Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 78 So frownd he once, when in an angry parle | 1.1.62 |
|---|
1591 Fletcher
Fletcher: analogue
78 parle] Fletcher (1591, apud Hunter, 1845): “When they besiege a town or fort they offer much parle, and send many flattering message to persuade a surrendry.”
1671 Milton
Milton: analogue
78 parle] Milton (1671) in Samson Agonistes, line 785, uses parle in the sense of talk, according to his ed. Henry John Todd (1801, 4: 423 n.); Todd refers to that use in Shr. 1.1.
1778 v1778
v1778: Lyly
78 parle] Steevens (ed. 1778): “This is one of the affected words introduced by Lyly. So, in Two Wise Men and all the Rest Fools. 1619: ‘—that you told me at our last parle.’ ”
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778
78 parle]
1787 ann
ann = v1785
78 parle]
1790 mal
mal = v1785
78 parle]
1790- Anon.
Anon.
78 an angry parle] Anon. (ms. notes, Malone, ed. 1790): “See Todd & quote [... Hobbes?] has no skill in fight over parlement.”
1791- rann
rann
78-9 So . . . ice] Rann (ed. 1791-): “in a fierce engagement he slew a prince of Poland, borne on a sledge, the usual carriage in such cold countries.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal
78 parle]
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793.
78 parle]
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
78 parle]
1819 cald1
cald1
78-9 So . . . ice] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “‘When in an angry conference on the ice’ &c. ”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813 + an author “(by Chapman:)”for Steevens’s analogue
78 parle] Boswell (ed. 1821) asserts that “Mr. Steevens has stated no reason for thinking that parle was an affected word introduced by Lyly. It occurs in the Mirror for Magistrates. See Todd’s Johnson’s Dictionary. It is probably as old as the word parlement, which was formerly not confined to the exclusive sense which now belongs to it. The best instance I have met with it employed in its general meaning is in Hobbes’s Translation of the fourth book of the Odyssey, which was intended to be serious: ‘And now my child at sea is in a tub, And has no skill in fight or parlament.’ Boswell.”
1826 sing1
sing1
78 parle] Singer (ed. 1826) says, “Parle, the same as parley, a conference between enemies.” /J/
1832- mEliot
mEliot
78 parle] Eliot (1832-): “St[eevens] reads without remark So frown’d he once when in an angry parle— may not the true reading be So once he frowned when in angry parle or So frowned he when once in angry parle?”
1845 Hunter
Hunter: standard + analogue
78 parle] Hunter (1845, 2: 213): “A more pertinent illustration of the word parle than any in the notes is afforded by Giles Fletcher, in his book Of the Russe Commonwealth, 1591. ‘When they besiege a town or fort they offer much parle, and send many flattering message to persuade a surrendry.’ To parley, which is the same word, is quite a word of ordinary usage.”
1854 del2
del2
78-9 angry parle . . . ice] Delius (ed. 1854): “Parle bezeichnet die mündliche Unterhandlung mit dem Feinde, die hier süglich als angry bezeichnet werden kann, da sie damit endete, dass der König den Feind, hier die zu Schlitten herbeigeeilten Polen, auf dem Platze der Unterhandlung selbst, auf dem Eise schlug. Die alten Ausgaben lesen für Polacks, wie zu Sh.’s Zeit die Polen genannt wurden, Pollax und pollax, woraus schon die späteren Folios irrthümlich pole-axe machen. Norweger und Polen werden auch im Verlaufe des Dramas als Feinde Dänemarks angeführt.” [Parle indicates the verbal negotiation with the enemy that can appropriately be called angry here since it ends with the king defeating the enemy, here Poles who have arrived hastily on skates, on the lace of negotiations, the ice. The old editions read for Polacks (as Poles were called in Sh.’s time), Pollax and pollax, from which the later Folios have already mistakenly made pole-axe. Norwegians and Poles are also brought in during the drama as enemies of Denmark.]
1856 hud1
hud1 ≈ sing1
78 parle]
1856 sing2
sing2 = sing1
78 parle]
1864 N&Q
Leo
78-9 angry parle . . .
sleaded]
Leo (1864, pp. 410-11): <p. 410> “I always regarded ‘sleaded,’ or, as the modern editors read, ‘sledded,’ as nonsense. What a </p. 410> <p. 411> ridiculous position it must have been, to see a king, in full armour, smiting down a sledded man,
i.e. a man sitting in a sledge! It would rather not have been a king-like action. And it was of course not a remarkable, nor a memorable fact, that in the cold Scandinavian country in winter-time, people were found sitting in a sledge; nobody would have wondered at it—perhaps more to the contrary.
“When the king frowned in an angry parle, he must have been provoked to it by an irritating behaviour of the adversary, and Horatio, remembering the fact, will also bear in mind the cause of it, and so I suppose, he used an epithet which points out the provoking manner of the Polack; and, following as much as possible the form ‘sleaded,’ I should like to propose the word ‘sturdy,’ or, as it would have been written in Shakespeare’s time, ‘sturdie.’ F. A. Leo.” </p. 411>
1865 N&Q
Anon (Oxoniensis): contra Leo; Malone +
78-9 angry parle . . . sleaded] Anon. [Oxoniensis] (1865, p. 21), writing in opposition to Leo, says, “ . . . I am unable to appreciate the objection to the reading ‘sleaded’ or ‘sledded,’ . . . . For in the first place, the seldge would be to the ‘Polack on the ice,’ as a chariot or horse to the combatent on less slippery ground; and, in the second place, I believe Shakspeare to have intended by ‘the Polack’ an army or nation, and not a single man. Indeed, Malone considers it probable that he wrote ‘Polacks,’ which is confirmed by the Quarto, ‘Pollax.’
“Again, that ‘it was not a remarkable—not a memorable fact that in the cold Scandinavian country in winter-time, people were found sitting in a sledge,’ seems to me to be an argument for rather than against the reading, ‘sledded.’ Shakspeare did not mean to convey anythign remarkable by the epithet. If he had, would ‘sturdie’ have better answered his intention? I conceive the epithet ‘sledded’ used of the Polack to be akin to those constant epithets, as they are called, which are so common in epic and ballad poetry: to possess, that is, this property of a constant epithet, that the Polack need not at the time have been in a sledge at all, and yet Shakspeare might call him with perfect poetical propriety ‘The sledded Polack.’
“Once more: I do not quite see how ‘sturdie’ ‘should express a provoking manner:’ but I am entirel;y at a loss to discover how the emendation ‘sturdie’ follows as much as possible the form ‘sledded’ or ‘sleaded’ . . . Fabius Oxoniensis.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc ≈ sing without attribution
78 parle]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “An abbreviated form of ‘parley.’
1872 cln1
cln1: standard + // in R2
78 parle] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “See note on [R2 1.1.192 (201) in v1877].”
1872 hud2
hud2 = hud1
78 parle]
1877 v1877
v1877: Heussi; cln1 (the R2 note)
78 parle]
Furness (ed. 1877):
Heussi erroneously supposes that this word signifies a physical combat.
Clarendon (Note on [
R2 1.1.192 (201)]): ‘Parle’ and
parley are identical, meaning ‘conference,’ with a view to a peaceful settlement of differences.”
1881 hud3
hud3 = hud2
78 parle]
1883 wh2
wh2
78 parle] White (ed. 1883): “loosely used as debate, in the sense of quarrel.”
1884 N&Q
Ferrar
78-9 when . . . ice] Ferrar (6 N&Q 10[Dec. 1884], 444): “I have consulted a dozen Shakespeares and can find no emendation of this palpably corrupt passage. How could he smite the Poles in an angry parle? Either parle is corrupt for some word meaning mood, or the second line is corrupt for, probably, ‘He smote his ledded (or leaded) poleaxe on the ice,’ an easily understood sentence. Has this emendation struck any editor of Shakespeare? Has the passage come before the New Shakspere Society; and if so, how has it been treated by the experts? M. L. Ferrar.”
1884 N&Q
Editor contra Ferrar
78-9 when . . .
ice]
Editor (6
N&Q 10[Dec. 1884], 444): “So far from being ‘palpably corrupt,’ the passage is held to be palpably genuine.
Mr. Ferrar has not looked at the one best
Hamlet,
Furness’s, or he would have found nearly two pages of notes on this passage. In a
parle men can quarrel. Moltke and Eliot Browne read
leaded for ‘sledded,’ and take ‘Polacks’ as
poleaxe. But ‘sledded’ is a poleaxe with a
sled or projection at its back. The more general interpretation is this:
Polacks are Poles, and
sledded is traveling in sleds or sledges.”
1890 irv2
irv2: standard
78 parle] Marshall (ed. 1890): “parley.”
1891 dtn1
dtn1
78 when . . . parle] Deighton (ed. 1891): “when, on the occasion of a conference which ended in angry words; parle and parley are elsewhere used by Shakespeare only of a friendly conference held with a view to coming to an agreement, and we can hardly suppose blows to have been exchanged while the parle was going on.”
1899 ard1
ard1: standard + // Jn. 2.1.205 (0000)
78 parle]
1903 rlf3
rlf3 = ard1 gloss Jn. // without attribution
78 parle]
1905 rltr
rltr ≈ wh without attribution
78 parle] Chambers (ed. 1905): “dispute.”
1909 subb
subb
78 frownd] Subbarau (ed. 1909): “ . . . the remarkable frown which sat on old Hamlet’s face would bear a silent prophetic significance of the future close at hand, viz., young Fortinbras from the Polack wars setting his foot in Denmark to be its King. . . . It is not a frown of anger, but of sorrow. In [427] Hamlet asks, ‘What, looked he frowningly (angrily)?’ and Horatio answers, ‘A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.’ There would be nothing remarkable in a frown of anger in a king, for it to be remembered long afterwards by the observer. The frown revealed to us in the present line (and which made such a never-to-be-forgotten impression on the on-looker) is a frown of deep sorrow. The late king had evidently encountered some Polacks (Polanders) going in sledges on a frozen natural river, and had upon sudden provocation given by them in speech and behaviour, smitten them, but directly afterwards felt extremely sorry for his rash attack on the poor fellows, scarcely worthy of a king, and a frown of deepest grief, which no one that observed could forget, darkened his smiling countenance.”
subb
78 parle] Subbarau (ed. 1909): “used in the line in the literal sense of sense of ‘speech’ and does not refer to any ‘parley’ or ‘conference’ in the middle of a war.”
1913 tut2
tut2: standard gloss; ≈ subb without attribution + in magenta underlined
78 parle] Goggin (ed. 1913): “‘conference’; parle and parley were both used in the sense of ‘talk.’ Cp. Milton’s address to Echo as ‘Sweet queen of parley’”
1913 Trench
Trench explains 428
78 So frownd] Trench (1913, p. 58): Horatio thought he saw the specter frowning because of his own “state of alarm,” but “he must since have realised” that he was mistaken, that it actually looked sorrowful, as he reports to Hamlet in 428. Trench considers this change a natural mental process, but Sh. does not bother to explain the change.
1931 crg1
crg1 standard + in magenta underlined
78 angry parle] Craig (ed. 1931): “parley or conference ending in a fight.”
1938 parc
parc ≈ crg1
78 angry parle] Parrott & Craig (ed. 1938): “The word parle in this passage has given some trouble, since commentators have assumed that it could not refer to a battle in which the King smote the Poles. But parle has the special meaning of a meeting of enemies to discuss terms of truce or peace, and an angry parle might well end in a battle as, according to Malory, the parle between Arthur and Modred ended in the ‘last great battle in the West.’”
1939 kit2
kit2: standard
78 parle] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "parley; conference between hostile leaders."
1947 cln2
cln2: standard
78 parle]
1957 pel1
pel1: standard
78 parle] Farnham (ed. 1957): “parley.”
1970 pel2
pel2 = pel1: standard
78 parle] Farnham (ed. 1970): “parley”
1980 pen2
pen2
78 frownd] Spencer (ed. 1980), since Hor. later describes the ghost’s demeanor differently (see 428), thinks it likely that the frown was a fleeting expression, which Mar. noted [63].
1982 ard2
ard2
78 frownd] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “As befitted a martial hero.” In his LN, Jenkins says that the frown, “traditional of Mars [. . . ], is as much emblematic as realistic. It not merely describes the warlike mien, but suggests the warlike action.”
ard2: kit2
78 parle] To keep the “sledded Polacks,” Jenkins (ed. 1982) glosses parle as “parley, encounter (and perhaps one not limited to words.” In his LN, he declares that parle is not as difficult to explicate as contended; After citing Kittredge (see n. 79), Jenkins says, “But I suspect that parle itself may imply a more than verbal encounter. For although I can cite no parallel for such a use of parle, Shakespeare more than once uses the verb speak, in similar understatement, to mean ‘engage in combat.’ In Coriolanus the reply to ‘Has our general met the enemy?’ is ‘They lie in view, but have not spoke as yet’ [1.4.4 (488)]l and Antony, in defiance of Pompey’s navy, says, “We’ll speak with thee at sea’ [Ant. 2.6.25 (1205)]. Was it not this kind of speaking that took place in the parle on the ice?”
1985 Fisher
Fisher
78-9 when . . . ice.] Fisher (1985, p. 4): “A ‘parle’ is a conference under a truce, therefore the King did not smite the Polacks; ‘smote’ should probably be ‘spoke.’ This is graphically, aurally, and metrically plausible, and makes sense. ‘Parley’ is the modern form of parle but meter forbids its use here.”
1985 cam4
cam4 ≈ parc (minus Malory) without attribution
78 parle] Edwards (ed. 1985): “Properly a conference during a truce, but here seemingly used to mean an altercation leading to violence.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4 ≈ pen2 (Spencer)
78 So frownd] Hibbard (ed. 1987) and Spencer think Horatio means that the ghost frownd only when accused of usurpation because a persistent frown would contradict the description later (428).
1987 oxf4
oxf4: Digges
78 angry parle] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “A useful gloss on these words is provided by Leonard Digges in the commendatory verse he wrote for the 1640 edition of Shakespeare’s poems. He tells of how the audience ‘Were ravished’ when ‘on the stage at half-sword parley were | Brutus and Cassius’ (ll. 42-3). The quarrel scene in Caesar 4.3, which leaves Cassius asking, ‘How scaped I killing when I crossed you so?” (l. 148), shows vividly how easily a parley might turn into a fight.”
1987 Mercer
Mercer
78-9 Mercer (1987, pp. 127-8): <p. 127> “The extraordinary thrill of these lines easily overcomes the slight failure of sense. The idea of a parley, however ill-tempered, does not really relate to the image of wholesale slaughter so powerfully offered by the last line. What we tend to do is read. or hear, ’parle’ as little more than an alliterative link with ’Polacks’ and ignore the discrepancy. What we certainly do not do is yield to the timid urgings of various rationising editors and read ’poleaxe’ for Polacks. That not only makes ’sledded’ completely redundant but reduces an image of awesome power to a moment of gruff petulance. . . . ”
These lines offer “an ideal of manliness against which Hamlet will </p. 127> <p. 128> again and again measure the present King, and, with bitter ruefulness, himself.’ ” </p. 128>
1992 fol2
fol2: standard
78 parle] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “parley, meeting“
1993 dent
dent
78 angry parle] Andrews (ed. 1993) is among the few who think that the phrase could mean “hand-to-hand combat” or a fierce argument.
1993 OED
OED
78 parle] OED: parley had at the time of Sh various meanings, including conversation, debate, argument, often about points in dispute. It could be a university debate or war-related. In the expression “parley-cake” OED sb 2 says that parley is short for parliament.
1999 Dessen&Thomson
Dessen&Thomson
78 parle] Dessen & Thomson(1999): In a SD, parley, “conference between enemies . . . (often spelled parle). . . .”
2000 Edelman
Edelman
78 parle] Edelman (2000): “A conference between enemies at war (OED sb 2) or a trumpet call requesting a parley. [ . . .]
“Shakespeare’s many parleys serve a variety of purposes. [ . . .]
“
Hamlet provides two very interesting uses of the term. Horatio’s curious lines about King Hamlet, [quotes 78-9] have occasioned much critical comment, with Jenkins offering the most plausible conclusion that ‘angry parle’ is indeed a metaphor for a battle fought on the ice between Poland and Denmark.
Polonius then gives his advice to
Ophelia, [quotes 589]
i.e. Hamlet, the besieger, must do more than simply sound a parley [[approach]] for you to begin your ‘entreatments’ [[treaty negotiations]] with him.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: 77
78 So . . . once] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Again, the particularity of the memory is striking, if not unnerving.”
ard3q2: standard
78 parle] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “(one syllable) parley, usually a negotiation rather than a truce; here apparently a hostile encounter”
78 79 427 428 589
