Line 1798-1800 - 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.
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Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
| 1798-9 Ham. I haue heard of your {paintings} <pratlings too> well enough, | God hath gi- | |
|---|
| 1799-1800 uen you one {face} <pace>, and you make your selfes an|other, you gig {&} <you> am- | |
|---|
1765 john1
john1: [reads painting too and face]
1798-99 Johnson (ed. 1765): “This is according to the quarto; the folio, for painting, has prattlings, and for face, has pace, which agrees with what follows, you jig, you amble. Probably the authour wrote both. I think the common reading best.”
1793 v1793
1798-99 Reed (ed. 1793): “In Guzman de Alfarache, 1623, p. 13, we have an invective against painting in which is similar passage: ‘O filthinesse, above all filthinesse! O Affront, above all other affronts! That God having given thee one face, thou shouldest abuse his image and make thyself another.”
1807 douce
1798-99 Douce: <p. 462>The folio reads
prattlings, and
pace; the quarto as in the </p. 462><p. 463> text, which Dr. Johnson thinks best, though he admits that Shakespeare might have written both. Other very good reasons have been given for preferring the present readings; yet whoever will reflect on the typographical errors for which the quarto plays of Shakespeare are remarkable, may be disposed to think that the folio editors had good reason for their variation. Our author’s bible might here, as in many other instances, have furnished his materials. ‘Moreover thus saith the Lorde: seying the daughters of Sion are became so proude and come in with stretched oute neekes, and with vayne wanton eyes; seynge they come in trippynge so nicely with their fete; therefore, &c.’--Isaiah, ch.iii.ver.16. It has not been observed that lisp seems to refer to
prattling, as
jig and
amble do to pace.” </p. 463>
1819 cald1
cald1
1798-99 Caldecott (ed. 1819): “For prattlings the quartos read paintings, and for pace, face. The author, says Johnson, probably wrote both. In support of the reading of the folios Douce says, ‘it has not been observed, that lisp, &c. seems to refer to prattlings, as jig and amble do to pace.’ Illustr. II. 241. That the reading of the quartos was no unjust representation of the manners of the age, which Steevens thinks our author, in the spirit of his contemporaries, meant here to satirize, may be inferred from a discourse of painting and tincturing women, 4to. 1616. An epigram, prefixed to it, is addressed ‘Ad Nigellam, magis rubicundam quam verecundam, summo candore."
1839 knt1
1798-99 Knight (ed. 1839): “The reading of the foliois, ‘I have heard of your prattlings too, well enough. God hath given you one pace,’ &c. The context in some degree justifies the change of the folio. ‘You jig and you amble’--- you go tripplingly and mincingly in your gait (as the daughters of Sion are said, in Isaiah, to ‘come in trippping so nicely with their feet’--- may refer to pace, as ‘you lisp and you nickname God’s creatures,‘ may to prattlings. Nevertheless, we think, with Johnson, that Shakspere wrote both--- paintings and face first, prattlings and pace latest. As a question of taste, we prefer to retain the first reading.”
1843 col1
1798-9 Collier (ed. 1843): “The folio misprints the passage thus:-- ‘I have heard of your prattlings too, well enough: God has given you one pace,’ &c. That this is wrong is proved by the quarto, 1603, where we find, ‘I have heard of your paintings too: God hath given you one face.’ ‘Too’ is not in the quartos, 1604, &c., but in other respects they all concur.”
1844 dyce
dyce = knight +
1798-1801 I...creatures]
Dyce (1844, p. 213): <p. 213> “Mr. Knight gives the passage thus; [quotes KNIGHT] and with the following note [quotes KNIGHT].
That the reading of the folio is mere nonsense and confusion, Mr. Knight has shewn by his attempt to explain it,— by making the words ‘you lisp and nickname God’s creatures’ refer to ‘prattlings’ in the earliest portion of the speech, while ‘you jig, you amble,’ which precede those words, are made to refer to ‘pace,’ standing later in the speech than ‘prattlings’! And that the quartos exhibit the right reading, we have a confirmation in the earliest of them all, that of 1603, where the passage stands thus; ‘Nay, I haue heard of your paintings too, God hath giuen you one face, And you make your selues another,’ &c.” </p. 213>
1847 verp
verp
1798 I haue heard of your paintings]
Verplanck (ed. 1847): “‘
I have heard of your paintings,’ etc. The folios read ‘I have heard of your prattlings, too; God hath given you one
face, and you make yourself another.’ Both readings may be genuine, and the alteration made for some reason of that day now beyond conjecture.”
1861 wh1
1798-99 White (ed. 1861): "I have heard of your paintings too":--The 4tos., ‘paintings;’ the folio, ‘pratlings;’ and below, the former ‘one face;’ the latter, ‘one pace’--both misprints on the part of the folio, without a doubt.
1872 cln1
cln1
1799 gig]. Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “We have ’jigging fools’ in Julius Caesar, iv. 3. 137."
1799-1800 amble] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “walk effeminately, as in 1 Henry IV, iii. 2. 60: ’The skipping king he ambled up and down.’ "
1877 clns
clns
1799-1800 God hath giuen you . . . . another] Neil (ed. 1877): “In the English version of Mateo Aleman’s Guzman de Alfarache (first published in 1599), issued in the same year as the first folio of Shakespeare’s plays, we have this phrase, ‘O affront above all other affronts! that God hath given thee one face, thou shouldst abuse His image and make thyselfe another’ — Isaac Reed.”
1885 macd
macd
1798-9 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “(re-entering).”
1798-9 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “I suspect pratlings to be a corruption, not of the printed paintings, but of some word substituted for it by the Poet, perhaps prancings, and pace to be correct.”
1899 ard1
paintings] Dowden (ed. 1899): “The F ‘pratlings’ and ‘pace’ are possibly not misprints; ‘pace’ referring to ‘jig’ and ‘amble’; ‘pratlings’ to ‘lisp’ and ‘nickname.’”
1982 ard2
ard2
1798 paintings] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “In attacks on the vanities of women, cosmetics excited particular indignation as being in principle a blasphemy against God and in practice an accompaniment of easy virtue. Cf. Guazzo’s Civil Conversation, ‘A woman taking away and changing the colour and complexion which God hath given her, taketh unto her that which belongeth to a harlot’ (Tudor Trans., ii. 13). But in so common a matter it would be rash to assume any one specific source. Eight English authors outside the drama, as well as some Continental ones, are cited by Tilley (RES, V 312-17). The case against face-painting was also familiar through the Homily ‘Against Excess of Apparel’ (‘What do these women, but go about to reform that which God hath made?’, Book of Homilies, 2850 edn. p. 315), and one of the most vehement attack, that of Philip Stubbes, claimed the authority of the Christian Fathers, quoting Cyprian and Ambrose, the second to this effect: ’For what a dotage is it to change thy natural face, which God hath made thee for a painted face, which thou hast made thyself?’ (Anatomy of Abuses, New Shakspere Soc., i. 66). Donne’s argument ’That women ought to paint’ (Paradoxes, no. 2) is correspondingly outrageous. The practice nevertheless was not unknown in the highest circles (see V. i. 187-8 LN), and it has been suggested that F’s textual variants here, eliminating the references to face-painting, represent deliberate alteration to avoid giving offence.
“Traditionally associated with face-painting were other feminine vanities. Dover Wilson compares those specified here by Hamlet with Stubbes’s reference to women’s ’coyness in gestures, their mincedness in words and speeches, their gingerliness in tripping on toes like your goats, their demure nicety and babishness’ (i. 78)."
1798 1799 1800