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Line 898 - 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

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

898 Enquire me first what Danskers are in Parris,	2.1.7

1751- Hoadly

Hoadly

898 Danskers] Hoadly (ms. note, ed. 1751): “i.e. Danes. The same Word us’d by W[illia]m Warner (an excellent Post in [the] Service of L[or]d Hunsdown the Elder; tho both Father and Son were his Patrons) in a fine pastoral Episode in his large historical Poem—’By chance one (uran, Son unto A Prince of Danske, did see The Mayde—&c.’”

1773- mstv1

mstv1

898 Danskers] Steevens (ms. notes, ed. 1773): “Danskers, perhaps, Danes, men from Denmark.”

Ed. note: Steevens may have written the note after seeing capn in 1774 when it was first published. Due evidently to Steevens’ efforts, Capell’s notes were withdrawn and did not reappear until 1783, after Capell’s death.

Steevens v1778 differs from mstv1

v1877 credits this same ref to Warner’s Albion’s England to Capell (1: 128);

1774 capn

capn

898 Danskers] Capell (1774, 1:1:128) admits that “Dantz’ckers ”in his 1768 ed. was a hasty correction, and must be retracted: “Danskers” (which is the word of the copies) had never been met with, neither has it been yet; but Danske for Denmark, occurs often in “Albion’s England,” an old poem that is not very scarce, but which the editor met with but lately.”

1778 v1778

v1778 ≈ capn without attribution

898 Danskers] Steevens (ed. 1778): “Danske (in Warner’s Albion’s England) is the ancient name of Denmark.”

1785 v1785

v1785 = v1778

898 Danskers]

1787 ann

ann = v1785

898 Danskers]

1790 mal

mal = v1785

898 Danskers]

898: Malone could of course have referred to Capell, but there is a conspiracy of silence abt CAP and CAPN as there is abt JEN. He quotes Ste, probably from v1785

1791- rann

rann: standard

898 Danskers] Rann (ed. 1791-): “Natives of Denmark.”

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1793

898 Danskers]

1805 Seymour

Seymour: standard + 2 unidentified analogues

898 Danskers] Seymour (1805, 2:165): “‘Danskers’ are Danes: ‘It is the King of Denmarke doth your prince his daughter craue, And note it is no little thing with us allie to haue; By league or leigure Danske can fence or fronte you, friend or foe, Our neighbourhood doth fit to both your welfare or your woe.’

“Again: ‘Let Cutlake, with his crowne of Danske, uncrowne me if he can; Of England, Danske, and Norway, then Canut was perfect lord.’”

1813 v1813

v1813 = v1803

898 Danskers]

1819 cald1

cald1 = Steevens v1778 +

898 Danskers] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “‘Let us but look into the Giant’s age, Danske Corioneus, English Albion,’ Life and death of Sir J. Oldcastle, 4to. 1601. Signat. C.2.”

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813

898 Danskers]

1826 sing1

sing1 ≈ capn without attribution (but likely by way of Steevens’s appropriation)

898 Danskers] Singer (ed. 1826): “ i.e. Danes. Warner, in his Albion’s England, calls Denmark Danske.”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

898 Danskers] Caldecott (ed. 1832): “‘Let us but look into the Giant’s age, Danske Corioneus, English Albion,’ Life and death of Sir J. Oldcastle, 4to. 1601. Sign. C.2.”

1839 knt1

knt1 = sing without attribution

898 Danskers] Knight (ed. [1839]): “In Warner’s ‘Albion’s England,’ Danske is given as the ancient name of Denmark.”

1833 valpy

valpy: standard

898 Danskers] Valpy (ed. 1833): “Danes.”

1853 Clarke

Clarke

898 Danskers] Clarke (1853): Found only here.

1854 del2

del2

898 Danskers] Delius (ed. 1854): “Danskers ist im Englischen eine scherzhafte, aus dem Dänischen selbst entlehnte Bezeichnung der Dänen. Bei Sh.’s Zeitgenossen Webster kommt ebenso adjectivisch vor: like a Dansk drummer.” [Danskers is in English a humorous term, borrowed from the Danish itself. Sh.’s contemporary Webster has the same, in adjectival form: like a Dansk drummer.]

I’d have a better idea of his note for 899 if I knew more about linguistics.

1856 hud1

hud1: standard (gloss and Warner’s Albion)

898 Danskers]

1856 sing2

sing2 = sing1

898 Danskers]

1860 stau

stau: standard

898 Danskers] Staunton (ed. 1860): “Danes.”

1862 cham

cham: standard

898 Danskers]

1865 hal

hal: standard gloss +

898 Danskers] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “Danske is common for Danish, but I have met no example of the substantive. ‘Danske Corineus, English Albion,’ Life and Death of Sir John Oldcastle, 1601.”

1868 c&mc

c&mc

898 me] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868): “used idomatically, in the sense of ‘for me’ (See [MV 2.2.108 (669), n. 33].”

c&mc: standard gloss and Warner ’s Albion’s England without attribution

898 Danskers]

1872 cln1

cln1 ≈ c&mc without attribution

898 me] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “enclitic, here having the sense of the dative. Compare [MV 2.2.108 (669)]: ‘Give me your present to one Master Bassanio.’”

Ed. note: me is unaccented, throwing the accent on the next syllable.

cln1: standard

898 Danskers]

1872 hud2

hud2 ≈ hud1 (minus Warner Albion’s England)

898 Danskers] Hudson (ed. 1872): “Dansker is Dane; Dansk beingthe ancient name of Denmark.”

1873 rug2

rug2

898-900 Enquire . . . expence] Moberly (ed. 1873): “‘Find out,’ says Polonius, ‘how they live, with whom they associate, what their fortune is, where they lodge, what company they keep, and at what cost.’”

1877 v1877

v1877 = capn (minus retraction)

898 Danskers] Furness (ed. 1877): Capell (i. 128): Dansk, for Denmark, occurs often in Albion’s England.”

1881 hud3

hud3 = hud2

898 Danskers]

1883 wh2

wh2: standard

898 Danskers] White (ed. 1883): “So the Danes call themselves.”

1885 mull

mull : standard

898 Danskers]

1904 ver

ver ≈ cln1 without attribution + in magenta underlined

898 Enquire me] Verity (ed. 1904): “the so-called ethic dative. [. . . ].

“Polonius’s spying on Laertes illustrates his love of tortuous, underhand methods, and prepares us for his dealings with Hamlet.”

Ed. note: The ethic or ethical dative according to the OED implies that someone other than the subject [here you understood] has an interest in the matter at hand.

ver

898 Danskers] Elton (apud Verity, ed. 1904) “notes that the University of Paris was a common resort of Danes.”

1929 trav

trav

898 me] Travers (ed. 1929) thinks this is “more subtle than ‘for me.’”

1938 parc

parc

898 Danskers] Parrott & Craig (ed. 1938): “Danes.”

1939 kit2

kit2: contra trav?

898 me] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "Literally ’for me’; but used colloquially without any special significance."

kit2: standard

898 Danskers] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "Danes."

1947 cln2

cln2: standard

898 Danskers] Rylands (ed. 1947): "Danes."

1957 pel1

pel1: standard

898 Danskers] Farnham (ed. 1957): “Danes.”

1964-5 Sjögren

Sjögren

898 Danskers] Sjögren (1664-5, rpt. 2002, pp. 64-5): <p. 64> The mistake editors make in glossing this word ’Danes’ is understandable because “in modern Danish Dansker does in fact mean a Dane. But in Shakespeare’s time it was not so. Dansker then signified something coming from Danzig . . . Gdansk in Polish. The name derives from the fact that the place was once a Danish settlement and a part of the kingdom of Canute.” He quotes a passage from Purchas his Pilgrimes, [Hakluyt Society Works (Glasgow, 1905-7): 13:451]: The merchant George Barkley travels to “Elsinore [[. . .]] where the Danish custom is taken, to Copenhagen, thence to Bornholm, thence to Danske, a towne subject to the Pole.” </p. 64> <p. 65> Sjögren multiplies examples showing that in the sixteenth and seventeenth-century, travelers knew their Poland from their Denmark. However, there were those, including John Webster in The White Devil, (1612) who confused Danske with Denmark, and Shakespeare may also have been one. <p. 65>

1970 pel2

pel2 = pel1

898 Danskers] Farnham (ed. 1970): “Danes”

1980 pen2

pen2

898 me] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(the indefinite indirect object (the ’ethic dative’), used so as to give an air of ingratiating ease).”

pen2

898 Danskers] Spencer (ed. 1980): “Danes (his fellow-countrymen). The unusually correct form of the word seems to imply Shakespeare’s interest in giving local colour.”

1982 ard2

ard2 = Sjögren and others

898 Danskers] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Danes. The context leaves no doubt that this, as in modern Danish, means Danes. But a Dansker in Shakespeare’s time was strictly a citizen of Dansk or Danzig —as in Purchas (Pilgrimes, 1905-7, 12: 53) and Fynes Moryson (Itinerary, 1907-8, 4: 22, ’The English Merchants trading for Poland . . . first had their Staple at Dantzk in Prussen. . . . But when the Dantzkers . . .’). It was easy for the Elizabethans to confuse dansk (Danish), Danske (Danes) with Dansk (Danzig), Dansker (a Danziger). See G. Langenfelt (’Literary Contributions’, Stockholm Studies in Modern Philology, 17: 1949, and ’Shakespeare’s Danskers’, Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 12: 1964), who further suggests that the emergence in the 17th century of the forms. Dansig and Dansicker encouraged the association of Dansk and Dansker with Denmark. (See also Dollerup, pp. 161-4.) The confusion was not only linguistic. Drayton not merely gives Dansk as the place from which the Angles and Jutes came to England (Polyolbion, 11: 189), but, while correctly placing ’Dansig’ at the mouth of the Vistula, refers to this as ’the greatest river of Danske’ flowing ’into the Sound’ (ibid., 19: 191-2). G. Sjögren (’A Contribution to the Geography of Hamlet’, Sh. Jahr., 100-101: 1964-5) suggests that it may have been some such confusion that led Shakespeare to suppose that Denmark bordered on Poland (1102, 2735-8).”

1985 cam4

cam4

898 Danskers] Edwards (ed. 1985): "Danes."

1987 oxf4

oxf4 = Abbott § 220

898 me]

oxf4: standard

898 Danskers] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "Danes."

1988 bev2

bev2: standard

898 Danskers] Bevington (ed. 1988): “Danes”

1992 fol2

fol2: standard

898 Enquire me] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “i.e., inquire on my behalf”

fol2: standard

898 Danskers] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “Danes”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: Hope

898 me] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “for me (ethical dative: see Hope, 1.3.2i)”

ard3q2: pen2; ≈ ard2 without attribution; OED

898 Danskers] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Danes. Spencer calls this an ’unusually correct’ form, though some have argued that it really means ’citizens of Gdansk or Danzig’ (a city now in Poland, well known to travelling English actors in Shakespeare’s time); this is the only example listed in OED, though there is a cross-reference to Spenser’s description of Concord in the Temple of Venus: ’for on her head a crowne / She wore much like vnto a Danisk hood’ (FQ, 4.10.31), where ’Danisk’ apparently means Danish.”