Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand
| 3509 Ther’s a diuinity that shapes our ends, | 5.2.10 |
|---|
3510 Rough hew them how we will. 3510
1752 Dodd
Dodd :
3509-10 Ther’s . . .
will]
Dodd (1752, p. 257) ; <p. 257> “This is noble sentiment and worthy of
Shakespear : in the
Maid’s Tragedy , there is the same thought, but very meanly exprest; ‘But they that are above Have ends in every thing. Act 5.” </p. 257>
1755 John
John
3510 Rough hew]
Johnson (1755,
To Roughhew): “
v.a. [
rough and
hew] To give to any thing the first appearance of form. [cites
Hamlet] ‘The whole world, without art and dress, Would be but one great wilderness, And mankind but a savage herd, For all that nature has conferr’d: This does but
roughhew and design, Leaves art to polish and refine.’
Hudibras, p. iii.”
1780 mals
mals :
3509-10 shapes ,
Rough hew]
Steevens (
apud Malone,
1780, p. 362) : <p. 362> “Dr. Farmer informs me, that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, butcher, and dealer in
skewers , lately observed to him that his nephew ( an idle lad) could only
assist him in making them; ‘—he could
rough-hew them, but I was obliged to
shape their ends .’ Whoever recollects the profession of Shakspeare’s father, will admit that his son might be no stranger to such a term. I have seen packages of wooll pinn’d up with
skewers.. STEEVENS” </362>
[Ed: MALS gives a note here that will make its way into MALONE in 1790 and the v1785 variorum: <I:362>]
1785 v1785
v1785 = mals
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
1787 ann
ann = v1785
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
1790 mal
mal = v1785
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
-1790 mWesley
mWesley
3510 Wesley (typescript of ms. notes in ed. 1785): “This is ingenious [Steevens’s conclusion], but I believe Shakspeare’s thought was of Architecture.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
1807 Pye
Pye = v1803 +
3509-10 shapes ,
Rough hew]
Pye (1807, p. 327) : <p. 327>
“That such a suggestion could be made by one man of sense and adopted by another, can be only credible to those who are conversant with the commentators on Shakespear.”
1809 Sherwen
Sherwen
3509 diuinity that shapes our ends]
Sherwen (1809, pp. 43-6): <p.43> “‘
shap’
“‘I never as able (says Mr. T[yrwhitt] to conceive how shap, should have been used in the English language to signify fate, till I observed the following article in Skinner: Shap—now s my shap.—Nunc mihi fato præstitutum est: (i.e.) now is it shapen to me. Av. a.s. sceapan, &c.’ </p.43> . . . .<p.55> “A confirmation of shape fate may be detected in the following passage of Shakspeare, which has been quoted and repeated a thousand times without being thoroughly understood. ‘I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than living dully sluggardis’d at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idlenesse.’
Query.—What is shapeless idleness?—I now answer with much confidence; shapeless i.e. fortuneless or luckless idleness—idleness to which no good luck, fortune, or fate can be attached.
“Shapeless idleness (says Dr. Warburton) is fine, as implying, that idleness prevents the giving any form or character to </p.53><p.54> the manners.’ How little did he know of the fine meanings of Shakspeare!
“Palpable as this mistake appears to me, it has been dignified by the adoption of the celebrated author of Lewesden Hill, in the following elegant passage. ‘so methinks, Even so, sequester’d from the noisy world, Could I wear out this transitory being In peaceful contemplation, and calm ease. But conscience, which still censures on our acts, That awful voice within us, and the sense Of an hereafter, wake and rouse us up From such unshaped retirement.’
“Would that every other ingenious misconception of our immortal bard’s meanings had been consecrated in a similar manner! But since the author has borrowed the expression from Shakspeare’s sense: viz. Retirement deservedly unattended with any good fate or fortune; and this may perhaps be admitted as a notable instance of a commentator discovering a fine meaning to which the author himself was a stranger.
“This is not the only instnace in which Shakspeare has made use of shape for fate. ‘Our discretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us There’s Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will.’ </p.54>
<p.55> “If Dr. Farmer’s ludicrous and odious anecdote of the Butcher and his skewers be worthy of any notice, which I scarcely think it is, unless it be the notice of reprobation, we must conclude that Shakspeare, who is here alluding in a very fine strain to the superintendance of Divinity, meant to quibble with the words shape, fate, and shape, fashion, or form. But Dr. Farmer had as little conception of the fine meaning of Shakespeare in this instance, as Dr. Warburton in the preceding. ‘There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will.’ That is, that fates or pre-ordains our ends.
“The metaphor is really drawn from the woodman’s labour in felling and measuring timber: every tree requires to be regularly shaped at the ends, that the true girth may be taken, and the solid contents calculated: the intermediate parts are carelessly chopped with an axe; cutting off the knots, protuberances, and branches, is called rough hewing. Thus it appears, that not only all nature, but every mechanical art, was subservient to the vivid imagination of Shakspeare; whose quibble with the words shape and fate, has, in this instance, a much more respectable origin than any </p.55><p.56> thing that could be drawn from the formation of a butcher’s skewer. ‘“ </p.56>
[Ed FNC: See also 428.]
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
1818 Todd
Todd = John +
3510 Rough hew]
Todd (1818, roughhew): “
† v.a. [
rough and
hew. Dr. Farmer informed Mr. Steevens that the phrase, as used by Shakspeare, is technical. [cites TLN note ‘A wool-man . . . rough-hew them’ Those who lop the branches and knots, from trees that have been felled, I may add, commonly call their work rough-hewing.] To give to any thing the first appearance of form. [cites
Hamlet] ‘The whole world, without art and dress, Would be but one great wilderness, And mankind but a savage herd, For all that nature has conferr’d: This does but
roughhew and design, Leaves art to polish and refine.’
Hudibras, p. iii.”
1819 cald1
cald1 = v1813 + magenta underlined (prefaces Steevens’s 1813 note)
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “That point or fashions our purposes, brings them according to his good pleasure to a close, how ill soever or unskilfully conceived or entered upon.”
cald1 = v1813 + magenta underlined (follows Steevens’s 1813 note)
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “Doubtless these terms are so far technical, as that they are drawn from arts or handycraft trades, occupied with the knife, the axe, plane, or some such tool; and as the use of the tools is general, the phrases belonging to them also pass into general use.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
v1821 1821 BOSWELL (1821 ed., p. 487) adds a brief note between the quote in MALONE and “whoever recollects . . . ”: “To shape the ends of wool-skewers , i.e. to point them, requires a degree of skill; any one can rough-hew them.”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]
1841 knt1 (nd)
knt1 = cald1 + magenta (as preface to CALD1)
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Knight (ed. [1939]) : “Philosophy, as profound as it is beautiful! says the uninitiated reader of Shakspere. But he that is endued with the wisdom of the commentators will learn, how easy it is to mistake for philosophy and poetry what really only proceeded from the very vulgar recollections of an ignorant mind.”
-1845 mHunter2
mHunter2 ≈ mHunter1
3510 Rough hew them how we will]
Hunter (-1845, p. 227): <p. 227> “Rough-hewing must be the first work at the stone after it is dug from the quarry. Do this as we will, the finishing form is done by the Divinity: —or we may begin a work but God ends it.—This I presume is the meaning, but the sense is not clearly indicated by the words.—
Rough-hew is now nearly if not entirely, gone out of use. We still talk of the Rough-Rider for the man who first breaks in a horse. But rough-hew appears to have been used not uncommonly in Shakspeare’s time: ‘Thus is Matildaes story shown in act, And
rough heawen out by an hand: Being of the materiall point compackt That with the certaine state of doe stand.’ This is the Epilogue to his play of ‘The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington’. So Davis ‘To smooth one bill rough-hewn: & see Abozzser in Florio’s Dictionary.” </p. 227>
1855 mHUNTER (Prolegomena and Notes on Shakespeare [BL ADD. MS. 24495 ] : pp. 219-46) has a note on these two line
1846 Hunter
Hunter : v1821 (Farmer)
3510 Rough hew]
Hunter (1845, pp. 263-4) : <p. 263>“The sooner Dr. Farmer’s unfortunate remark on this pas-, </p. 263><p. 264>sage is expunged the better.
Rough-hew is not and never was
technical. It is a common English word applicable to to [sic] all kinds of work where there is room for ordinary manual labour before the master comes and applies a skilful hand. Thus, in Palsgrave’s Table of Verbs, ‘I
rough-hewe a pece of tymber to make an ymage of, or to put to some byldyng:’ and again, ‘It is
rough-hewen all redy, I will now fall a karvynge of it,’ p. 344. This is in 1530. Florio in 1598 explains the Italian
Abbozzare ‘to rough-hew any first draught, to bungle ill-favoredly,’ and
abbozamento is ‘a rough, coarse, imperfect, bungling piece of work.’ In the Epilogue to the play of
The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, ‘Thus is Matilda’s story shewn in art And
rough-hewen out by an uncunning hand Being of the most material points compackt That with the certainst state of truth do stand.’
“And in The Scourge of Folly by John Davies, called of Hereford, ‘Thou learn’d art in the laws; then wer tain Thee with Love’s fee to smooth our bill rough-hewn; For thou wilt say,we cause have to complain Which in our piteous bill at large is shewn.’
“Concerning the meaning of the passage there can be no doubt. We but begin a work; God finishes it.” </p. 264>
1854 del2
del2
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Delius (ed. 1854) : “Das Bild ist von irgend einem Handwerk entlehnt, wo der Stoff erst im Rohen zugehauen wird (rough-hew), ehe er weiter appretirt (shape) werden kann. So giebt die Vorsehung auch unsern Plänen zuletzt die ihr gut dünkende Form, wir mögen dieselben nach unserm Belieben vorher auch noch so willkurhlich zurechtgehauen haben.”[The image is borrowed from any handwork, where the matter first will be roughhewn in its raw state, before it can become shaped further. So the Providence at last gives also our plans/destinies their well- obscured form, we are able in the same fashion to have according to our preordained choice also so arbitrary a shaping.]
1846- mHunter1
mHunter1
3510 Rough hew them how we will] Hunter (1846-) : <f. 40v > “rough-hew them how you will. That there was a kind of work people called Rough Hewers appears justifiable, because we find that there certainly were ... called Hard-Hewers” </f. 40v >
[Ed: ms. notes, “Shakespeare. Notes on his Life and Writings,” 1846-, f. 27v)f.]
1857 elze1
elze1 : Farmer ; Drake
3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Elze (ed. 1857): "Dr. Farmer erzählt, dass ihn einstmals ein fleischer, zugleich Woll- und Nagelhändler, bezüglich eines Neffen gesagt habe: ’he could rough-hew the skewers, but I was obliged to shape their ends’. ’Skewers’ sind nämlich die hölzernen Nägel, deren sich die Fleischer zum Befestigen und Aufspannen der Felle bedienen. Da nun Shakespeare’s Vater gleichfalls Fleischer und Wollhändler war, so liegt die Vermuthung nahe, dass der Dichter hier auf das väterliche Gewerbe, ind em er als junger Bursche gewiss oft hülfreiche Hand geleistet hatte, angespielt habe, um so mehr, als er auch in The Winter’s Tale IV, 2 ((Let me see: —Every ’leven wether tods; &c.)) eine genaue Kenntniss des Wollgeschäfts verräth. Drake 17." [Dr. Farmer explains that once a butcher, together with a wool and nailhandler told him concerning a nephew: : ’he could rough-hew the skewers, but I was obliged to shape their ends’. ’Skewers’ are namely the wooden nails/spikes, which the butcher used for fastening and stretching hides. If Shakespeare’s father now was likewise a butcher and wooldhandler, so the conjecture lies near that the poet has alluded here to his paternal trade, in which he, as a young boy, had lent a helping hand often , for even more, also in [Win. 4.2.] Let me see: —Every ’leven wether tods; &c.)), a thorough knowledge of woolmaking, Drake conjectures 17.]
1859 stau
stau : v1821 (Farmer reference) ; mHunter2 (Florio //) + magenta underlined
3510 Rough hew them how we will] Staunton (ed. 1859) :“Farmer’s assertion that these words were merely technical, and referred to the making skewers , has never, we believe, been contradicted; a striking proof, if so, how much the commentators on Shakespeare have yet to learn from our early literature. To rough-hew meant to plan or scheme, or do anything in the rough. Thus Florio interprets ‘Abbozzare,’ to rough-hew or cast any first draught , to bungle up ill-fauouredly and Baret, in his Aluearie , says, ‘To cut out grossely: to hew rough. ‘ ‘It is rough hewed , or squared out, or it is begun.’”
1864-68 c&mc
c&mc ≈ standard
3510 Rough hew] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1864-68, rpt. 1874-78): “‘Give a first form to,’ ‘sketch out,’ ‘originally devise.’ Florio defines the Italian word abozzare, by ‘To rough-hew any first draught, to bungle ill-favouredly.’”
1872 del4
del4 = del2; stau (Florio definition)magenta underlined
3510 Rough hew them how we will] Delius (ed. 1872) : Staunton citirt dazu aus Florio’s italienische Wörterbuch: Abbozzare, to rough-hew, or cast any first draught, to bungle up ill-favouredly.” [“Staunton cites, therefore, from Florio’s Italian dictionary, ‘Abbozare, to rough-hew, to bungle up ill-favouredly.”]
1870 Miles
Miles
3509-10 Miles (1870, pp. 39-40): <p. 39>“The power referred to is God, not fate. Even before that </p. 39> <p. 40>glance beyond the grave, that verification of penal fire, he respects the ‘cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter.’” </p. 40>
3509-10 Miles (1870, pp. 77-8): <p. 77> In the conversation with
Horatio, that opens the last scene, there is more about the voyage to England.
Hamlet knew well enough that his conductors were marshalling him to knavery; but the unsealing of their grand commission, and the device of a new one, was a sudden inspiration. [cites 3509-10]
“Much follows from this unpremeditated and most legitimate theft: it is as fertile of results as the dropping of the handkerchief in
Othello. In the first place, besides ascertaining the full extent of the royal knavery, he obtains full proof, under the royal seal, of the king’s villainy. In the second place, this royal commission, whihc, in the presentiment or rather in the assurance of speedy death, he entrusts to
Horatio, will be a justification before the world of the blow which must soon be delivered; will shield the princely name, about which he is so solicitous, from posthumous obloquy, and assist in consigning the seeming virtuous wearer of the precious diadem to everlasting infamy. In the third place, Rosencrantz </p. 77> <p. 78>and Guildenstern, those supple traitors to all the rights of fellowship, to all the consonancy of youth, to all the obligations of every preserved love, are finally and most righteously disposed of by this
de jure King of Denmark, who carries his father’s signet in his purse.
They are not even
near his conscience; [3561-65]” </p. 78>
1872 cln1
cln1 ≈ v1821 (Farmer) : stau? (FLORIO “Abbozzare’ . . . draught”)
3510 Rough hew them how we will]
1873 rug2
rug2 ≈ standard
3510 Moberly (ed. 1873): “When we, with such skill as we possess, have planned our purposes, in comes God’s providence and shapes them otherwise.”
1877 v1877
v1877 = v1813 (STEEVENS) ; ≈ cald2 ; knt1 (summarized) ; ≈ HUNTER (minus Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon analogue and The Scourge of Folly analogue) ; ≈ STAU (summarized)
3510 Rough hew them how we will]
Furness (ed. 1877) : “
Knight fleers at Farmer’s suggestion.”
1877 neil
neil
3509-10 Neil (ed. 1877, Notes): “[Prov. 16: 9, 33]”
[1879] Bullock
Bullock
3509-10 Bullock ([1879], pp. 41-42): Bullock provides this quotation as an example of precept 22, “An Overruling Providence”
1882 elze2
elze2
3510 Rough hew] Elze (ed. 1882): “‘This phrase, says a writer in N. & Q., June 20, 1874, p. 484, is uesed by Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie, [chap. XX [p. 254, ed. Arber]; speaking of the ‘Gorgious’ he says: ‘For the glorious lustre it seeteth vpon our speech and language, the Greeks call it (Exargasia [_xergas] the Latine (Expolitio), a terme transferred from these polishers of marble or porphirite, who after it is rough hewen and reduced to that fasion they will, set vpon it a goodly glasse, so smoth andcleere, as ye may see your face in it.’ Lyly, in his Euphues [ed. Arber, p. 263], speaking of the bees, says, ‘diuers hew, others polish’.”
1885 macd
macd
3509 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—even by our indiscretion. Emphasis on shapes.”
macd
3510 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Here is another sign of
Hamlet’s religion. We start to work out an idea, but the result does not correspond with the idea: another has been at work along with us. we rough-hew—block out our marble, say for a Mercury; the result is an Apollo.
Hamlet had rough-hewn his ends—he had begun plans to certain ends, but had he been allowed to go on shaping them alone, the result, even had he carried out his plans and shaped his ends to his mind, would have been failure. Another mallet and chisel were busy shaping them otherwise from the first, and carrying them out to a true success. For
success is not the success of plans, but the success of ends.”
1889 Barnett
Barnett ≈ v1821 (STEEVENS)
3510 Rough hew]
Barnett (1889, p. 62): <p. 62>“
This fine metaphor, recognized by the uninitiated reader as both philosophy and poetry, has been spoiled for ever by the commentators. Who on reading it could miss its meaning? Hear how it is vulgarized. ‘Dr. Farmer informs me’ says Stevens [sic], ‘that these words are
merely technical. A wood-man, butcher, and dealer in
skewers, informed him that his nephew (an idle lad) could only assist him in
making them; he could
rough-hew them, but I was obliged
to shape their ends.’
“He goes on ‘Whoever recollects the profession of Shakespeare’s father, will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms. I have frequently seen packages of wool pinned up with skewers.’ After this who will dare to assert that there is such a thing as poetry in the word?” </p. 62>
1890 irv2
irv2 ≈ v1821 (Steevens/Farmer reference) ; STAU? (Florio gloss)
3510 Rough hew]
1899 ard1
ard1 ≈ v1877 (Farmer ; Florio def.) w/o attribution +
3510 Rough hew] Dowden (ed. 1899): “We do not need the assistance of the dealer in skewers who told Farmer that his nephew could rough-hew them, but that he had himself to shape their ends.”
1909 N&Q
[W.C.B.]
3510 Rough hew][W.C.B.] (1909, 85): <p. 85> “H. Peacham, ‘compleat Gentleman,’ 1622, p. 91, says of George Buchanan: ‘In his person, behauiour and fashion, he was rough hewen.’”</p. 85>
1931 crg1
crg1
3510 Rough hew]
1939 kit2
kit2
3509 ends] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “the outcome of our plans.”
3509 ends] Kittredge (ed. 1939, Glossary): “the outcome of our plans.”
1936 cam3b
cam3b
3509-10 Wilson (2nd ed. 1936, Additional Notes): “Mr. J.P. Malleson writes (privately): ‘Years ago a country labourer astonished my father by saing as he sharpened stakes for fixing hurdles in the ground: ‘My mate roughhews them and I shape their ends.’
“Perhaps the image came to Sh. from the passage in Saxo or Belleforest which describes Amleth shaping the ends of litle staves in the fire, v. Gollancz,
Sources of Hamlet, pp. 103-05, 199.”
1951 crg2
crg2=crg1
3510 Rough hew]
1954 sis
sis ≈ standard
3510 Rough hew] Sisson (ed. 1954, Glossary):
1957 pel1
pel1 : standard
3510 Rough hew]
1932 pel2
pel2=pel1
3510 Rough hew]
1974 EVNS1
evns1
3509 shapes our ends] Evans (ed. 1974): “gives final shape to our design.”
evns1
3510 Rough hew them] Evans (ed. 1974): “block them out in initial form.”
1980 pen2
pen2
3509-10 Spencer (ed. 1980): “This is the first evidence of
Hamlet’s new piety or Christian patience, preparing us for lines [3668-3673+1]. Perhaps Shakespeare is interesting the audience by showing, after the excited reasoning of IV.4.32-66, the meditative force of V.1.65-212, and the anxieties of V.1.250-88, a new kind of irresponsibility in
Hamlet.”
pen2 ≈ standard
3510 Rough hew them]
1982 ard2
ard2 ≈ standard +
3509-10 Jenkins (ed. 1982): “For the sentiment, LN [Longer Notes]. The concentrated expression of it uses a single word ((ends)) to apply both to purposes and their outcome, and a metaphor from stone or timber work, in which rough-hew was a familiar term.”
ard2
3509-10 Jenkins (ed. 1982, Longer Notes, 557): <p. 557>“Cf. ‘Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own’, [3.2.208 (2129)], where, however, belief in a beneficient power is absent. The present passage shows
Hamlet recognizing a design in the universe he had previously failed to find (([1.2.133-7; 2.2.298-303; etc.)) Cf. Proverbs xvi.9 ((Bishops’ Bible)), ‘A man deviseth a way in his heart: but it is the lord that ordereth his goings’; and, for the same metaphor as in Shakespeare, Florio’s Montaigne, II.8, ‘My consultation doth somewhat roughly hew the matter, and by its first show, lightly consider the same: the main and chief point of the work, I am wont to resign the heaven’” </p. 557>
1984 chal
chal : evns1 ; ard2
3509 ends] Wilkes (ed. 1984): "a))the outcome of our lives b)) the ends of timber."
1985 cam4
cam4 : v1877 (Florio)
3509-10 Edwards (ed. 1985): “i.e. there is a higher power in control of us, directing us towards our destination, however much we have blundered in the past and impeded our own progress. This recognition drastically modifies
Hamlet’s earlier assessment of his freedom and power to direct his own course. [cites Florio] Shakespeare here uses it to mean a crude botching.
Hamlet feels the guiding hand of heaven in his own impulsive and unpremeditated actions, after the failure of his own willed efforts. ;Compare the tenth of the 39 Articles, ‘Of Free-Will’, which argues that ‘we have no power to do good works’ until we have the ‘good will’ given by ‘the grace of God by Christ’, after which that grace will be ‘working with us’.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4 : Tilley
3509-10 Hibbard (ed. 1987): “Compare ‘Man proposes, God disposes’ ((Tilley M298)).”
oxf4
3509 our ends] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “our purposes and their final outcomes.”
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
3510 Rough hew]
1992 fol2
fol2≈ standard
3509 our ends]
3510 Rough hew]
1993 dent
dent
3509-10 Andrews (ed. 1989): “
Hamlet’s metaphor suggests a number of related ways in which Providence ‘shapes our Ends’: ((a)) it gives our lives a well-carved shape, despite our own tendency to ‘hew’ ((chop)) them in a rough, shapeless manner; ((b)) it takes our ‘Ends’ ((intentions)) and gives them a shpae we can only approach in a rough-hewn fashion; and (c)) it takes the ‘Ends’ of our lives ((both literally, and in the sense pertaining to God’s purpose for them)) and gives them a shape ((fits them into a design)) that we can at best approximate with our rough-hewn plans and actions. Rough-hew
echoes Hamlet’s earlier reference to ‘the Native Hew of Resolution’ ((III.i.81)).”
1998 OED
OED
3510 Rough hew]OED to be chipped, sometimes rough-hewn. b. transf. or fig. 1565 COOPER Thes. s.v. Exascio, It is rough hewed, or squared out, or it is begunne. 1592 NASHE Four Lett. Confut. Wks. (Grosart) II. 197 He..speakes not that sentence in the Pulpit, which before he rough-hewes not ouer with his penne. 1602 SHAKS. Ham. V. ii. 10 There’s a Diuinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. [etc.]
3509 3510
