’ played on the Italian stage will have observed the preternatural gravity of Polonius, for instance, and generally how carefull all the actors were, including even
Hamlet himself, to divest the play as much as possible of any taint of humour. In this very scene we are now considering, when I saw it played at Naples, there was only one grave-digger (he was necessary for
Hamlet), and he sang quite a pretty little song in place of the humorous ballad of which ‘The First Clown’ in Shakspeare gives us such an odd version.
“Who that has seen the tragedy of
Hamlet represented, whether wll or ill, has not felt that this scene comes as a welcome relief, just at that oint when the strain which has been put upon our sadder and more pathetic feelings has been greater than we well could bear. The madness and death of Ophelia, the revolting treachery of Claudius, the miserable weakness of Laertes, have plunged us into a state of mind which is likely to render us impatient of anything but the briefest termination of the story, unless it be relieved by some gleam of cheerfulness. We are invited by the author to assist at the making of the grave which is to receive the pure body of Ophelia: an ordinary dramatist would treat us to nothing more refreshing than a series of dreary and solemn platitudes on death; but Shakespeare extorts from us involuntary smiles at the humours of two simple clowns, who are portrayed, not as unnatural vehicles of dismal sentiments, but as natural sources of genuine amusement. They go to their work with just as much sense of its solemn import as such men would, in real life, feel; they bandy grim jests, and the one who, by virtue of being less ignorant than his assistant, is able to assume all the superiority of learning, tickles our sense of humour by his asurd and unconscious blunders no less than by his placid self-conceit. This Clown belongs to the same class of characters as Bottom and Dogberry; men who, having picked up some scraps of learning and long words, of which they knew neither the proper use nor meaning, so thoroughly believe in their own intellectual superiority over their fellows that we cannot help laughing with them, rather than at them, for their ridiculous <p. 92> <p. 93> vanity. The whole essence of the humour in these characters lies in their utter unconsciousness of their own errors; immediately the actor tries to emphasize their absurd mistakes, as if he knew he wasy saying something amusing, all that humour vanishes. I have myself met with such characters, in real life, more than once, and I have been immensely imprssed by the perfect self-complacency with which they gave forth their grandiloquent mispronunciations.*</p. 93>
<p. 91> <n> Ø “See above, Part II, page 41 [Marshall discusses the play’s “infinite variety” ad=nd its mixing of moods].” </n></p. 91>
<p. 93> <n> * [Marshall recounts an anecdote involving the malapropism of “prostituted” for “prostrated”] </n> </p. 93>
1877 v1877
v1877 : = Schlegel ; Strachey ; hal
3189ff]
Schlegel (
apud Furness, ed. 1877):
v1877: strachey
3189ff]
Strachey (
apud Furness, ed. 1877): “
The Clowns open this scene, partly to carry on the action, partly to form, by their utter indifference to the tragedy that is enacting, a background which shall throw that tragedy and its actors into strong relief; and in particular to bring out
Hamlet’s character by contrasting it with such extreme opposites.”
1877 neil
neil ≈ Egestorf?
3189 Egestorf (apud Neil, ed. 1877, Notes): “‘It is the churchyard scene . . . . from which we are to learn the moral of this tragedy; a scene which has been rgarded as an exuberant excresence, but one which seems to us to be a chief corner-stone of the main edifice, for there we see the nothingness of all sublunary advantages—there we see how gaiety, beauty, talent, and wit—how greatness and power—nay, how even the government of a world, are not only transient in themselves, but how in the end they lead to nothing.’—Geo. Egestorf.”
1879 Hal
Hal
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Halliwell (1879, pp. 68-69): <p. 68> “At the commencement of the fifth act there was on the old stage and no doubt in Shakespeare’s time an incident of by-play, enacted by the first grave-digger, which is unfortunately now omitted,—unfortunately, for the reposing contrast of a comic episode after tragic tension was thus judiciously heightened. I refer to the once popular stage-trick of that personage taking off a number of waistcoats one after the other, an artifice which has been laid aside for many years, the player who first rejected it being Chatterley at some time about the year 1814. There is a graphic description of the incident in an account of the tragedy as performed at Covent Garden in Kemble’s time, 1811, in Simond’s Journal of a Tour and Residence in Great Britain, ed. 1815, ii. 122,—’it is enough to mention the grave-diggers to awaken in France the cry of rude and barbarous taste, and were I to say how the part is acted it might be still worse. After beginning their labour and breaking ground for a grave, a conversation begins between the two grave-</p. 68> <p. 69>diggers. The chief one takes off his coat, folds it carefully and puts it by in a safe corner; then, taking up his pick-axe, spits in his hand, gives a stroke or two, talks, stops, strips off his waistcoat still talking, folds it with great deliberation and nicety and puts it with the coat, then an under-waistcoat, still talking, another and another. I counted seven or eight each folded and unfolded very leisurely in a manner always different, and with gestures faithfully copied from nature. The British public enjoys this scene excessively, and the pantomimic variations a good actor knows how to introduce in it are sure to be vehemently applauded.’” </p. 69>
1879 irv (Act. ed.)
irv (Act. ed.)
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Marshall (ed. 1879, Preface, p. viii-ix): <p.viii> “In the fifth act the representation of the Church Yard Scene has been considerably altered from that commonly given on the stage. The church is supposed to be built on the hill above the royal palace, and the procession is seen coming slowly up the ascent just as the evening is changing into night. It was at this time ‘the maimed rites’ [3408] used to be performed over the dead who ‘Did with desperate hand Fordo’ their ‘own life’ [3409-10]. The stars are beginning to shine faintly on the sad group gathered around the grave.
Hamlet advances out of the friendly darkness which had hitherto aided his concealment, as he exclaims:— ‘What is he . . . wonder-wounded hearers?’ [3449-52]. </p.viii>
<p.ix> “These words of
Hamlet’s might possibly have been spoken in the daylight; but they furnish a sufficient justification, in conjunction with the custom which has been alluded to above, for the innovation here introduced. <n.> It will be seen that, by this arrangement, an interval of about twelve hours is supposed to elapse between Scenes 1 and 2. This is more natural than to make the action continuous; it is scarcely probable that immediately on leaving Ophelia’s grave the King would propose this fencing match between Laertes and
Hamlet, or that they would consent to the proposal at such a moment. In the first quarto (1603) we find a passage indicating most clearly that the events of this act take place on the same day. After
Hamlet has left the churchyard with
Horatio, the King says to Laertes:— ‘This very day . . . send to him,’ &x. (
Allen’s Reprint, p. 90.) These lines, however, are omitted in all the subsequent editions, and I cannot but think that the omission is remarkable, and goes to support the theory put forward above. </n.> </p.ix>“
1882 elze2
elze2
3189 Enter two Clownes] Elze (ed. 1882): “In [Q1] the speeches of the second performer have the prefix 2., in [Q2 and F1]: Other. [Q7] and Rowe: Enter two Clowns with spades and mattocks. It seems evident that In Shakespeare’s time the part of the second grave-digger who properly speaking is not a grave-digger, but the grave-digger’s assistant or boy, was not played by a clown, but by some apprentice or hireing, the more so as most likely the company could only boast of a single clown.”
1885 macd
macd
3189 SD Enter two Clownes] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “This act requires only part of a day; the funeral and the catastrophe might be on the same.”
1888 Bry
Bry
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Bryant (ed. 1888): "The grave-scene, in its mixture of mirth and melancholy, of wisdom and folly, of the deepest and more serious philosophy with the heedless wit and buffoonery of clowns, has no parallel in literature. It is one of the greatest sermons every preached upon the vanity and littleness of human life, and
Hamlet’s meditations upon the skull of Yorick fittingly round it out."
This is Bryant, Wm. Cullen Complete Works, 3 vols. New York: Ames, 1888. BWK from 2/2/02 Folger e-mail
1889 Tomlinson
Tomlinson
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Tomlinson (1889, p. 14): <p. 14> “As to the objection that in the last two acts the plot is entangled and spun out, if not delayed by
Hamlet’s journey to England, his adventures at sea, and his return, it may be admitted that such incidents do delay the rapid development of the plot, in opposition to the laws, or rather rules, dramatic construction as laid down by Aristotle. But Shakspere chooses rather to be natural than artificial. The many unexpected events that occur in the complicated relations of life have a greater charm for him, and it may be added, for us, than the more accurate structures of Sophocles, to say nothing of those of Racine and Voltaire.” </p. 14>
1931 crg1
crg1
3189 Clowne] Craig (ed. 1931): “The word clown was used to denote peasants as well as humorous characters; here applied to the rustic type of clown.”
1942 n&h
n&h
3189 Clowne] Neilson & Hill (ed. 1942): “[F1] consistently designates 1. Clo. as Clown and 2. Clo. as Other.”
1947 cln2
cln2
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Rylands (ed. 1947, Notes): “The two Clowns at their grave-digging, like the drunken Porter in
Macbeth and the simple rustic who brings the asps to Cleopatra in a basket of figs, are constantly cited as an example of ‘comic relief’. So of course they are, and their perversion of the hair-splitting obscurities of the law will make the audience laugh and heighten what has gone before and what is to come. Here is a further contrast to the dark intrigues and to Ophelia’s elegy in the previous scene. But for ‘the judicious’ the scene gives something more. The leisurely prose lowers the tension and lulls us into rest; and on that groundwork is portrayed a new
Hamlet: controlled, speculative, philosophical, wise; a melancholy
Hamlet, but he wears his melancholy with a difference. He enters with
Horatio ‘afarre off’—it is F’s unusual stage direction—and as he thus steals back into denmark he is (as Granville-Barker notes) spiritually far off too. Then, again, these homely folk jesting and singing at their work meake us feel taht the ordinary business of life goes on untroubled despite broken hearts and murderous treachery and the deaths of princes. Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘In the time of the Breaking of Nations’ expresses the same theme. The Clowns serve both to expand the whole play and to give it proportion. Moreover, they have a hold on realities. ‘Will you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out o’ Christian burial.’ [3212-14]. And the other answers, ‘Why, there thou sayest; and the more pity that great folk should have countenance in this world to drown or hang themselves more than their even Christian.’ [3215-17] And
Hamlet also learns to see things as they are as he holds the skull of Yorick in his hands. Yorick the jester and Alexander the Great are as one, and Caesar’s dust may stop a hole to keep the wind away. He can learn a lesson from the Grave-diggers as he learned one from the Players.”
1951 crg2
crg2=crg1
3189 Clowne]
1957 pel1
pel1 : standard
3189 Clowne]
1970 pel2
pel2=pel1
3189 Clowne]
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ crg2 w/o attribution
3189 Clowne]
1980 pen2
pen2
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Spencer (ed. 1980): “It seems that this remarkable scene was an afterthought. V.2 would follow naturally upon IV.7, where we are told (line 44) that
Hamlet will arrive at the court
Tomorrow. V.2 opens with
Hamlet’s narration to
Horatio of what had happened to bring him back to Elsinore.”
3189 Enter two Clownes] Spencer (ed. 1980): “This is the direction in Q2 and F. But Q1 has ‘enter Clowne and an other’. This probably indicates the principal comic actor and his ‘feed’, who appear as rustics (‘clowns’). The First Clown plays the part of a gravedigger: he is addressed as Goodman Delver (line 14) and called a sexton (lines 88 and 160) and grave-maker (line 140). It would be wrong to regard the Second Clown as another; for two men cannot easily dig the same grave.”
1982 ard2
Ard2 ≈ pen2 +
3189 Enter two Clownes] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “N.B. [3192-3, 3203 and n., and see MLR, LI, 362-5]
1985 cam4
cam4
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Edwards (ed. 1985): “There is a clearly marked gap of time between the end of Act 4, in which we hear of Ophelia’s death and the beginning of Act 5, when they are digging her grave. The gap is meant to be short, however.
Hamlet spoke in his letter to the king of seeing him ‘tomorrow’.”
3189 Enter two Clownes]
Edwards (ed. 1985, Introduction, 55-6): <p. 55>“Act 5 opens with the two clowns digging a grave for Ophelia. The joke of the senior of these, the sexton, that of all men he who builds </p. 55> <p. 56>strongest is the gravedigger, is something to ponder on at the end of the play. The sexton is the only person in the play who is a match for
Hamlet in the combat of words. He manages to avoid answering
Hamlet’s question, ‘Whose grave’s this?’” </p. 56>
3189 Enter two Clownes] Edwards (ed. 1985): “Both Q2 and F give us the entry for ‘two clowns’ and refer to them in the speech headings as ‘Clown’ and ‘Other’. This is evidently Shakespeare’s designation, and it is interesting that the playhouse scribe did not move towards a less vague appellation, as he had elsewhere ((see note to [3.2.120SD)). The First Clown, the head gravedigger, calls himself the sexton (([3351])).”
1987 oxf4
Oxf4
3189 Hibbard (ed. 1987): “Between the death of Ophelia and her funeral there comes what is, perhaps, the most extraordinary scene in this extraordinary play. For the previous four acts death has been a constant presence and a constant preoccupation, brooding, as it were, over the action. Apart from
Hamlet’s mordant comments on its reductive powers in 4.3, the emphasis has been on the terror and the mystery of it. It has been treated with the seriousness usually considered proper to tragedy. Now, however, the whole perspective undergoes a radical alteration. To the Grave-digger death is neither terrible nor mysterious. It provides him with his living and with a never failing source of conversation and jest. It is no wonder that the Prince should find him fascinating and engage in a battle wits with him. He tells
Hamlet much that
Hamlet needs to know, and, in doing so, he extends the whole scope and significance of the tragedy.”
oxf4 ≈ standard
3189 Hibbard (ed. 1987): “The First Clown, i.e. rustic, is clearly a grave-digger, who will, in due course, need his implements; but there is nothing in what follows to indicate that the Second Clown is also a grave-digger. He seems to be simply a crony of the First Clown who has stopped for a chat, unable to resist the fascination that the digging of a hole still exerts on Englishmen of all classes.”
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
3189 Enter two Clownes]
1992 fol2
fol2≈ standard
3189 Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “
Hamlet, returned from his journey, enters a graveyard with
Horatio where a gravedigger is singing as he digs.
Hamlet tries to find out who the grave is for and meditates on the skulls that are being dug up. A funeral procession approaches.
Hamlet soon realizes that the corpse is Ophelia’s. When Laertes in his grief leaps into her grave and curses
Hamlet as the cause of Ophelia’s death,
Hamlet comes forward. He and Laertes struggle, with
Hamlet protesting his own love and grief for Ophelia.”
3189 Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “In Q2 and Folio
Hamlet, this stage direction reads ‘Enter two clowns,’ thus indicating that the Gravedigger and his companion were played by actors who did comic roles.”
1993 dent
dent ≈ standard
3189 Andrews (ed. 1993): “This scene takes place in a graveyard. The two ‘Clowns’ referred to in the opening stage direction are a pair of rustics—one the chief gravedigger, the other apparently his assistant. They enter carrying spades and mattocks, and it soon becomes evident that they are here to prepare for the burial of Ophelia.”
2009 Pequigney
Pequigney: Barbara Smith
3189-3201 Enter two Clownes . . . wittingly] Pequigney (2009, personal communication): “After the stage direction, ’Enter two Clownes,’ the ensuing (Beckett-like) dialogue is between Clown, who is the ’grave-maker’ (his term [3218, 3248]), and Other, his acquaintance and interlocutor. The latter has just brought the news that the coroner’s inquest reached the verdict on the drowned woman (unnamed here, but Ophelia) that she can have a Christian funeral, the verdict implying that she did not deliberately drown herself. Clowne, from what he knows (and we never learn how he came by his view of what really happened) thinks otherwise. He consistently maintains his dissenting opinion. He is uneducated, a bit pretentious, but very shrewd. First he asks incredibly how one may be allowed ’Christian burial’ who ’willfully seeks her own salvation,’ that is, who chooses the afterlife. where the soul can be granted heavenly salvation; he cannot imagine that anyone would seek damnation. Then he says of the coroner’s finding, ’How can that be, unlesse she drown’d herself in her own defense’ (3195-96).
Most commentators laugh at this ludicrous idea of suicide in self-defense. Of course the idea is ludicrous, as Clowne knows very well; he means it to be so. The hooters fail to get his irony. He is refuting the coroner’s verdict, remember. His explicit and implicit sense is, ’unlesse she drown’d herself in her own defense [which is of course absurd].’
Again, when Clowne says of the drowning, ’It must be Se offendendo, it cannot bee els’ (F1 3198), the Latin locution may not be the gaff it’s usually taken to be. If the initial ’It’ refers to the coroner’s finding (noted in the previous line, 3197), the exonerating legal term se defendendo would have been appropriate, though he would have disapproved of its application by the coroner. The annotators rarely acknowledge his oppositional attitude here. If, however, the pronoun refers, as it equally may, to suicide by the ’act’ of drowning, the subject of this speech (3198-3201) that concludes. ’she drown’d her selfe wittingly’—Clowne’s resolute stance throughout the dialogue—’se offendendo,’ in connoting the drowning to be self-destructive rather than self-defensive, would be exactly what he means. He may have little Latin, but he is smart enough to make up ’se offendendo’ as the opposite of se defendendo, on the model of the English antonyms offend(ing) and defend(ing). In Q2, instead of the Latin, he uses, not quite grammatically, the English phrase ’so offended.’ Barbara Smith cogently argues the textual correctness of ’se offendendo’ (2008, pp.103-106).”
3189 3195 3218, 3248
