Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 368 Ham. Thrift, thrift, Horatio, the funerall bak’t meates | 1.2.180 |
|---|
1725 pope1
pope2 (2:148)
368 Thrift] For MV 1.1.175 (184), Pope (ed. 1725) glosses thrift as “thriving.”
1736 Stubbs
Stubbs
368-9 Stubbs (1736, p. 17) “The Prince’s Reflections on his Mother’s hasty Marriage, are very natural, and shew That to be one of the principal Causes of the deep fix’d Concern so visible in his Behaviour; and then they serve to introduce the Relation of the Appearance of his Father’s Ghost.”
1778 v1778
v1778: Collins
368 funerall bak’t meates] Collins (apud ed. 1778) says, “It was anciently the general custom to give a cold entertainment to mourners at a funeral. In distant counties this practice is continued among the yeomanry. See The Tragique Historie of the Fairie Valeria of London, 1598: ‘His corpes was with funerall pompe conveyed to the church, and there sollemnly enterred, nothing omitted which necessitie or custom could claime; a sermon, a banquet, and like observations.’ Again, in the old romance of Syr Degore, bl[ack] 1[etter] no date: ‘A great feaste would he holde Upon his quenes mornynge day, That was buryed in an abbay.’ Collins.”
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1787 ann
ann = v1785 minus some details
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1790 mal
mal = v1785 +
368 funerall bak’t meates] Malone (ed. 1790): “See also Hayward’s Life and Raigne of King Henrie the Fourth, 4to. 1599, p.135: ‘Then hee [[King Richard II.]] was conveyed to Langley Abby in Buckinghamshire,—and there obscurely interred,—without the charge of a dinner for celebrating the funeral.’”
1790- mTooke
mTooke: contra Collins “distant counties”
368 funerall bak’t meates] Tooke (ms. notes in Malone, ed. 1790): “In all counties.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1807 Douce
Douce
368 funerall bak’t meates]
Douce (1807, 2:202-3): <p.202> “The practice of making entertainments at funerals which prevailed in this and other countries, and which is not even at present quite disused in some of the northern counties of England, was certainly borrowed from the
cœna feralis of the Romans, alluded to in Juvenal’s fifth satire, and in the laws of the twelve tables. It consisted of an offering of a small plate of milk, honey, wine, flowers, &c., to the ghost of the deceased. In the instances of heroes and other great characters, </p.202> <p.203> the same custom appears to have prevailed among the Greeks. With us the appetites of the living are consulted on this occasion. In the North this feast in called an
arval or
arvil-supper; and the loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor,
arval-bread. Not many years since one of these arvals was celebrated in a village in Yorkshire at a public-house, the sign of which was the family arms of a nobleman whose motto is virtus post funera vivit.
The undertaker, who, though a clerk,
vivit, lives well,
post funera, at an
arval. The latter word is apparently derived from some lost Teutonic term that indicated a funeral pile on which the body was burned in times of Paganism. Thus
aerill in Islandic signifies the inside of an oven. The common parent seems to have been
ar, fire; whence
ara, an altar of fire,
ardeo,
aridus, &c. &c. So the pile itself was called
ara by Virgil, AEn. vi.177: ‘Haud mora, festinant flentes;
aramque sepulchri Congerere arboribus, coeloque educere certant.’ ” </p.203>
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1819 cald1
cald1 = mal; Douce +
368 funerall bak’t meates]
Caldecott (ed. 1819): <p. 21> “See ‘Death’s feast.’ [5.2]. ‘When the seconde husband was dede, The thyrde husbande dyde she wedde In full goodly araye—But as the devyll wolde
Or the pyes were colde,’ &c. The boke of mayd Emlyn that had v husbandes & all kockoldes she wold make theyr berdes.
* whether they wold or not, and </p.21> <p.22> gyue them to were a praty hoode full of belles.’ 4to. Signat. B.II. without date. Imprynted by John Skot in saynt Pulkere parysshe.” </p.22>
* <n> <p.21> “ ‘Mani for desire of promocion
make their lordes berd. Multi ambitionis studio principi suo fucum faciunt.’ Hormanni Vulgaris, 4to. 1530, Signat. ?.1, b. & Tyrwhitt Chauc. note on v. 4094. ” </p.21> </n>
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1826 sing1
sing1≈ Douce without attribution
368 funerall bak’t meates] Singer (ed. 1826): “It was anciently the custom to give an entertainment at a funeral. The usage was derived from the Roman cæna funeralis; and is not yet disused in the North, where it is called an arvel supper.”
Ed. note: the OED credits Douce (1807) for first writing the Northern word arvel for wake, funeral feast. The MED also refers to arvel from 1459: "n. Funeral feast, wake. The word persists in Northern dialects."
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1839 knt1
knt1
368 thrift] Knight (ed. [1839]): “It was a frugal arrangement,—a thrifty proceeding,— there was no waste—‘The funeral bak’d meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.’”
-1845 mHunter
mHunter ≈ knt1 without attribution; contra Collins (v1821)
368 thrift] Hunter (-1845, fol. 223r): “Hamlet means to say in the way of jest, that this hasty marriage was a piece of thrift; some of the baked meats for the funeral were left unconsumed, and it was a piece of economy to hasten on the wedding that they might not spoil by too long keeping. The observation of Collins, that it was usual to give a cold entertainment at funerals is in no respect appropriate . . . . ”
1854 del2
del2 ≈ mHunter without attribution
368 thrift] Delius (ed. 1854): “Es war Profit und Oekonomie—thrift bedeutet Beides—wenn unmittelbar auf das Leichenbegängniss die Hochzeit folgte, da man die vom Ersteren übrig gebliebenen Fleischpasteten als kalte Küche für die Hochzeitstafel gebrauchen konnte.” [It was profit and economy—thrift means both—when without pause the wedding followed the burial, since the leftover pasties from the first could be used as cold cuisine for the wedding feast.]
1854 White
White: knt1
368 thrift] White (1854, p. 409), after discussing the reading he finds obvious for 346-55, comments on the excess of commentary, as in Knight’s gloss for thrift.”
1856 hud1
hud1 : Scott
368 funerall bak’t meates] Hudson (ed. 1856): “Scott, in The Bride of Lammermoor, has made the readers of romance familiar with the old custom of funeral bak’d meats,’ which was kept up in Scotland till a recent period. H.”
1856 sing2
sing2 = sing1
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1860 stau
stau = Douce minus after arval-bread.
1865 hal
hal = Douce; Malone without attribution; cald without attribution
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1867 N&Q
Addis
368 funerall bak’t meates]
Addis (
N&Q [9 Feb. 1867], p. 124,
apud Furness, ed. 1877): “‘The . . . same rosemary that serves for the funeral will serve for the wedding.’—
Old Law [Massinger, 4.1].”
1868 c&mc
c&mc ≈ sing2 without attribution
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1869 tsch
tsch
368 funerall bak’t meates]
Tschischwitz (ed. 1869,
apud Furness, ed. 1877): “This is one word. See Chaucer (
Cant. Tales, v.344): ‘Withouten bake mete never was his house.’ The combination of a funeral and a marriage feast contained nothing repugnant to the Northern mind. At the end of cap. 14 of
Frithiof’s Saga, it is related that Frithiof prepared a sumptuous feast, to which came all his followers, and thereupon was held the funeral feast of Hring the King, and likewise the marriage feast of Frithiof and Ingiborg. Here in Hamlet what was so abhorrent was that the
widow should have married so quickly.”
1870 rug1
rug1: Coleridge
368 Moberly (ed. 1870): “What a blast of sarcasm, remarks Coleridge, whistles through the consonants of this word. ‘It was a piece of wisest economy: the funeral baked meats would, and probably did, in a cold sort of fashion, furnish forth the marriage tables.’”
1872 cln1
cln1: standard gloss; Malone on Hayward + genesis
368 funerall bak’t meates] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “We have ‘bakemets’ in Genesis xl. 17. The word is printed with a hyphen in the edition of the Bible of 1611. . . . ”
Ed. note: The word in Genesis has nothing to do with funerals. It’s in one of the dreams told to Joseph. More evidence that C&W used a concordance, probably Mary Cowden Clarke’s [see refernce texts on this site].
1872 hud2
hud2 ≈ knt1, del2 without attribution
368 Thrift, thrift] Hudson (ed. 1872): “Thrift means economy: all was done merely to save cost.”
hud2 = hud1
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1877 v1877
v1877: Collins, mal, Douce, Addis, tsch; cln1 Gen ref without attribution
368 bak’t meates]
1878 rlf1
rlf1: cln1 on Gen.; tsch on Chaucer without attribution; Collins; mal +
368 funerall bak’t meates] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “See Brande’s Popular Antiquities (Bohn’s ed.) vol. ii. pp. 237-45. The custom did not continue long after S., for Flecknow, in his AEnigmatical Characters, 1665, says of ‘a curious glutton’ that when he does he ‘onely regrets that funeral feasts are quite left off, else he should have the pleasure of one feast more (in imagination at least) even after death.’”
1881 hud3
hud3 = hud2
368 Thrift, thrift]
hud3 no CN
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1883 Gervinus
Gervinus
368-9 Gervinus (1883, p. 564): “With the deepest sorrow for his father’s death and his mother’s fickleness mingle bitter words which must penetrate the soul, although the same expressions under other circumstances would only excite cheerful laughter.”
As in the case of 835 and 3449-91, Gervinus cautions that the moods of sarcastic wit and melancholy must be blended.
1885 mull
mull : standard
368 thrift] Mull (ed. 1885): “a thrifty arrangement.”
1899 ard1
ard1 = Collins
368 funerall bak’t meates]
1904 ver
ver: standard on funeral custom; cln1 without attribution on Gen. + in magenta underlined
368 bak’t meates] Verity (ed. 1904): “pastry; also written bakemeats, as in [Gen. 40:17] (the baker’s dream told by Joseph).”
Ed. note: According to the OED, verity is right about the definition pastry for the word baked-meats
1929 trav
trav
368 Thrift, thrift]
Travers (ed. 1929): “Hamlet repeats the word, the better to relish the bitter flavour of his own sarcasm,”
1939 kit2
kit2: standard
368 Thrift] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "mere economy. A bitter jest. The only reason for such haste was, he says, to save the remnants of the funeral feast ."
kit2: standard + in magenta underlined
368-9 bak’t meates . . . coldly] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "pasties. . . . when cold; in a cold state. Adverbs in -ly were often used to express, not manner (as in modern English), but condition (like adjectives)."
kit2: standard + in magenta underlined
368 Kittredge (ed. 1939): "Elaborate funeral feasts are an old and universal custom, only recently fallen into disuse. The Scandinavian funeral feats (or
arvals) are often mentioned in the sagas: but of these
Shakespeare knew nothing; he is simply reporting the manners of his own time.
See Viscount Dillon, The Antiquary, 26 (1892), 11-14."
1957 pen1b
pen1b
368-9 Harrison (ed. 1957): “’for economy’s sake the remains of the funeral feast were sent up cold for the marriage breakfast’.”
1958 fol1
fol1: standard
368 funerall bak’t meates] Wright & LaMar (ed. 1958): “meat pies, which were served at the funeral feast.”
1980 pen2
pen2
368-9 the . . . tables] Spencer (ed. 1980): “Hamlet’s bitter jest seems to derive from the King’s remark about mirth in funeral and dirge in marriage. . . . There was of course A little month between the ceremonies.”
pen2
368 Thrift, thrift] Spencer (ed. 1980): “The repetition of the words is soon felt to be characteristic of Hamlet. . . . But these are more common in F than in Q2; so they may be due to an actor’s affectation of a trick of speech.”
pen2
368 bak’t meates] Spencer (ed. 1980): “pies.”
1982 ard2
ard2:
368 bak’t meates] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “meat pies. Cf. White Devil, 4.2.20, ’as if a man Should know what fowl is coffin’d up in a bak’t meat Afore you cut it up’. Often bakemeats (as Genesis 40.17), where bake is past participle (orig. baken).”
1987 oxf4
oxf4
368 Thrift, thrift] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "Hamlet, the Renaissance Prince, ahs nothing but scorn for this middle-class virtue so much prized by Shylock."
Ed. note: Not thrift in general but this specific thrift is what distresses Ham.
oxf4
368 bak’t meates] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "pies and pastries in general."
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
368 bak’t meates] Bevington (ed. 1988): “meat pies.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: xref; performance
368 Thrift] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “At [1912-3] Hamlet expresses contempt for people who ’crook the pregnant hinges of the knee / Where thrift may follow fawning’, and at [2050-1] the Player Queen asserts that ’The instances that second marriage move / Are base respects of thrift, but none of love.’ In a highly political production performed in Bucharest in 1989, the Romanian translation of thrift as ’economia’ was received as an attack on the Communist dictator Ceausescu, who used this term for austerity measures imposed on the people while indulging in a lavish lifestyle himself (see Stříbrný, 134).”
ard3q2: xref; analogue
368-9 the . . . tables] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “i.e. the leftovers of the food cooked for the funeral were available to be served cold for the wedding (meat, as in Old English, could and still can mean ’food’ in a general sense). Hamlet again exaggerates to make his point, having already claimed that his father had been dead for But two months ([322] and n.) and that (at least) A little month passed before the wedding ([331]). This statement is parodied twice in Eastward Ho (see [247 CN). ”
2007 Groves
Groves: Milward; Greenblatt
368-9 the funerall . . . marriage tables] Groves (2007, pp.3-4): <p. 3>
Ham. "can be read as an extended meditation on maimed funeral rites. The play begins with a mourning period interrupted by a wedding . . . and one preciptating cause of its catastrophe is Laertes’s anger at his father’s obscure burial [2964-7]. Ophelia too is interred with curtailed obsequies and her brother asks angrily ’Must there no more be done?’ [3424]. . . . The angel invoked by Laertes [3432] is heard again as Hamlet dies [3850] </p. 3> <p. 4> and here it unmistakably echoes the Latin antiphon sung during Requiem Mass: In Paradisum deducant te angeli . . . aeturnum habeas requiem (May the angels bear you to paradis, and may you have eternal rest). [n.10]
"This echo of Catholic liturgy suggests that these repeatedly disrupted sacraments engage with the psychic rupture caused by the Reformation’s abandonment of traditional mourning practices. The world of the play reflects the world in which it was first performed, and with the destruction of the panoply of Catholicism, rituals become fractured and fragmentary. The words of the requiem are spoken by a friend rather than a priest. Ophelia sings ’lauds’ [3169] over her own drowning body, and Hamlet’s father comes from purgatory to request a rather different sacrifice [710] than the masses which were traditionally offered for the repose of souls. These distortions seem to brood over Protestantism’s destruction of the comforting and familiar rituals of death, and the hero’s stasis itself can be read as a reflection on the unavailability of official forms of mourning. [n.11] </p. 4>
n. "10. Peter Milward, The Catholocism of Shakespeare’s Plays (Cambridge: Saint Austin, 1997), 45. . . . "
n. "11. Stephen Greenblatt, Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001."
Ed. note: It’s also possible to look at the Catholic elements as theatrical devices to achieve verisimilitude and time-stamping. In Ham., Sh. inserts Catholic elements to suggest, rather vaguely, an earlier time when the Catholic rite was universal. See also 762, which, though suggesting them, does not quite follow the Catholic version of final rites; and, on the other hand, the ref. to Wittenberg, 295, the university associated with Protestantism. Publicly performed Catholic rites were for the most part long gone by the time Sh. wrote Hamlet, and many in the audience would have known little about them. The Anglican funeral rites found in the Book of Common Prayer would, in any case, have been similar to the Catholic rite.
2008 Holland
Holland: Applebaum
368-9 bak’t meates . . . marriage tables] Holland (2008, paper at Columbia
Shakespeare Seminar): Since Shakespeare’s audience would have been aware that
baked meats (cooked meat reshaped and placed in a crust known as a
coffin) would spoil within a few days, the image suggests both the speed of the marriage and the disgusting foulness of the repast if even a week’s time were to pass before it were eaten.
295 368 369 710 2964 2965 2966 2967 3169 3424 3432 3850
