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Line 1991-92 - 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. 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.

Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

1991-2 Enter a King and {a} Queene, <very louingly; >the Queene embra-\|cing him, {and he }

{her,}<She kneeles, and makes shew of Protestation vnto>

1677 Rymer

Rymer: Greek drama

1991-2002 Rymer (1677, p. 28; apud Vickers, 1974, 1: 190): The Greek dramatists “found in nature, that men could not so easily pardon a crime committed before their faces; and consequently could not be so easily dispos’d to bestow that pitty on the Criminal which the Poets labour’d for. The Poets, I say, found that the sight of the fact made so strong an impression, as no art of theirs could afterwards fully conquer.”

1726 theon

theon

1991-3 Enter . . . necke,] Theobald (1726, p. 87): “Mr. Pope here makes the King, as we say upon a different Occasion, take her up, before she’s down. It must be restor’d as the second folio Edition, and several others, rightly have it.

Enter a King and Queen, very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes Shew of Protestation unto him: He takes her up, and declines his Head upon her Lap.”

1733 theo1

theo1 contra Pope

1991 a King and a Queene] Theobald (ed. 1733): “Thus have the blundering and inadvertent Editors all along given us this Stage-Direction, tho’ we are expressly told by Hamlet anon, that the Story of this introduced Interlude is the Murther of Gonzago Duke of Vienna. The Source of this Mistake is easily to be accounted for, from the Stage’s dressing the Characters. Regal Coronets being at first order’d by the Poet for the Duke and Dutchess, the succeeding Players, who did not strictly observe the Quality of the Persons or Circumstances of the Story, mistook ’em for a King and Queen; and so the Error was deduced down from thence to the present Times. Methinks, Mr. Pope might have indulg’d his private Sense in so obvious a Mistake, without any Fear of Rashness being imputed to him for the arbitrary Correction.”

1747 warb

[WARB has ’regal Cornets’, corrected to ’Coronets’ in Errata - did this prompt Hawkins’s idea?]

1765 john1

john1 = theo1 +

Johnson (ed. 1765): “I have left this as I found it, because the question is of no importance. But both my copies have, Enter a King and Queen very lovingly, without any mention of regal coronets.”

Johnson (ed. 1765 Appendix [unattributed]): “Regal coronets are improper for any personage below the dignity of a king; regal, as a substantive, is the name of a musical instrument, now out of use. But there is an officer of the houshold called, Tuner of the regals. The cornet is well known to be a musical instrument, and proper for processions. Might we not then read? Enter a Duke and Dutchess with royals, cornets, &c."

1773 v1773

v1773 = theo1 +

Hawkins (apud. ed. 1773): “Regal coronets are improper for any personage below the dignity of a king. Regal, as a substantive, is the name of a musical instrument now out of use; but there is an officer of the household, called The Tuner of the Regals. The cornet is well known to be musical instrument, and proper for processions.

Might we not then read, Enter a duke and duchess, with regals, cornets, &c?”

Steevens (ed. 1773): “The regal is not entirely lost in Germany, and is a small portable organ with keys. It appears from an account of the establishment of the household of the first year of the reign of Q. Mary (among MSS. belonging to the Antiquary Society) that the king had a regal-maker, who had a salary of 161. per annum.

“Lord Bacon mentions organs and regals as instruments of a similar construction. The latter are still used in the north parts of Sweden. The word rigabellum occurs in Du Cange, who thus defines it.--Instrumentum musicum, cujus usus in aedibus sacris, antequam organa Italis omnino familiaria essent.

“The substance of this note was communicated to the Antiquarian Society by Hon. D. Barrington.

“I have copied this order for the dumb shew from the quarto. The folio, nor any other edition that I have ever seen (Theobald’s and Warburton’s alone excepted) mentions regal coronets: and to conclude, Theobald seems to have been disputing with himself about the propriety of a circumstance, which does not appear to have had existence.”

1773 jen

jen = theo1+

1991 s.d. Enter a King and a Queene] Jennens (ed. 1773): “In this stage-direction it stands King and Queen through all the editions till T. who alters it to Duke and Duchess, and has the following note. [This is where JEN puts T] Notwithstanding this seeming clear triumph of T. over the former editors, which he enjoys by the consent of all the succeeding ones, who follow him in the alteration; perhaps there is a way of accounting for these seeming contradictions in the old editions. The play here acted, Hamlet says, is the image of a murther done in Vienna, Gonzago is the duke’s name, his wife’s Baptista; but the poet who may be supposed to have formed this story into a play, must be allowed the right of changing the quality of the persons as he pleases: So, though in the story it was a duke and a duchess, yet in the play it might be altered to a king and a queen, by poetical licence. And that this supposition is true, seems to be confirmed by Hamlet’s words almost immediately after the above-quoted ones; viz. This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king. But T. has taken care to alter this word king here, which stands so in all the editions before him, to duke, without giving any notice of the alteration.”

1991 s.d. Queene.] Jennens (ed. 1773): “After queen the fo’s insert, very lovingly. But no edition before T. has these words, with regal coronets; who puts them into the direction without acquainting us that they are his interpolation; and no wonder, as he could make us believe they are to be found in the old editions; for he says (v. note foregoing) Regal coronets being at first ordered by the poet for the duke and duchess, &c.”

1778 v1778

v1778

1991 Steevens (ed. 1778): “In our former edition several notes on this passage were assembled; but being all founded on a mistaken reading, they are now omitted.”

1916 TLS

Spens contra Gregg; contra Simpson

1991 Enter . . .] Spens (“A Critical Mousetrap,” TLS 16 [1916] 357) disagrees with Gregg, who thought such a show unusual, and Simpson, who thought the king’s nerves could stand one display of his crime but not two. She maintains that such preludes were common in court performances early in Elizabeth’s reign. “Ophelia’s questions do not, I think, imply that she is puzzled by the revival of an obsolete device, but that she wishes for an interpretation of the allegory. Expecting something different from the allegory in the play itself, the king breaks. Since in revenge plays a play-within became the opportunity for the avenger to wreak revenge, perhaps the king fled because he expected Hamlet to act right there.”

1918 MLR

Wilson contra Greg in MLR 1917

1991-2002 Wilson (1918, pp. 150 ff.) begins his discussion of the dumb show, which he announces as a preliminary and shortened version of his whole argument [expanded in WHH]. Since the Gonzago play cannot be completed, Sh. provides the audience with the dumb show so that they can appreciate what is happening, and what Claudius is reacting to. Claudius must stop the play and yet not notice the dumb show. Sh. saw the solution: “He had to make it quite apparent to his audience that Claudius was not looking at the dumb-show.” Halliwell had suggested this, but Wilson claims that he can argue the point better than has been done before. Claudius’s question at the end of scene one of the spoken play [2100-1] asks about the argument: he could not have seen the dumb show and ask this question. Wilson argues that king and queen and Polonius are all discussing Hamlet’s behavior and Hamlet’s “Look you” [1979] makes the audience look at them and notice that the three are deep in thought and discussion. Wilson credits Greg for leading him to look at the play scene in a new light. Wilson agrees with Greg that there were two types of audience, the general masses and the more astute. That’s why so many have missed the points that Sh. made clear when he directed his own plays.

1993 Lupton&Reinhard

Lupton & Reinhard

1991-2130 Lupton & Reinhard (1993, p. 104) <p. 104> “In the play within a play, there is no true discovery, since both Claudius and Hamlet already know the crime, and the others apparently infer nothing from the spectacle. If Oedipal tragedy involve the economic discovery of a primal crime or scene, post-Oedipal Trauerspiel [play of mourning] mournfully repeats and interiorizes a scene it already knows in a theater of conscience, a ‘distracted globe.’ The play within a play gives us both the dumb show and the dialogue, doubling Aristotelian discovery into a Baroque mirror game.” </p. 104>

1999 Dessen & Thomson

Dessen & Thomson

1992 kneeles] Dessen & Thomson (1999): “Over 300 figures are directed to kneel/kneel down (a small percentage of the actual onstage kneelings . . . ”