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.

1765- Davies

Davies ms. notes in john1

1218 For if the sunne] Davies (1765-): “For if the Sun— To one who reproached Diogenes for living in filthy places, he answered said The Sun visits Kennels yet is not defiled.”

1766- mwar2

mwar2

1218-19 For...carrion] Warner (1766-70): “The words being plac’d out of their proper order of Construction[?], makes the Passage a little obscure: Place them right, and the sense is obvious. ‘For if, the Sun being a God, by Kissing Carrion, breed Maggot in a Dead Dog’— Kissing when applied to the Sun is us’d for shining upon. Henry IV. Pt. 1. 37. Cymbeline pge.”

1773 v1773

v1773 = warb + johnson

1774 capn

capn

1218-19 For if the sunne...carrion.] Capell (Notes 1774 [for cap ed.], pp. 130-1): “The whole and entire real sense of this passage, which is connected with nothing before it, will appear in the arrangement that follows, and supplial of what the speaker suppresses. ‘Have you a daughter? __ I have, my lord. __ Let her not walk i’ the sun: for if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion, your daughter may be kiss’d by him too, and she may breed: Conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive: friend, look to’t.’ The introduction of the ‘daughter’ into their discourse, the abrupt way it is done in, the wild thought about her, and wilder order of dressing it, all contribute to fix in Polonius the opinion Hamlet wishes to put in him,– that he is mad, and his daughter the cause of it. The mistakes between ‘god,’ and ‘good,’ in old editions are numberless; the correction of the error in this place, is found in two late editions.’”

1778 v1778

v1778 = v1773

1784 Davies

Davies: warb

1218-9 For if the sunne...carrion] Davies (Dramatic Micellanies [sic], 1784, p.44): "Dr. Warburton’s noble interpretation of this passage cannot be too much commended. Though the thought is not very similar, it brings to my mind what Diogenes said to one, who reproached him for living in filthy places: ‘The sun visits kennels, yet is not defiled.’”

1784 ays1

ays1 = warb

1219 good kissing carrion] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “Dr. Warburton’s comment (which Dr. Johnson says almost sets the critic on a level with the author) on this passage is as follows: [and he quotes] ”

1785 v1785

v1785 = v1778 + malone

1793 v1793

v1793 = v1785 + warb note minus mal; + steevens

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1893

1805 Seymour

Seymour: warb, mal

1218-19 For if the sunne...carrion] Seymour (1805, p. 169): “I have often wondered how any one could hesitate about admitting Dr. Warburton’s explanation of this passage, and am myself peculiarly convinced of its justness--having exactly understood it so before I saw Warburton’s note, in which, it must yet be confessed, he refines too much. ‘For if the sun breed maggots,’ &c. I think Warburton has corrected this passage rightly; but I think, with Mr. Malone, that Shakespeare had not any of that profound meaning which Warburton has ascribed to him. Mr. Malone has, in my opinion, produced sufficient reasons why his own emendation should not be admitted. Lord Chedworth.”

1813 v1813

v1813 = v1803

1818 mclr3

mclr3: warb

1218-19 Coleridge (ms. notes 1818 in ays1, ed. 1784; rpt. Coleridge, 1998, 12.4:762-3): <p. 762>“It [[Warburton’s gloss]] is a very ingenious comment; but yet its validity is by no means clear to me. I rather think that the train of Thought in Hamlet’s mind is sim-</p. 762><p. 763> ply—If the Sun being a god breeds maggots in a dead Dog, we need not marvel that the an ungodly world (which is the opposite of heavenly) breeds Scoundrels out of such carrion as Human [. . . . .] the Objection of Libertines had intervened, between ‘as the world goes’ [[1215]] and the Sun &c, Shakespeare would have given some hint, tho’ but in a single word, even tho’ hidden in a corner of a metaphor. Absolute Chasms I find no where in his writings. By the bye, there is a difficulty in Hamlet’s answer to Ros: Then are our Beggars Bodies [[1309-10]]”</p. 763>

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813

1832 cald2

cald2

1218-9 For if the sunne...carrion] Caldecott (ed. 1832): “Not as throwing any additional light upon this passage, but ascurious matter in some degree bearing upon the subject, and coming from a quarter, not likely to be very conversant in the works ofone so profane, as to write for the stage, we hesitate not to present our reader from Barclay’s Apology, 1675, (Proposition V. & VI.) his simile of the sun’s melting and hardening power: ‘the nature of the sun is to cherish the creation, and therefore the living are refreshed by it: and the flowers send forth a goodsavour, as it shines upon them, and the fruits of the trees are ripened: yet cast forth a dead carrion, a thing without life, and the same reflection of the sun will cause it to stink, and putrify it: yet is not the sun said thereby to be frustrated of its proper effect.’”

1859 stau

stau

1218-9 For if the sunne...carrion] Staunton(ed. 1860): “In this passage, famous rather from the discussion it has occasioned than for any sublimity of reflection or beauty of language, we adopt the now almost universally accepted correction of Warburton--’a god’ for ‘a good’ of the old editions. At the same time we dissent toto cëlo from the reasoning by which he and other commentators have sought to conned ‘For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a god kissing carrion, ‘with what Hamlet had previously said. The circumstance of the prince coming in reading, that he evinces the utmost intolerance of the old courtier’s interruptions, and rejoices in his departure, serve, in our opinion, to show that Shakespeare intended the actor should manifest his wish to be alone, after the words, ‘Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand,’ in the most unmistakable manner, by walking away and appearing to resume his study:--that then, finding Polonius still watching him, he should turn sharply round with the abrupt question, ‘Have you a daughter?’ It is this view of the stage business which prompted us to print the passage above, as something read, of affected to be read, by Hamlet,—an innovation—if it be one, (for we are ignorant whether it has been suggested previously)—that will the more readily be pardoned, since the passage as usually exhibited has hitherto defied solution.”

1872 cln1

cln1 : staunton

1218-19 For . . . carrion] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): "Mr Staunton prints this as a quotation from the book Hamlet is reading."

1885 macd

macd

1218-9 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—reading, or pretending to read, the words from the book he carries.”

1890 irv

irv: warb, cald, knight, Corson

1218-9 Symons (in Irving & Marshall ed. 1890): “This is the reading of the Qq. and Ff. generally abandoned in favour of Warburton’s brilliant and plausible emendation: ‘a god, kissing carrion.’ This makes admirable sense, but it may be questioned whether the change is necessary. Caldecott tentatively suggested that the passage ‘may mean that the dead dog is good for the sun, the breeder of maggots, to kiss for the purpose of causing putrefaction, and so conceiving or generating anything carrion-like, anything apt quickly to contract taint in the sunshine.’ This explanation is more elaborately and more convincingly worked out in Corson’s Jottings on the Text of Hamlet, pp. 18-20. ‘The defect,’ he says, ‘in the several attempted explanations of this passage is due to one thing, and one thing only, and that is, to the understanding of ‘kissing’ as the present active participle, and not as the verbal noun. . . . In the following passages, for example, the present active participle is used: ‘Life’s but a walking shadow,’ Macbeth, v. 5. 24; . . . ‘the dancing banners of the French,’ King John, ii. 1. 308; ‘labouring art can never ransom nature,’ All’s Well, ii. 1. 121, &c. But in the following passages the same words are verbal nouns used adjectively: ‘a palmer’s walking-staff,’Richard II. Iii. 3. 151; ‘you ought not walk upon a labouring day,’ Julius Caesar, i. 1. 4, &c; and now we are all ready for ‘kissing.’ In the following passages it is the participle: ‘a kissing traitor,’ Love’s Labour Lost, v. 2. 603; ‘the greedy touch of common-kissing Titan, ‘Cymbeline, iii. 4. 166: ‘O, how ripe in show Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!–Midsummer Night’s Dream, iii. 2. 139, 140.

“‘Kissing,’ in the last passage, might be taken for the verbal noun, meaning, for kissing, or, to be kissed; but it must be here be understood as the participle. Demetrius speaks of the lips of Helena, as two ripe cherries that kiss, or lightly touch, each other. But to say of a pair of beautiful lips that they are good kissing lips, would convey quite a different meaning, a meaning, however, which nobody would mistake: ‘Kissing,’ in such expressions, is the verbal noun used adjectively, and equivalent to ‘for kissing.’ And so the word is used in the passage in question: ‘For if the sun breed magots in a dead dogge, being a good kissing carrion’ that is, a dead dog being , not a carrion good at kissing, as Mr. Knight and others understood it, and which would be the sense of the word, as a present active present participle, but a carrion good for kissing, or, to be kissed, by the sun, that thus breeds a plentiful crop of maggots therein, the agency of ‘breed’ being implied in ‘kissing.’ In reading this speech, the emphasis should be upon ‘kissing,’ and not upon ‘carrion,’ the idea of which last word is anticipated in ‘dead dog;’ in other words, ‘kissing carrion’ should be read as a compound noun, which in fact it is, the stress of sound falling on the member of the compound which bears the burden of the meaning. The two words might, indeed, be hyphened, like ‘kissing-comfits’ in the Merry Wives of Windsor, v. 5. 23.’ With this passage compare King Edward III. Ii. 1. 438, 439: ‘The freshest summers day doth soonest taint The loathed carrion that it seems to kiss. -Ed. Warnke and Proescholdt, p. 27.

1934 cam3

cam3

1218-9 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Such is Ham.’s first direct reference to Oph. in the text. (Cf. Cymb. [1.4.134-6. (452-4)] ‘If you buy ladies’ flesh at a million a dram, you cannot preserve it from tainting.’) Ham. is playing upon ‘loose’ and ‘fishmonger’; the usual word of the time for ‘flesh’ in the carnal sense being ‘carrion’; cf. N.E.D. ‘carrion,’ 3; Troil. [4.1.72.(2289)]; and M. V. [3.1.34-6. (1249-50)] ‘Shy. My own flesh and blood to rebel! Sol. Out upon it, old carrion, rebels it at these years?’ For the general idea of the sun breeding from corruption, very prevalent at this time and and going back to Diogenes Laertius and Tertullian, v. Tilley, 604 and an article by the same writer in M.L.R. xi. Cf. also note [2.2.63. (393)] ‘Then did the sun on dunghill shine’; A. & C. [1.3.68-9. (381-2)] ‘By the fire | That quickens Nilus’ slime’; Meas. [2.2.164-7. (928-31)]: ...it is I | That, lying by the violet in the sun, | Do as the carrion does, not as the flower, | Corrupt with virtuous season;’ and Edward III (1596, Sh. Apocrypha, ed. Tucker Brooke), ‘The freshest summers day doth soonest taint | The lothed carrion that it seemes to kisse.’”

1982 ard2

ard2

1218 Jenkins (ed. 1982): "For the ancient idea, see Hankins, PMLA, LXIV, 507 ff. (or Backgrounds of Shakespeare’s Thought, pp. 161-71). The sun was regularly thought of as the source of life, as in FQ, III. vi. 9, ’Great father he of generation Is rightly call’d, th’author of life and light.’ The Elizabethans were clear, however, that if the sun’s procreative power produced foul and corrupt forms of life, corruption was not in the sun but in that from which the sun bred. Cf. Ant. II. vii. 26, ’Your serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun’: Tim. IV. iii. 1, ’O blessed breeding sun, draw from the earth Rotten humidity’. So Stubbes (Anatomy of Abuses, New Shakspere Soc., i. 79) insists that the ’stench of a dead carcase’ comes not from the sun but from its ’own corruption’ and that the sun cannot make things ’fouler than they are of their own nature’. Hence Angelo (Meas. II. ii. 165-8) refers to the carrion which corrupts ’with virtuous season’ in contrast to the violet which, growing beside the sun, does not. It is a symptom of Hamlet’s malaise that he thinks of life’s fertility in images of maggot-breeding carrion while the complementary growth of fragrant flowers is ignored. Yet although the present passage links Ophelia with carrion, the play will associate her finally with violets. See V. i. 232-3 [3430-1]."

2008 Kliman

Kliman

1218-19 Kliman (2008): Hamlet’s remarks about maggots is a dreadful foreshadowing of Ophelia’s burial and of all the other references to death and decay that abound in the play.