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Line 40 - Commentary Note (CN) More Information

Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.
40 Bar. Sit downe a while,1.1.30
1874 Corson
Corson: F1, cam1 +
40-1 Corson (1874, p. 9): “The meaning is, Sit down and let us etc.”
1891 dtn1
dtn1
40 a while] Deighton (ed. 1891): “for a time; originally two words, A. S. áne hwile, (for) a while.”
1955 Alexander
Alexander
40 P. Alexander (1955, p. 27): clearly the men sit down so that they can leap to their feet when the ghost appears.
1980 pen2
pen2
40, 44 sit] Spencer (ed. 1980): only Marcellus and Horatio sit because Barnardo is on duty.
Ed. note: But since they all describe themselves as guards, why would Barnardo ask the others to sit while he stands?
40 44
1984 Klein
Klein: xref
40 a while] a-while Klein (ed. 1984): “the difference between Q2 and F1 may be purely orthographic, the early prints use both fairly loosely. Yet awhile seems preferable here as more strongly than a while expressing Bernardo’s conviction that the ghost will return. Cf. 3404 and 3411 (5.1.217 and 222) where in Q2 both spellings are juxtaposed.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: pen2 without attribution; Gurr and Ichikawa; staging possibilities
40 Sit] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Editors have worried that this behaviour is improper for sentries (the request is repeated at [44, 86], and it also occurs three times in both Q1 and F1). It is possible that only Barnardo and Horatio sit, Marcellus remaining sentry-like. On stage, it raises the question of whether there is something for them to sit on or whether they just sit on the ground; in their study of the earliest staging of the play, Gurr and Ichikawa suggest that they ’hunch down’ (126); a bench was used at the reconstructed London Globe in 2000. The words are deleted in the earliest promptbooks we have of Hamlet, those of John Wood dating from the 1740s (see Thompson, ’Ward,’ 144).”
Ed. note: See Alexander 1953, CN 44. Sitting provides an opportunity for jumping up when the ghost appears. The published texts of John Wilkes’s productions [wilk as early as 1718] may be considered published promptbooks; reproduced repeatedly throughout the 18th century they eliminate references to sitting.