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.

1785 v1785

v1785

1953-54 Farmer (ed. 1785): “It should seem from the following passage in vice chancellor Hatcher’s letter to Lord Burghley Ch. June 21, 1580, that the common players were likewise occasionally permitted to perform there. ‘—Whereas it has pleased your honour to recommend my lord of Oxenford his players, that they might show their cunning in several plays already practiced by ’em before the Queen’s majesty’—(denied on account of the pestilence and commencement:) ‘of late we denied the like to the Right Honourable the Lord of Leicester his servants’.”

1790 mal

mal

1953-4 You playd once i’th Vniuersitie you say] Malone (ed. 1790): “The practice of acting Latin plays in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, is very ancient, and continued to near the middle of the last century. They were performed occasionally for the entertainment of princes and other great personages; and regularly at Christmas, at which time a Lord of misrule was appointed at Oxford, to regulate the exhibitions, and a similar officer with the title of Imperator, at Cambridge. The most celebrated actors at Cambridge were the students of St. John’s and King’s colleges: at Oxford, those of Christ-Church. In the hall of that college a Latin comedy called Marcus Geminus, and the Latin tragedy of Progne, were performed before Queen Elizabeth in the year 1566; and in 1564, the Latin tragedy of Dido was played before her majesty, when she visited the university of Cambridge. The exhibition was in the body or nave of the chapel of King’s college, which was lighted by the royal guards, each of whom bore a staff-torch in his hand. See Peck’s Desider. Cur. p. 36. n. x. The actors in this piece were all of that college. The authour of the tragedy, who in the Latin account of this royal visit, in the Museum, [MSS. Baker, 7037, p. 203,] is said to have been Regalis Colleggi olim socius, was, I believe, John Rightwise, who was elected a fellow of King’s college, in 1507, and according to Anthony Wood, ‘made the tragedy of Dido out of Virgil, and acted the same with the scholars of his school, [St. Paul’s, of which he was appointed master in 1522,] before Cardinal Wolsey with great applause.’ In 1583, the same play was performed at Oxford, in Christ-Church hall, before Albertus de Alasco, a Polish prince Palatine, as was William Gager’s Latin comedy, entitled Rivales. On Elizabeth’s second visit to Oxford, in 1592, a few years before the writing of the present play, she was entertained on the 24th and 26th of September, with the representation of the last mentioned play, and another Latin comedy, called Bellum Grammaticale.”

1793 v1793

v1793 = mal

1807 pye

pye = v1785 +

Pye (1807, p. 319): “Here is another trial of patience; Dr. Farmer cites this letter of Vice Chancellor Hatchet to shew that possibly the common players were sometimes permitted to act at the universities, when it is a fact as certainly and clearly known that they actually did perform there, as any other that relates to the history of the theatre. Dryden wrote eight prologues and epilogues, to be spoken by the common players at Oxford; and in the Guardian, No. 95, there is a laughable account of the property waggon being robbed in its road to that university.”

1818-19 mclr2

mclr2

1953-61 Ham. No . . . . there] Coleridge (ms. notes 1819 in Ayscough, ed. 1807; rpt. Coleridge, 1998, 12.4:852): <p. 852>“in any direct form to have kept Hamlet’s Love for Ophelia before the Audience, would have made a breach in the unity of the interest; but yet to the thoughtful reader it is suggested by his spite to poor Polonius whom he cannot let rest.”</p. 852>

1819 cald1

cald1 = v1785 + v1793

Caldecott (ed. 1819): “As far as this extract goes, no more is shewn, than that applications of this sort were occasionally made by great men who had retainers of this description, to the Universities; but there were most probably grounds, and those founded upon their ideas of academical discipline, that disposed their governors always to find reasons for rejecting them.

“The frequent notices of exhibitions of this sort by the students themselves, in addition to the absence of all direct evidence of any such having been allowed or made by common players, together with the academical principle alluded to, seem very strongly to negative the probability of stage plays having been performed in the universities by professed actors.”

-1845 mhun1

mhun1

1953-54 You played...say] Hunter (-1845, f. 228v): “The players have always been wont to introduce allusions to the places in which they were performing. Hamlet we learn from the title page of the new-found quarto was acted ‘in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford’. Julius Caesar was a suitable object for a university drama.”

1872 cln1

cln1

1953 You playd once i’th Vniuersitie you say] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): "The halls of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were the scenes of theatrical performances on special occasions, such as Commencement at Cambridge, or the visit of royal or distinguished personages. In 1564, on Sunday evening, August the 6th, Queen Elizabeth saw the Aulularia of Plautus in the antechapel of King’s College Chapel. On the occasion of the visit of James I and Prince Charles to Cambridge in 1614 plays were performed in the Hall of Trinity College; among them the comedies of Ignoramus and Albumazar, which have escaped oblivion. On the title-page of the quarto of hamlet 1603, it is said, ’As it hath beene diuerse

1899 ard1

ard1

Vniversitie] Dowden (ed. 1899): “University plays, in Latin or in English, form an important group of our elder drama. The title-page of Hamlet, Q1, states that it was acted ‘in the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford.’