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Line 3506 - Commentary Note (CN) More Information

Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand
For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.
3506 And {praysd} <praise> be rashnes for it: let vs knowe,5.2.7
1747-60 Browne
Browne :
3506 And praysed be rashnes for it]Browne (ms. notes, 1747-60): “W[arburton] to make this plainer reads ‘Or indiscretion etc.’ But then Q. How does indiscretion differ from Rashness, is this really any more than in the former—and what is it that rashness lets us know, for as he corrects the passage there seems to want an accusative to that verb—”
1765 Heath
Heath :
3505-6 rashly, And praysed be rashnes for it: let vs know . . . ] Heath (1765, p. 251) : <p. 251>“(And prais’d be rashness for it ) lets us know; Or indiscretion sometimes serues us well,When our deep plots do fail .
“This too is an emendation of Mr. Warburton’s, according to which Rashness is said to let us know, though nothing appears from whence we can learn what it is which Rashnesss lets us know. Our critick indeed informs us, that it lets us know ‘what we cannot penetrate to by plots.’ But then this information comes merely from him, not from the text, which in no construction of which it is capable acquaints us with any such matter. The common reading was, ‘——Rashness (And praid’s be rashness for it) lets us know, Our indiscretion sometimes serues us welll, When our deep plots do fail. ‘
“The sense is obvious; Rashness suggests to us, that a lucky indiscretion sometimes puts us in possession of those advantages which we should in vain hope for from deepp contrivance. What defect is there in this observation, that Mr. Warburton so positively assures us, ‘it could never be Shakespear’s sense?’ “
1773 JEN
JEN :
3506 let vs knowe] Jennens (ed. 1773) : observes that Pope’s and Hanmer’s emendations are unnecessary for the sense: “But there is no difficulty in the passage if we take it as we find it in all the editions before P. Hamlet is proceeding in his story, but interrupts himelf with a reflection, Let us know, &c. to the end of the speech.”
1774-79? CAPN
CAPN :
3505-6 rashly . . . knowe] Capell (1779-83 [1774]1:1: 147) : “The changes in the opposite page [p. 122; 3505-6 rashness/lets us know/do fail] are in the four latter moderns [ POPE, THEOBALD, WARB, HANMER].”
1790 MAL
MAL : MALS (see n. 3502; modified) + magenta underlined
3503ff Sir, in my heart . . . ] Malone (ed. 1790) : “So, in Troilus and Cressida : ‘Within my soul there doth commence a sight, Of this strange nature,’ &c.
“The Hystorie of Hamblet, bl. let. furnished our author with the scheme of sending the prince to England, and with most of the circumstances described in this scene: ‘(After the death of Polonius) ‘ Fengon (the king in the present play) could not content himselfe, but still his mind gave him that the foole (Hamlet) would play him some trick of legerdemaine. And in that conceit, seeking to be rid of him, determined to find the meanes to doe it by the aid of a stranger, making the king of England minister of his massacrous resolution; to whom he purposed to send him, and by letters desire him to put him to death.’ Now, to beare him company, were assigned two of Fengon’s faithful ministers, bearing letters ingraved in wood, that contained Hamlet’s death, in such sort as he had advertised the king of England. But the subtil Danish prince (being at sea), whilst his companions slept, having read the letters, and knowing his uncle’s great treason, with the wicked and villainous mindes of the two courtiers that led him to the slaughter, raced out the letters that concerned his death, and instead thereof graved others, with commission to the king of England to hang his two companions; and not content to turn the death they had devised against him, upon their own neckes, wrote further, that king Fengon willed him to give his daughter to Hamblet in marriage.’Hyst of Hamb. sig. G2.
“From this narrative it appears that the faithful ministers of Fengon were not unacquainted with the import of the letters they bore. Shakspeare, who has followed the story pretty closely, probably meant to describe their representatives, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as equally guilty; as confederating with the king to deprive Hamlet of his life. So that his procuring their execution, though certainly not absolutely necessary to his own safety, does not appear to have been a wanton and unprovoked cruelty, as Mr. Steevens has supposed in his very ingenious observations on the general character and conduct of the prince throughout this piece. See [3850: ed. 1773, 10: 412] Vol. X. p. 412.
“In the conclusion of his drama the poet has entirely deviated from the fabulous history, which in other places he has frequently followed.
“After Hamlet’s arrival in England (for no sea-fight is mentioned), ‘the king (says The Hystory of Hamblet ) admiring the young prince—gave him his daughter in marriage, according to the counterfeit letters by him devised; and the next day caused the two servants of Fengon to be executed, to satisfy as he thought the king’s desire.’ Hyst. of Hamb. Ibid.
“Hamlet, however, returned to Denmark, without marrying the king of England’s daughter, who, it should seem, had only been betrothed to him. When he arrived in his native country, he made the courtiers drunk, and having burnt them to death, by setting fire to the banqueting-room wherein they sat, he went into Fengon’s chamber, and killed him, ‘giving him (says the relater) such a violent blowe upon the chine of the necke, that he cut his head clean from the shoulders.’ Ibid sig. F3
“He is afterwards said to have been crowned king of Denmark.
I shall only add that this tremendous stroke might have been alledged by the advocates for Dr. Warburton’s alteration of naue into nape , in a contested passage in the first act of Macbeth , if the original reading had not been established beyond a doubt by Mr. Steevens, in his supplemental note to Vol. X [p. 358 in v1785 edition] late edition. “ MALONE”
Malone adds the Tro. headnote to this note moved from 3502 in ed. 1790, adding a bit to the start of the note, as well as excising the closing paragraph.
1791- RANN
RANN : standard
3506 And praysd be rashnes for it] Rann (ed. 1791-) : “it suggests to us that a lucky indiscretion sometimes furnishes us with advantages not attainable by deep contrivance, whence we should infer the perpetual superintendance and agency of the Divinity.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = v1785 ; MAL +
3503ff Sir . . . sleep] Steevens (ed. 1793) : “I apprehend that a critick and a juryman are bound to form their opinions on what they see and hear in the cause before them, and not to be influenced by extraneous particulars unsupported by legal evidence in open court. I persist in observing that from Shakespeare’s drama no proofs of the guilt of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can be collected. They may be convicted by the black letter history; but if the tragedy forbears to criminate, it has no right to sentence them. This is sufficient for the commentator’s purpose. It is not his office to interpret the plays of Shakspeare according to the novels on which they are founded, novels which the past sometimes followed, but as often materially deserted. Perhaps he never confined himself strictly to the plan of any one of his originals. His negligence of poetick justice is notorious; nor can we expect that he who was content to sacrifice the pious Ophelia, should have been more scrupulous about the worthless lives of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Therefore, I still assert that, in the tragedy before us, their deaths appear both wanton and unprovoked; and the critick, like Bayes, must have recourse to somewhat long before the beginning of this play, to justify the conduct of its hero. Steevens.”
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
3503ff Sir . . . sleep]
1818 clrfr
The Friend
3503-65 Coleridge (Essay iv [Essays on the Principles of Method], The Third Landing-Place, or Essays Miscellaneous, The Friend, vol. 3, 1818; rpt. Coleridge, 1969, 4.1:451-3): <p.451>“METHOD, therefore, becomes natural to the mind which has been accustomed to contemplate not things only, or for their sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relations of things, either their relations to each other, or to the observer, or to the state and apprehension of the hearers. To enumerate and analyze these relations, with the conditions under which alone they are discoverable, is to teach the science of Method.
“The enviable results of this science, when knowledge has been ripened into those habits which at once secure and evince its possession, can scarcely be exhibited more forcibly as well as more pleasingly, than by contrasting with the former extract from Shakespeare [[2H4 2.1.74-86]] the narration given by Hamlet to Horatio of the occurrences during his proposed transportation to England, and the events that interrupted his voyage.
[[Ccites 3503-27]]</p. 451>
<p. 452> “Here the events, with the circumstances of time and place, are all stated with equal compression and rapidity, not one introduced which could have been omitted without injury to the intelligibility of the whole process. If any tendency is discoverable, as far as the mere facts are in question, it is the tendency to omission: and, accordingly, the reader will observe, that the attention of the narrator is called back to one material circumstance, which he was hurrying by, by a direct question from the friend to whom the story is communicated, ‘HOW WAS THIS SEALED?’ But by a trait which is indeed peculiarly characteristic of Hamlet’s mind, ever disposed to generalize, and meditative to excess (but which, with due abatement and reduction, is distinctive of every powerful and methodizing intellect), all the digressions and enlargements consist of reflections, truths, and principles of general and permanent interest, either directly expressed or disguised in playful satire. [[C cites 3532-65 I . . . opposits]] </p. 452>
<p.453>“It would, perhaps, be sufficient to remark of the preceding passage, in connection with the humorous specimen of narration,
Fermenting o’er with frothy circumstance,
in Henry IV.; that if overlooking the different value of the matter in each, we considered the form alone, we should find both immethodical; Hamlet from the excess, Mrs. Quickley from the want, of reflection and generalization; and that Method, therefore, must result from the due mean or balance between our passive impressions and the mind’s own re-action on the same.”</p.453>
[Ed: Rooke notes that the source of the quotation “Fermenting o’er with frothy]. circumstance” is “untraced.”
1819 cald1
cald1 : mal (Tro. // only) +
3503 -6 Sir, in my heart . . . knowe ] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “Misgiving and distrust of ill practices against him, produced this struggle or agitation in his bosom, not so much on any personal consideration, as on that of his revenge being unsatisfied; and, should he by any impending chance be cut off, that his promise also, and his oath, would be unfulfilled.”
cald1 : standard
3506 let vs knowe] Caldecott (ed. 1819) :: “Be it understood.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
3503ff Sir . . . sleep]
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1 +
3506 And praysd be rashnes for it ] Caldecott (ed. 1832) :: “i.e. praise be to rashness!”
1848 Strachey
Strachey
3503-3510 Strachey (1848, p. 91-2): <p. 91>“ In our former investigations of the progress of Hamlet’s own enquiry into the principles of his character and conduct, we found that he had come to the conclusion, first that his inaction was the consequence of his sense of moral responsibility, and dread of unknown consequences; and secondly, that this scrupu- lousness might easily run to excess ; and that when a man had once found reasonable ground for action, he should ponder the matter no further, but instantly proceed </p. 91> <p. 92> to act, shutting his eyes to the consequences.* But the practical difficulty remained, how to ascertain the right moment for ceasing to think, and beginning to act : the evil of doing wrong for want of previous thought, is as great as that of abstaining from doing right through excess of thought; and who, in practice, shall strike the balance, and give the command to act ? This secret too, Hamlet has been taught by the events of his late voyage. The bodily restlessness of a sleepless night, suddenly induced him to go to the cabin of Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, and take their dispatches to read. He had every reason to believe that they contained some evil design against himself, but it was the sudden spur of that bodily restlessness, and not a deliberate resolution, that caused him to take this step.”</p. 92>
<n><p. 92>“*As Lady Russell expresses it in her letter to I)ean Tillotson:—’ Pray do not turn this matter too much in your head; when one has once turned it every way, you know that more does but perplex, and one never sees the clearer for it.’" </p. 92></n>
3505-10 rashly . . . will] Strachey (1848, pp. 92-3): <p. 92> And this is the conclusion he draws:—</p. 92> <p. 93>[cites 3505-10] That is to say, that when we have exhausted all our powers of thought and reasoning upon the consideration of the course we should pursue, and when it yet remains dark to us—’sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought’-—then a higher wisdom and providence than our own will assuredly come to our aid, and employ some apparently unimportant accident—something which to us seems merely a rashness or indiscretion—to strike the hour, and give the command for action. This is Hamlet’s final, crowning, discovery: a discovery which every man of Hamlet’s tendency of mind must make for himself, before it is possible for him to turn his intellectual powers to practical account, and to make his philosophical speculations available in the every day-service of God and man. Till such a man has learnt the value of accidents, in breaking the thread of his meditations when it is spun long enough, and has formed the habit of seizing and using these accidents, be must remain an unpractical visionary. And Hamlet perceives, that thus to get the aids of accidents is a very different thing from being the slave of them, and the victim of circumstances: that, on the contrary, it is only falling into his proper place in God’s great order and government of the world—as he points out farther in the new accident (of finding that he had his father’s seal) without which the rest would have been vain:— [cites 3551-3]” </p. 93>
Hor. I How was this sealld t Eatn. Why, even in that was heaven ordinate; I had my father’s signet in my purse,
Which was the model of that Danish seal.
And now observe the result of all this, in Hatuiet’s prac-
1858 col3
col3 : mcol1
3506 let vs knowe] Collier (ed. 1858) :: “‘Let us own ,’ in the corr. fo. 1632; but ‘let us know’ is nearly as intelligible.
1859 stau
stau : v1778 (n. 3506-08)
3506 And praysd be rashnes for it] Staunton (ed. 1859) : “We think, with Tyrwhitt, that Rashly should be joined in construction with—in the dark grop’d I to find out them, and the passage therefore distributed and read as follows:— ‘—Rashly (And prais’d be rashness, for it lets us know . . . certain) [continues to 3512).”
1861 wh1
whi ≈ stau
3505-11 rashly . . . certain] White (ed. 1861) : “All from ‘Rashly’ . . . to these words [Up from my cabin] is parenthetical.”
1864-68 c&mc
c&mc
3505-06 rashly, And praysd be rashnes for it] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1864-68, rpt. 1874-78): “The parenthetical construction of this passage [and praysed be rashnes for it] is completely characteristic of Hamlet’s mind, which digresses to philosophise upon every thought that strikes him as he proceeds. The thought itself, too, harmonises with Hamlet’s disposition: which lets a sudden impulse and a casual opportunity occasion him to enact a purpose long cherished but long deferred.”
1870 Abbott
Abbott
3505-12 rashly . . . Cabin] Abbott (§514): “Interruptions are sometimes not allowed to interfere with the completeness of the speaker’s verse. . . . when a man is bent on continuing what he has to say:
“ ‘Ham. Rashly—and that should teach us
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
“ Rough-hew them how we will—
“(Hor. That’s certain).
“Ham. Up from my cabin,’ &c.”
1872 Staunton
Staunton
3505-6 praise ] Staunton (1872, p. 530): <p. 530> Staunton cites this word as evidence of "the extent to which confusion of final d and e prevails in our old dramatists . . . Shakespeare’s plays alone there are probably fifty examples as undeniable as these.” </p. 530>
[Ed: Staunton, H. "Unsuspected Corruptions of Shakespeare’s Text." The Athenaeum, October 1872, p. 530.]
1883 wh2
wh2 = wh1
3505-11 rashly . . . certain]
1884 Gould
Gould
3505-12 rashly . . . cabin] Gould (1884, p. 41): <p. 41> “From ‘Let us know’ down to Horatio’s speech, ‘That is most certain’ appears to have been interposited at some time, and ‘Up from my cabin’ read on after ‘rashness for it.’ ‘Let us’ should be ‘Yet we.’ The passage might be printed: ‘Rashly And praise be rashness for it.—[Yet we know Our indiscretion sometimes serves us well When our dear plots do pall; and THAT should teach us There’s a divinity that shapes our ends Rough-hew them how we will. Hor. That is most certain] Ham.—Up from my cabin, etc.’ Read in this way, and putting a slight stress on ‘THAT,’ the sense is perfect and needs no fighting over. There is a passage in [Lr. 4.1.19-21 (2198-2200)], which should be read in connection with the above, as serving to explain one another. ‘Full oft ‘tis seen Our means secure us; and our mere defects Prove our commodities.’”
1885 macd
macd
3506 And . . . it] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Does he not here check himself and begin afresh—remembering that the praise belongs to the Divinity?”
1885 mull
mull
3506 let vs knowe] Mull (ed. 1885): “recognize.”
1929 trav
trav
3506-10 let . . . will] Travers (ed. 1929): “And (cp. again 1. 9 [3508]) marks the beginning of one of those philosophical and moralising parentheses of which I, iv, 23-39, was essentially, though not grammatically, another significant instance.”
1934 cam3
cam3 : standard
3506-10 let . . . will] Wilson (ed. 1934): “A parenthesis enlarging ‘praised for rashness.’ The sentence ‘Rashly . . . rashness for it’ is continued in l. 12 [3512]. For ‘rashly’ and ‘know” v. G.[lossary].”
1939 kit2
kit2 ≈ standard +
3506-10 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Parenthetical.”
3506 let vs knowe] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “let us recognize as a fact of experience.”
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ standard
3506 let vs knowe]
1980 pen2
pen2
3506 praysd be rashnes for it] Spencer (ed. 1980): “The praise of impetuous conduct and the confidence in divine providence are ill connected logically. Hamlet speaks eloquently, but without philosophical competence, of the old dilemma of human action and reliance on the will of God. At V.1.257 [3457] he boasted I am not splenitive and rash.”
1984 chal
chal : standard
3506 let vs knowe] Wilkes (ed. 1984): "i.e. we should take note."
1985 cam4
cam4 ≈ standard
3506 let vs knowe]
1987 oxf4
oxf4 ≈ standard
3506 let vs knowe]
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
3506 knowe]
3506

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