1712 slings and arrowes] Anon. (1752, pp. 26-8): “A Gentleman of whose Judgment I have the highest Opinion, was pleased to propose an Alteration, and for ‘The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,’ would read ‘The Stings and Harrows of outrageous Fortune.’ Shakespeare uses the Verb in another Place in this Play. ‘It harrows me with Fear and Wonder.’ The Reader is at his Liberty to embrace or reject this Reading, but it carries an Air of Probability along with it, and rather mends than injures the Sense. Hamlet was so much dejected and chagrin’d at the sudden Death of a Father, whom he affectionately loved, and the over-hasty incestuous Marriage of his Mother, that he sincerely wishes for Dissolution. ‘Oh, that this too, too-solid Flesh would melt, / Thaw, and resolve itself into a Dew.’ But the Fear of offending the Author of Being, by acting contrary to the End and Design of his Being, restrained him from putting an End to a Life he was willing to lose. His Mind, </p.26><p.27> even before he was ascertained of his Father’s violent Death, misgave him that all was not well: But when that Master-piece of Villainy was disclosed, the Desire of Death return’d with double Force, and he seriously debates with himself, whether it was better to live or die. It had been represented to him, that Death was the End of Sorrow, Shame, and Pain—that, after Life’s fitful Fever we sleep well—that in the Grave we are at rest for ever—there the Pangs of Love are felt no more— the Captive regains his Liberty— and the Wretch whose Life has been a melancholy Series of Misery and Misfortune, finds safe Asylum. Hamlet wanted only to be convinced of the Truth of this Doctrine, to form his Resolutions. He revolves it in his Mind—is Death, says he, no more than a Sleep, and will no Dreams disturb us—there is the fearful Point. The Dread of what may happen, when we have shaken off this Mask of Flesh, puzzles and confounds us. Our Prospect of Futurity is obscured by Clouds and Darkness impenetrable. Nor can any Visitor return, to give us an Account of that unknown Region. We therefore chuse rather tamely to submit to all the Ills Fate may lay upon us, than fly to others which may be more lasting and severe. Thus a Consciousness of our Crimes, melts and dissolves our firmest Resolutions. This is not the only Place, this excellent Man, endeavours to convince us of the Folly and Danger of Suicide. In his Measure for Measure he paints Death in such glaring Colours, </p.27><p.28> that even the good Man must shudder at the Thoughts of Dissolution.

1712 Steevens (ed. 1778): “‘Homines nos ut esse meminerimus, ea lege natos, ut omnibus telis fortunae proposita sit vita nostra.’ Cic. Epist. Fam. v. 16.”

1712 slings and arrowes] Dyce (ed. 1866): “Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. ii. p. 16) would alter ‘slings’ to ‘stings,’ which he says ‘is undoubtedly the true reading.’”

1711 in the mind] Dowden (ed. 1899): “This is to be connected with ‘suffer,’ not with ‘nobler.’”

slings and arrows] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Walker, with an anonymous writer of 1752, would read ‘stings.’ ‘Slings and arrows’ is found in Fletcher’s Valentinian, 1. iii.”

1711 Wilson (ed. 1934): “in the mind The words go with ‘suffer.’”

1712 The slings and arrowes] Wright (1981, p. 182): These “are not parallel terms: one is an instrument for slinging, the other is the thing slung, but slings do not sling arrows; in speech we might expect ‘bows and arrows’ or ‘slings and bows’ or ‘slings and stones’ or ‘stones and arrows.’ If the phrase Hamlet uses is not exactly hendiadys, it is at least more comprehensible in a setting where hendiadys is a prominent figure.”

1711-14 Jenkins (ed. 1982): "The bearing of these lines has been very frequently misunderstood, with a consequent failure to grasp an essential link in Hamlet’s train of thought. Syntactically the lines are in apposition with l. 56, the or of l. 56 being paralleled by the Or of l. 59. An assumption (as in Knights, p. 78) that the ’whether’ clause is adverbial (’That is the question’, irrespective of whether . . .) is conclusively refuted in New Shakspere Soc. Transactions 1887-92, pp. 48*-52*. The alternatives put by ’the question’, then, are now restated in metaphorical and amplified form. The difficulty arises because the alternatives do not appear at first sight to correspond : a choice ’to suffer’ or ’to take arms’ does not seem the equivalent of ’to be or not to be’. Both are modes of being. Yet the second, ’to take arms’, will inevitably lead to not-being, since paradoxically our troubles will then be ended not by our destroying them but by fighting against his troubles a man could overcome them would have seemed to me a very naive view were it not for the number of distinguished critics who have apparently held it. (But in splendid contrast see Browning, apud Transactions, as cited above.) Hamlet believes that troubles and being are co-extensive, as this whole soliloquy shows; and the very concept of fortune (l. 58) supposes that a man is subject to it throughout life. If he could by fighting win, it could hardly be seriously questioned which were the ’nobler’ course. The absurd futility of the contest is what Shakespeare’s much-abused metaphor of taking arms against a sea very vividly suggests. (Cf. Tp. III. iii. 61-4, which mocks at the folly of trying to wound the winds or kill the waters with a sword.) The metaphor appears to be based upon well-known instances, notably that of the Celts, ho, as described by various ancient authors, rather than show fear by flight, would draw their swords and throw themselves into the tides as though to terrify them. Shakespeare could have found this in Abraham Fleming’s translation of Aelian (A Registre of Hystories, 1576, fol. 127v); but other accounts make it clearer that the Celtic warriors perished in the waves (see New Shakspere Soc. Transactions, as above). Hence the true significance of ’end them’ does not admit of doubt. It is precisely because the heroic gesture is necessarily disastrous that argument becomes possible about whether it is noble. This question had actually been raised, and pronounced upon, by Aristotle : ’A man . . . is not brave . . . if, knowing the magnitude of the danger, he faces it through passion - as the Celts take up their arms to go to meet the waves’ (Eudemian Ethics, III. 1 See also Nichomachean Ethics, III. 7). Shakespeare does not disagree with this; but it is not a case in which Aristotle has the last word."