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.

1597 King James VI

James VI

1639 a deale] James VI (1597, pp. 57-9): “For doubtleslie they are in effect but all one kinde of spirites, who for abusing the more of mankinde, takes on these sundrie shapes, and vses diuerse formes of out-ward actiones, as if some were of nature better then other. [. . . ] If they appeared in likenesse of anie defunct to some friends of his, they were called vmbra mortuorum: [. . . ] </p. 57> <p. 58> For out nature is such, as in companies, wee are not so soone mooued to anie such kinde of feare, as being solitare, which the Deuill knowing well inough, hee will not therefore assaile vs but when we are weake: And besides that, G O D will not permit him so to dishonour the societies and companies of Christians, as in publicke times and places to walke visiblie amongst them. On the other parte, when he troubles certain houses that are dwelt in, it is a sure token either of grosse ignorance, or of some grosse and slanderous sinnes amongst the inhabitantes thereof: which God by that extraordinarie rod punishes.” </p. 58> <p. 59> Epistemon says that such devils can use the bodies of the dead and these dead may be good or bad: the use won’t disturb their rest.

</p. 59>

1824 farren

Farren

1639 Farren (1824, p. 376): “Although he had before declared to Horatio that is was ‘an honest ghost,’ he now begins to waver, and timidly debates.”

1843- mlewes

mlewes

1638-9 The spirit . . . deale] Lewes (ms. notes in Knight, ed. 1843): “The audience knows that the ghost is not a Phantom.”

1843 col1

col1

1639 Collier (ed. 1843): “‘May be a deale,’ in the quarto, 1604, but that of 1611 alters it to ‘devil’. Possibly ‘devil’ was then sometimes pronounced as it is still in Scotland. The folio has it, ‘May be the devil.’”

1867 ktlyn

ktlyn

1639 Keightly (1867, p. 291): “For the first ‘the devil,’ 4to 1604 reads a deale; so the reading was probably ‘a devil,’ which is best.”

1877 clns

clns

1639-40 Neil (ed. 1877): Compare Love’s Labour’s Lost, IV, iii, 254; Comedy of Errors IV, iii, 55; Othello, II, iii, 348; Macbeth, I, iii, 123; and 2 Cor. xi, 14.

1885 macd

macd

1639 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Emphasis on May, as resuming previous doubtful thought and suspicion.”

1899 ard1

ard1

deale] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Coleridge quotes from Berowne’s Religio Medici, Part I. 37, to show that he held the belief that ghosts are often devils abusing men to damn them. See on this subject Spalding’s Elizabethan Demonology.”

1982 ard2

1639-40 Jenkins (ed. 1982): “LeLoyer (III.7) quotes Chrysostom to the effect that when an apparition claims to be the spirit of a particular person, one should suspect a deception of the devil. That the devil can appear in the likeness of a good man ’we need not doubt at all’, says Lavater (II. ix), supporting his case with many references to the scriptures and the Fathers. While admitting that ghosts may be ’either good or evil angels’, he supposed them normally to be diabolical; and James I insisted that they were invariably so. ’What means then these kind of spirits, when they appear in the shadow of a person newly dead. . . . And this way he easily deceived the Gentiles. . . . And to that same effect is it, that he now appears in that manner to some ignorant Christians’ (Demonology, III, ch. 1). Only the ignorant could imagine that a good angel might assume such a form or that the spirit of a dead man might return. Sir Thos. Browne (Religio Medici, I. 37) believed ’that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and villainy.’ Nashe (in The Terrors of the Night) specifies the shape of father, mother, or kinsman as that in which the devil often appears in order that his victim shall the sooner hearken to him (i. 348). For other expressions of this belief, see Stoll, Hamlet: an Historical and Comparative Study, 1919, pp. 47-8. See also nn. on I. ii. 244, 245, I. iv. 40, 43, I. v. 54."