HW Home	Previous CN	View CN	View TNM	View TNI	Next CN

Line 439 - 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.

439 Ham. His beard was {grissl’d,} <grisly?> no.	1.2.239

1747 warb

warb

439 grissl’d] Warburton (ed. 1747): “The old Quarto reads, His beard was grizl’d? no. And this is right. A natural mode of interrogation in Hamlet’s circumstances.”

1747- mwarb

mwarb

439 grissl’d] Warburton (1747-): “as much as to say, but sure his beard was not grisled, as my Father’s was? In the reply the Poet has admirably preserv’d the Character of Courtiers.— The Prince asks whether his Father’s beard was not grisld? This vulgar word implying age & decay of strength, to which Monarchs are not be supposed subject; they reply in there [sic] delicate terms, it was indeed, a sable silver’d.”

1790 Gent. Mag.

Anon.

439 Anon. [As you like it] (Gent. Mag. 60 [1790]: 403): “No, appears to me to have been given very improperly to Hamlet. The question is designed to try how far Horatio has observed the ghost. Hamlet therefore proposes the question of a beard of a different colour to that of his father’s. To which, I suppose, Horatio giving a negative to the question describes the beard as it really was.”

Ed. note: Kuist identifies Anon. as either Thomas Holt White or John Loveday.

1805 Seymour

Seymour

439 Seymour (1805, 2:151): “I cannot understand this otherwise than as the eruption of a mind in part distracted; it is something between a remark and a question; I would point it thus: ‘His beard—was—grizzled— no.’”

1858 col3

col3 = mal + in magenta underlined

439 grissl’d] Collier (ed. 1858): “Malone quotes the following line, very much in point, from Shakespeare’s [Son. 12]: — ‘And sable curls, all silver’d o’er with white.’ In the 4to. 1609, of the Sonnets, ‘all’ is misprinted or.”

Ed. note: See 441 CN.

1870 rug1

rug1

439 grissl’d] Moberly (ed. 1870): “The meaning seems to be ‘grisly’ (foul and disordered), which three folio editions read. Probably Hamlet’s meaning in asking the question was to find whether his father shewed signs of a violent death, like Gloster in [2H6 3.2.175 (1879)]; but he repels the supposition at once, as being unwilling to connect personal violence with the thought of his father.”

1874 Corson

Corson: F1, cam1 +

439 grissl’d, no] Corson (1874, p. 11): “Hamlet is subjecting his friends to a searching examination, and when he asks the question, ‘His beard was grisly?’ he adds, with decision, ‘no,’ as though he had caught them on this point. ‘no’ should be said with a strong downward inflection.”

1877 v1877

v1877: rug; = Anon (Gent. Mag.) +; = Corson

439 grissl’d] Furness (ed. 1877): “This ingenious suggestion [in Gent. Mag.] carries probability almost sufficient to justify its adoption in the text; for two reasons—First. After an affirmative question we instinctively anticipate the answer yes, not ‘no,’ which would more naturally follow a negative question: ‘His beard was not grizzled?’ Secondly. It is eminently characteristic of the precise Horatio (e’en the justest man Ham. had ever found) to draw a nice distinction between ‘grizzled’ and ‘sable silvered.” He had been most exact in his estimate of the time the Ghost stayed, and he would be equally exact as to the colour and texture of the beard. Ed.”

1880 Tanger

Tanger

439 grissl’d] Tanger (1880, p. 123): ascribes the variant in F1 as “probably due to the critical revision which the text received at the hands of H.C. [Heminge & Condell], when it was being woven together from the parts of the actors.” He also compares these variants to nighted/nightly in 248.

1885 macd

macd

439 grissl’d] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “grisly — gray; grissl’d — turned gray;— mixed with white.”

1904 ver

ver

439 Verity (ed. 1904) thinks that “Hamlet is too excited to wait for Horatio’s answer to his first question.”

1913 Trench

Trench

439 grissl’d] Trench (1913, pp.56-7 ): <p. 56> This line shows that Hamlet “has given some particular attention to the peculiarities of occult phenomena . . . For it is known to observers of such pheno-. </p. 56> <p. 57> mena, that the form assumed by the apparition of a deceased person may be not the form in which the person was last seen in the flesh, but some earlier form instead.” </p. 57>

1934 Wilson

Wilson MSH

439 grissl’d] Wilson (1934, p. 50): “F1 has clearly transformed the horror of a spectral apparition to the beard of a living man.”

1939 kit2

kit2

439, 341 grissl’d] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "grey. ’A sable silver’d’ means exactly the same thing: ’black with white hairs intermixed.’ Horatio varies the phrase instead of answering baldly ’yes.’ So he does in [605, and quotes]."

1957 pel1

pel1: standard

439 grissl’d] Farnham (ed. 1957): “grey.”

1958 fol1

fol1: standard

439 grissl’d] Wright & LaMar (ed. 1958): “gray; with gray mingled in it.”

1970 pel2

pel2 = pel1

439 grissl’d] Farnham (ed. 1970): “grey”

1980 pen2

pen2: standard

439 grissl’d] Spencer (ed. 1980): “grey.”

1985 cam4

cam4

439 grissl’d] Edwards (ed. 1985): "grey. There is something to be said for following F and reading ’grizzly’, which means exactly the same thing. Q2’s ’grissl’d’ looks as though it may derive from Q1."

1987 oxf4

oxf4

439 grissl’d] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "grey. F’s grisly is merely a variant spelling current in the 17th century. See OED grizzly a."

1988 bev2

bev2: standard

439 grissl’d] Bevington (ed. 1988): “gray.”

1992 fol2

fol2: standard

439 grissl’d] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “gray”

1994 OED

OED

439 grissl’d] OED: grisly has to do with terror. grizzl’d could mean grey, grey mixed with white or turning grey. Grisly does not mean grey.

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: oxf4

439 grissl’d] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “grey or mixed with grey. Most editors read ’grizzled’, though Hibbard makes a case for F’s ’grisly’ as an alternative spelling of ’grizzly’ which is what he prints.”

ard3q2: Blake

439 no] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “i.e. ’wasn’t it?’; a negative tag expecting an affirmative answer (Blake, 6.2.3.4a)”