Line 72 - Commentary Note (CN) 
Commentary notes (CN):
1. SMALL CAPS Indicate editions. Notes for each commentator are divided into three parts:
In the 1st two lines of a record, when the name of the source text (the siglum) is printed in SMALL CAPS, the comment comes from an EDITION; when it is in normal font, it is derived from a book, article, ms. record or other source. We occasionally use small caps for ms. sources and for works related to editions. See bibliographies for complete information (in process).
2. How comments are related to predecessors' comments. In the second line of a record, a label "without attribution" indicates that a prior writer made the same or a similar point; such similarities do not usually indicate plagiarism because many writers do not, as a practice, indicate the sources of their glosses. We provide the designation ("standard") to indicate a gloss in common use. We use ≈ for "equivalent to" and = for "exactly alike."
3. Original comment. When the second line is blank after the writer's siglum, we are signaling that we have not seen that writer's gloss prior to that date. We welcome correction on this point.
4. Words from the play under discussion (lemmata). In the third line or lines of a record, the lemmata after the TLN (Through Line Number] are from Q2. When the difference between Q2 and the authors' lemma(ta) is significant, we include the writer's lemma(ta). When the gloss is for a whole line or lines, only the line number(s) appear. Through Line Numbers are numbers straight through a play and include stage directions. Most modern editions still use the system of starting line numbers afresh for every scene and do not assign line numbers to stage directions.
5. Bibliographic information. In the third line of the record, where we record the gloss, we provide concise bibliographic information, expanded in the bibliographies, several of which are in process.
6. References to other lines or other works. For a writer's reference to a passage elsewhere in Ham. we provide, in brackets, Through Line Numbers (TLN) from the Norton F1 (used by permission); we call these xref, i.e., cross references. We call references to Shakespearean plays other than Ham. “parallels” (//) and indicate Riverside act, scene and line number as well as TLN. We call references to non-Shakespearean works “analogues.”
7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations.
Click
here for more information about browsing the entries
and
here for more information about the special symbols
used in Hamletworks. Click the question mark icon above to remove this help message.
Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 72 Without the sencible and true auouch | 1.1.57 |
|---|
1747 warb
warb
72 true auouch] Warburton (ed 1747): “I am inclined to think that Shakespear wrote ‘— try’d avouch’[which is what he put in the text]. For no one could believe a report but on the supposition of a true avouch: but many might believe it without a try’d avouch, i.e. on the credit of another.”
1747- mwarb
mwarb
72 true auouch] Warburton (1747-) inserts “they might believe it” before the last on.
-1760 mBrowne
mBrowne: warb
72 true auouch] Browne (TrinityCollege, Cambridge Ms 0.12.5755, -1760): “true. i.e. What I can depend upon the truth of—Warb. read try’d.”
1765 Heath
Heath: warb
72 true auouch] heath (1765, pp. 519-20) : “Eye-sight is universally admitted among mankind to be the most certain of all evidence, and the least liable to deception. By, true, therefore, is meant, certain, what cannot deceive. But Mr. Warburton, not attending to this, pitifully quibbles on the word, true, in order to introduce the above conjecture [try’d] of /his own, which naturally leads us to this most pedantick and absurd thought; If I had not found out by long experience that my eyes do not deceive me, I would not believe them now.”
1773 jen
jen: warb
72 true auouch]
1773- mstv1
mstv1 = warb
72 true auouch]
1819 cald1
cald1
72 true auouch] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “I could not: it had not been permitted me, &c. without the full full and perfect evidence, &c.”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1
72 true auouch]
1857 fieb
fieb
72 auouch] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “declaration, evidence; to avouch, to affirm, maintain, justify.”
Ed. note: The first to gloss avouch.
1860 Walker
Walker
72 sencible]
Walker (1860, 1: 183-4): <p.183> “ . . . [A]djectives in
able and
ible, both positive and negative ones, are frequently used by old writers in an
active sense. (Compare the Latin,
e.g., Oceano dissociabili, Hor.; and compare also the oc- </p. 183><p. 184> casional active use of verbals in roç in the Greek tragedians;
e.g. Soph. Trach. 445 [quotes]. Æsch. Eumen. 236, Scholefield [quotes]{ Proclamation of Protector Somerset, Tytler’s Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, somewhere about page 205 (I quote from the British and Foreign Review), the king’s subjects are required to repair to Hampton Court ‘in most defensible array, with harness and weapons to defend his most royal person,’ &c. . . . . </p. 184>
1868 c&mc
c&mc
72 sencible]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “Here used for that which pertains to the senses, not (as usually) for that which pertains to common sense or good sense.”
1870 Abbott
Abbott
72 sencible] Abbott (§ 3): “Adjectives, especially those ending in ful, less, ble, and ive, have both an active and a passive meaning; just as we still say, ‘a fearful (pass.) coward,’ and ‘a fearful danger.’”For Ham. he quotes sencible (pass.), dreadful (awe-struck, ), plausive (pass. 621+14) .
Abbott
72 auouch] Abbott (§ 451): “Suffixes were sometimes influenced by the Elizabethan licence of converting one part of speech into another. We should append -ation, -ure or -ing, to the following words used by Shakespeare as nouns: [quotes only disclose 1823 from Ham.]. . . .
“Almost all of these words come to us through the French.”
1872 cln1
cln1 : Abbott § 451
72 auouch] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “does not occur elsewhere as a substantive in Shakespeare. For substantives of similar formation, see our note on [R2 1.2.2 (000)] and Abbott, § 451. See also ‘cast’ in line [89] of the present scene, ‘hatch’ and ‘disclose’ in [1823], and ‘remove,’ [2818].”
89 1823 2818 398 621+14
1877 v1877
v1877: Abbott, Walker, Mac. variorum (i.e. Cln1, john: Hooker); C&MC without attribution
72 sencible]
Furness (ed. 1877): “For instances of adjectives, especially those ending in
ful, less, ble, and
ive, which have both an active and a passive meaning, see
Abbott, § 3;
Walker (
Crit. i. 179, 183). See also [
Mac. 2.1.49 (000)], and note.”
v1877 Mac. 2.1.49 = cln1
72 sencible] “
Clarendon: that is,
capable of being perceived by the senses.
Johnson gives an example of this meaning from Hooker: ‘By reason man attaineth unto the knowledge of things that are and are no sensible.’ It does not appear to be used elsewhere in an objective sense.”
v1877: Abbott, cln1, + xref.
72 auouch]
Furness (ed. 1877): “See
Abbott, § 451, for instances of substantives of similar formation.”
Furness adds to the
cln1 list: “Also, ‘repair,’ [3667].”
1891 dtn1
dtn1 standard paraphrase
72-3 Deighton (ed. 1891): “had it not been vouched for by the certain warrant of my visual sense; had not the appeal been made to my senses, and made in a way about which there could be no mistake.”
dtn1 in passive sense Mac. //; Abbott § 3
72 sencible]
dtn1 cln1 without attribution + derivation
72 auouch] Deighton (ed. 1891): “a substantive formed from the verb, ultimately from the Lat. ad, to, and vocare, to call.”
1903 rlf3
rlf3 ≈ Abbott without attribution
72 sencible]
rlf3 ≈ Abbott without attribution
72 auouch]
1929 trav
trav
72 auouch]
Travers (ed. 1929): obsolete or archaic, “avouch
ing (the substantive use of the infinitive was more frequent then than now). . . . ”
1931 crg1
crg1: standard with slight variation in magenta
72 sencible] Craig (ed. 1931): “invoking the senses.”
1934 rid1
rid1 ≈ dtn without attribution
72-3
1937 pen1a
pen1a: standard
72
1939 kit2
kit2 ≈ dtn without attribution
72-3 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “[without] the testimony of my own eyes, which is a matter of the senses and must be true.”
1947 cln2
cln2 ≈ standard gloss
72 sencible and true auouch] Rylands (ed. 1947): “the positive evidence of my senses.”
1958 fol1
fol1: standard
73 Wright & LaMar (ed. 1958): “the evidence of my own eyes, based on the senses and therefore believable”
1981 Wright
Wright
72 sencible and true auouch] Wright (1981, p. 174): “Horatio . . . must mean ‘the sensorily accurate testimony of his eyes—that is, the first adjective must modify the second—or, if one prefers, ‘the accurate sensory testimony,’ with ‘sensory testimony’ taken as a compound unit modified by ‘accurate.’ Either way the two elements of the hendiadys, though grammatically parallel are not semantically parallel, and the most likely paraphrase would change the coordinate structure and make one of the two elements subordinate to the other or to a unit that includes the other.”
1984 Klein
Klein: OED; xrefs; Abbott § 451
72 auouch] Klein (ed. 1984): “defined in the OED, . . . vb. (4) and (5), as ’guarantee, assurance’ ([Hamlet] 1st and until 1860 only example), cf. analogously cast [89], impress [91], hatch and disclose [1823], . . . etc. Abbott § 451.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4: Tilley; Dent
72-3 Hibbard (ed. 1987) sees two proverbs here: Tilley B268 (“I will believe it when I see it”) and Dent E264.1 (“To believe one’s own eyes.”).
oxf4 ≈ cln1 without attribution
72 auouch] Hibbard (ed. 1987) points out that this is a noun formed from the verb, and a unique neologism in Sh.
1992 fol2
fol2: standard
72 sencible] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “attested by the senses“
fol2: standard
72 auouch] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “guarantee, testimony“
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: Dent; OED
72-3 sencible . . . eies] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “true testimony based on the evidence of my senses; ’to believe one’s (own) eyes’ was proverbial (Dent, E264.1; see also B268). (Avouch does not occur as a noun in Shakespeare other than in all three texts of Hamlet, which OED records as the first use of the word.)”
ard3q2: Hope; Mac.; xref
72 sencible] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hope (1.2.2b) points out that sensible is used objectively here, meaning ’able to be sensed or felt’, and compares Macbeth’s use of the same word in relation to the visionary dagger (Mac 2.1.36; see also dreadful at [398] and [659].”