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Line 2056 - Commentary Note (CN) More Information

Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.
2056 Purpose is but the slaue to memorie,3.2.188
1803 v1803
v1803: 1H4 //
2056 Steevens (ed. 1803): “So, in 1H4 [5.4.81 (3046)]: ‘But thought’s the slave of life.’ Steevens."
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
1819 cald1
cald1 ≈ v1813 + magenta underlined
2056-7 Caldecott (ed. 1819): “The resolutions we form are dependent upon the feeling and impression of an hour that is gone, and a thing past. Their conception and origin is violent and passionate; but their progress and close of little vigour or efficiency.With something of a similar thought we have a similar phraseology, in [5.4.81 (3046)] as Mr. Steevens points out, ‘But thought’s the slave of life.’”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
1826 sing1
sing1 = v1821 without attribution
1832 cald2
cald2= cald1 + magenta underlined
2056-7 Caldecott (ed. 1832): “The resolutions we form are dependent upon the feeling and impression of an hour that is gone, and a thing past. Their conception and origin is violent and passionate; but their progress and close of little vigour or efficiency. ‘More validity, more honourable state in carrion flies.’ Rom. [3.3.35 (1838)]..With something of a similar thought we have a similar phraseology, in 1H4 [5.4.81 (3046)]. as Mr. Steevens points out, ‘But thought’s the slave of life.’”
1854 del2
del2
2056 Delius (ed. 1854): “Ein Vorsatz is ganz vom Gedächtniss, das ihn noch Belieben vergessen kann, abhängig; er ist gewaltig, wenn er entsteht, aber seine Lebenskraft entspricht dieser Entstehung nicht.” [A purpose depends entirely on memory that can forget it as it will; it is strong at its beginning, but its vitality does not correspond to this beginning.]
1856b sing2
sing2 = sing1
1857 fieb
fieb
2056-9 Fiebig (ed. 1857): “Attend to the irregularity of this construction. The plurals fall and they be relate to the inserted collective now fruit, whilst sticks, 3d p. of the singular, relates to purpose, the subject of the whole period.”

fieb
2056 Fiebig (ed. 1857): “I.e. purpose will be remembered and executed, or forgotten, according to the arbitrary determination of memory.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc
2056-81 Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868, rpt. 1878): “We have an idea that this is the passage ‘of some dozen or sixteen lines’ which Hamlet was proposed to ‘set down and insert’ in the play, asking the player whether he could ‘study’ it for the occasion. The style of the diction is markedly different from the remainder of the dialogue belonging to this acted play of ‘The Murder of Gonzago;’ and it is signally like Hamlet’s own argumentative mode. ‘This world is not for aye,’ the thoughts upon the fluctuations of ‘love’ and ‘fortune,’ and the final reflection upon the contrary current of “our wills and fates,” with the overthrow of our ‘devices,’ and the ultimate diversity between our intentions and their ‘ends,’ are as if proceeding from the prince himself. His motive for writing these additional lines for insertion, and getting the player to deliver them, we take to be a desire that they shall serve to divert attention from the special passages directed at the king, and to make these latter seem less pointed. We have fancied that this is Shakespeare’s intention, because of the emphatic variation in the style just here. Observe how very different are the mythological allusions to ‘Phoebus,’ ‘Neptune,’ ‘Tellus,’ ‘Hymen,’ ‘Hecate’ and the stiff sentential inversions of ‘about the world have times twelve thirties been,’ ‘discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must,’ &c.; and, moreover, observe how exactly the couplet commencing the king’s speech, ‘I do believe,’ &c., and the couplet concluding it, ‘So think thou wilt,’ &c., would follow on conjoinedly, were the intervening lines (which we suppose intended to be those written by Hamlet) not inserted.”
1869 tsch
tsch
2056 Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “Eine für das ethische und psychologische Gebiet gleich wichtige Behaupung, die namentlich bei der Beurtheilung des Prinzen zu beachten ist, dessen Entschluss auch of violent birth war, und dann sich of poor validity herausstellte.” [An observation that is equally important for its ethical and psychological aspects, one which should be kept in mind for evaluating the prince, whose decision was of violent birth and then proved to be of poor validity.]
1870 rug1
rug1 ≈ Fieb
2056 Moberley (ed. 1870): “Purposes last only so long as they are remembered.”
1873 rug2
rug2=rug1
1874 Malleson
Malleson
2056-81 Malleson (p. 467) thinks that these lines, which Seely had selected as the dozen or sixteen lines, describe Hamlet and therefore would not be suitable to accomplish the purpose of the added lines.
1874 Seeley
Seeley: c&mc ; contra Malleson
2056-81 Seeley (p. 476) who agrees with the Clarkes on the choice of lines, believes that they describe Gertrude, contrary to Malleson who thinks that they describe Hamlet. Seeley also denies the idea that the added lines had to be the ones that would force the king to reveal his crime. The play as a whole would do that.
1877 v1877
v1877 ≈ Sievers, c&mc, tsch, Furnivall, Seeley, Malleson, Simpson, Bathurst, Gervinus, Ingleby; xrefs. See also n. [2.2.542 (1581)].”
2056-80 Furness (ed. 1877): “Sievers (Hamlet, p. 142, Leipzig, 1851) was, I believe, the first to point out the dozen or sixteen lines which Ham. had promised to insert in the play; and he supposed them to be lines [3.2.255-60 (2124-30)], but Mr and Mrs Cowden Clarke, in their ed., believe that they are to be found in the present passage; because: the diction is different from the remainder of the dialogue, and is signally like Hamlet’s own argumentative mode. ‘This world is not for aye,’ the thoughts upon the fluctuations of ‘love’ and ‘fortune,’ and the final reflection upon the contrary current of ‘our wills and fates,’ with the overthrow of our ‘devices,’ and the ultimate diversity between our intentions and their ‘ends,’ are as if proceeding from the Prince himself. His motive in writing these additional lines for insertion, and getting the player to deliver them, we take to be a desire that they shall serve to divert attention from the special passages directed at the King, and to make these latter seem less pointed. We have fancied that this is Shakespeare’s intention, because of the emphatic variation in the style just here. Observe how very different are the mythological allusions to ‘Phoebus,’ ‘Neptune,’ &c., and the stiff inversions of ‘about the world have times twelve thirties been,’ ‘discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must,’ &c.; and, moreover, observe how exactly the couplet commencing the Player-King’s speech, ‘I do believe,’ &c., and the couplet concluding it, ‘So think thou wilt,’ &c., would conjoin were the intervening lines omitted. To the same effect Tschischwitz, who finds in lines 194-199 an allusion to Ros. and Guild; see [2.2.363-7 (1409-12)]. A discussion as to whether or not these were Hamlet’s dozen or sixteen lines was started by a note from Furnivall in The Academy, 3 Jan. 1874, to the effect that both Seeley and himself, independently and without any knowledge of Clarke’s note on the subject, had hit upon these lines as those written by Ham. The discussion is carried on in the pages of The New Sh. Soc. Trans. i Series, pt. ii. p. 465, and as it there takes up some thirty or more pages, a mere digest of it can be given here. Malleson contends that these are not the lines written by Ham. i. They do not apply to the King’s character or position, but rather to Ham. himself. 2. There is nothing in them of the torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion that Ham. was so anxious should not be torn to tatters. And, lastly, there was one scene which Ham. tells Hor. is to be the test, during which he is to watch the King with every faculty of his being, while Ham. will do the same during one speech. Beyond doubt the scene is where poison is poured into the Player-King’s ear, and here, likewise, at the crisis of the plot is to be found the speech, viz. ‘Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit,’ &c. and this is Hamlet’s addition to the play. Had the King not blenched, we should have had probably the rest of the dozen lines, which might have contained a hint of the Poisoner’s next aim, the seduction to a sudden second marriage of the seeming-virtuous Queen. It was the success of this alteration or addition that Ham. declared would get him a fellowship in a cry of players, and this success was due to the ‘talk of the poisoning,’ and this ‘talk of the poisoning’ is found only in this speech of Lucianus. Seeley, on the other hand, believed that the dozen or sixteen lines were some of those which make up the long speech beginning ‘I do believe you think what now you speak.’ To avoid conjecture as much as possible, we must consider two characteristics which the inserted speech must necessarily have: i. It must consist of some dozen or sixteen lines. 2. Being an insertion, it must be such a speech as can be removed without affecting the action of the play. Now, these two characteristics belong to this speech of the Player-King, and to it alone. It is exceptionally long, and the whole of it could not be spared, but it is quite easy to spare about a dozen or sixteen lines from the middle of it, and such a retrenchment would bring the speech to about the average length of the other speeches. There is no reason why Ham. should make his lines ‘charge the King with murder, or to drive the moral of the play home to the King’s conscience.’* The play might be trusted to do that; no speech could make the application plainer. It is impossible for the speech beginning ‘Thoughts black,’ &c., to be the inserted speech, because it satisfies none of the conditions. It is not a dozen or sixteen lines, but only six; it is not an inserted speech, but belongs essentially to the action. It is also impossible to suppose exactly that it was broken off by the King’s rising, for the six lines in question form only one sentence, and must therefore belong entirely to the play itself in its original form, unless the murder were to be done in dumb show, which nobody supposes. His uncle’s guilt is by no means the absorbing topic of Hamlet’s thoughts; it is an annoying subject that weighs upon his mind without interesting it, and his only desire is to postpone and keep at arm’s length everything connected with it, and with his duty to punish it. His real feeling for his uncle is only contempt, as for a vulgar knave, whom there is no satisfaction in thinking about, --and it would be source of wonder if he should think about him enough to take the trouble to write a dozen or sixteen lines to make clear what was already as clear as the day. But the subject that really does fill Hamlet’s mind, to the exclusion of what ought to engage his attention more, is his mother, and she it is with whom these inserted lines deal. From what we know of Hamlet’s feelings she would be, à priori, the subject of his inserted speech. Furthermore, if the speech were about the murder, it would be of no help in the progress of the play, nothing would be revealed to us by it. Whereas, if the speech dealt with the mother, it would be a broad hint to us not to trust Hamlet’s professions, and that the experiment of the play, with all its parade of ingenuity and of vengeance to follow, is a mere blind by which Ham. hides both from himself and Hor. that he does not intend to act at all, but will go one for ever brooding over the frailty of his mother and of all womankind. To this Malleson rejoins: Ham. never says he has written a passage of so many lines, but that he intended to write some uncertain number, a dozen or sixteen. When he sat down with the play before him, he may have written twenty or twenty-six, and indeed, if the Player-King’s speech be accepted as partly Hamlet’s, all of it might be claimed for him except the first two and the last two lines, which, omitting the intervening twenty-six, go fairly together. There is no reason why the inserted lines must be such as can be removed without affecting the play; may not Ham. have substituted his lines for those which he struck out? If lines 178-203 were made, as Seeley contends, to catch the conscience of the Queen, there appears to be in them when closely analyzed nothing with any special reference to her, and accordingly she is perfectly unmoved by them; her response, when appealed to by Hamlet as to how she likes the play, betokens perfect self-possession. Afterwards, to be sure, she is thrown into ‘most great affliction of spirit,’ but it is entirely on her husband’s account,--as far as she was concerned, this speech was pointless. Grant that the plot of the play, by itself, sufficiently emphasized the King’s guilt, there is nothing unnatural in Hamlet’s wishing to make assurance doubly sure. In Seeley’s final remarks he admitted that Hamlet’s instructions to the Player suggest a speech that is in some sense passionate, but that in reality Ham. takes the occasion of a particular speech to give a general lecture on elocution, or on the general way in which a passion should be expressed. And these lines, which may appear tame to us, may have borne a much more intense feeling to Ham. The insertion is introduced to tell us something about Ham. that we should not otherwise have known. Its object was not to catch the conscience of the Queen, but to give us an additional insight into the dreamy, unpractical character of Ham. He had been from the first brooding over his mother’s conduct, and the play offers him an opportunity to relieve his feelings; the lines may not produce much effect upon her, --he knows how unimpressionable she is,--but his object will be gained if he only writes them. Furnivall sums up: Technically, Seeley’s position is very strong, but ‘on the merits’ he breaks down,--he has a capital case at Law, but none in Equity. I cannot resist Malleson’s argument, that Hamlet’s inserted speech is the one speech in which he tell Hor. the King’s guilt is to unkennel itself. But I hold very strongly that Lucianus’s speech is not the speech, and that, in fact, the speech is not in the printed play. Either the King’s conscience was more quickly stung than Ham. anticipated, and so the written speech was never needed; or (as Mr Matthew has suggested) Sh. contented himself with showing us, or letting us assume, that Ham. altered the play, and put his ‘dozen or sixteen lines’ into action instead of words; if he had not modified the play, what credit could he have claimed for himself as a play-writer or adapter. The inconsistency of Shakespeare’s having made Ham. first talk so much about inserting a speech, and then leaving it out after all, is what one might fairly expect in the recast Hamlet after its other startling inconsistencies, e.g. Hamlet’s age and Ophelia’s suicide. What can it matter whether an actual speech of a dozen or sixteen lines, though often announct, be really in the play or not? Simpson calls attention to the fact that just as the historical drama takes for granted those events which are made known by previous allusions, so the sub-play generally omits all those details which have been previously described or alluded to. Thus in MND. we have both the play as presented before Theseus and a rehearsal of it. The lines rehearsed are different from any in the actual play. ‘Looking at the practice of the time and at the previous likelihoods of the case, I see no reason whatever for expecting to find that Sh. would have put into the sub-play the dozen lines that he makes Ham. promise.’ Bathurst (p. 70) says that he sees ‘no symptoms of the lines which Ham. was to insert.’ Gervinus (2te Band, p 102, 3te Auflage) believes that Sh. meant the passage from line 177 to 187 to apply to Ham. ‘Indeed, Gonzago acted the part of Hamlet’s father. Ham. as well as his mother must have a taste of “wormwood.”’ My friend Dr Ingleby has kindly sent me extracts from a Paper on this subject, which is announced for reading to the New Shakspere Society, 9 February, 1877. In these extracts Dr Ingleby dissents from all that has been assumed heretofore on this subject in that Society’s Transactions, and maintains his own view, very briefly thus: The court-play is but a part of Hamlet; that Ham. writes no speech at all, whether of six, twelve, or sixteen lines, nor recites such a speech; Sh. simply wrote the entire play, not writing any additions in personâ Hamleti, still less writing an addition to a play which he had previously written in the character of the author of an Italian morality. To trace into its issues every suggestion in the play, so that the event should justify the hint, is ‘to consider too curiously.’ A drama is a work of art, a contrivance for imposing upon the spectator, causing him to take no account of actual time, place, and circumstance, making him almost forget that he is in a play-house. In real life a Hamlet might compose and insert a few lines to add point and force to an ordeal, like that of the court-play, to which the fictitious Hamlet subjects the supposed criminal; and if we had the play before us, we might detect the insertion by means of our various tests of metre, phraseology, &c. If we failed to discover the added lines, the fault is ours; the lines would be there. Now to suppose that Sh. in composing Hamlet followed out the exact course that a real living prince would have followed, is to impute to him a lack of the simplest art of the playwright, and a neglect of the artifices which the drama places at his command. Whereas, Shakespeare’s procedure was probably this: In the course of enlarging the first sketch of his Hamlet he conceived the design of making it a vehicle for the highest possible instruction in the art of elocution. The play-scene was already devised, and he had, therefore, to introduce the Players as arriving at Elsinore. Here was the chance he wanted. He would make Ham. instruct the Player, and through him all players, how to act. But how was this to be brought about? Ham. could hardly be supposed to know by heart the roles of a strolling player. Wherefore, Sh. makes Ham. speak as if he had already recited to the Player a speech of his own composition, and hereupon give his instructions. Thus, having found or made the occasion, Sh. had to prepare the audience for the supposed recitation, and this was done by representing Ham. at a former interview imparting to the old Player his intention of writing ‘a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines’ (i.e. a speech of several lines) for insertion in The Murder of Gonzago. But all the while Shakespeare’s object (kept wholly out of view) was to prepare the audience for his own lesson (voce Hamleti) on elocution. It is a rule of dramatic art that, a dramatic expedient not essential to the plot, introduced for a collateral object, is to be left out of consideration as soon as that object is attained. As soon, therefore, as Ham. has given the old Player his lesson, the dramatic need of the ‘dozen or sixteen lines’ is satisfied, and we have no further concern with them. The suggestion, however, served (1) to prepare the way for Hamlet’s advice; (2) to suggest the possibility, vague to the last degree, that Ham. had the old play touched and tinkered to suit his purpose more completely. The phrase, ‘some dozen or sixteen,’ does not mean what it says; it is even more indefinite than ‘ten or a dozen,’ or ‘a dozen or fourteen,’ which Mrs Quickly uses in Hen. V: II, i; the prefix ‘some’ adds vagueness to what was vague already. These lines, by the very nature of the case, can never have been in Hamlet. [It is to task the credulity of an audience too severely to represent the possibility of Hamlet’s finding an old play exactly fitted to Claudius’s crime, not only in the plot, but in all the accessories, even to a single speech which should tent the criminal to the very quick. In order, therefore, to give an air of probability to what every one would feel to be thus highly improbable, Sh. represents Ham. as adapting an old play to his present needs by inserting in it some pointed lines. Not that such lines were actually inserted, but, mindful of this proposal of Hamlet’s, the spectator is prepared to listen to a play which is to unkennel the King’s occulted guilt in a certain speech; the verisimilitude of all the circumstances is thus maintained. No matter how direct or pointed the allusion to the King’s guilt may be, we accept it all, secure under Shakespeare’s promise that the play shall be made to hit Claudius fatally. And we hear the fulfillment of this promise in Hamlet’s cry of exultation over the success of his attempt at play-writing. The discussion, therefore, that has arisen over these ‘dozen or sixteen lines’ is a tribute to Shakespeare’s consummate art. Ingleby, I think, is right in maintaining that Sh. did not first write The Murder of Gonzago, and then insert in it certain lines, as though written by Hamlet. And Sievers, the Clarkes, Malleson, and others are also right, I think, in believing that certain lines of the court-play are especially applicable to Claudius, and which we may imagine are those that Ham. told the Player he would give him. It is the very impression which, I think, Sh. wished to convey.’ Ed”
1878 rlf1
rlf1 ≈ c&mc, Sievers; xref.
2056-81 Rolfe (ed. 1878): “Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke believe that these are the " dozen or sixteen lines" of [2.2.542 (1581)], because the diction is different from the rest of the dialogue and is signally like Hamlet’s own argumentative. Sievers, who was the first to try to point out the supposed insertion, had fixed upon [3.2.255-60 (2124-30)]. See on [2.2.542 (1581)]above.”
rlf1: rug
2056 purpose . . . memorie] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “’Purposes last only so long as they are remembered’ (M.).”
1885 macd
macd ≈ rug
2056 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “‘Purpose holds but while Memory holds.’”
1891 dtn
dtn
2056-2057 Deighton (ed. 1891): “determination easily yields itself captive to memory (i.e. passes away when that which gave it birth is forgotten), it being robust enough when first formed, but soon losing its strength.”
1899 ard1
ard1 ≈ contra v1877
2056-2080 Dowden (ed. 1899): “Furness gives a long summary of a longer discussion as to which lines are the dozen or sixteen written by Hamlet, or whether it is meant by Shakespeare that any lines which actually appear should be identified as his. Lines in the present speech, it is argued are singularly in Hamlet’s vein; they look like an insertion; they do not advance the action; they are meant to catch the conscience of Hamlet’s mother; the plot sufficiently conflicts the King. On the other hand, it is argued, that the Poisoner’s speech (perhaps interrupted before its close) is meant; that Hamlet clearly indicates this to Horatio, and that he warns the player against mouthing a passionate speech. Perhaps all this is to inquire too curiously into a dramatic device of Shakespeare’s, designed to lessen the improbability of the ‘murder of Gonzago’ so exactly fitting the occasion; designed also to show Hamlet as a critic of theatrical art, and indirectly to instruct an Elizabethan audience in theatrical matters. Undoubtedly this speech reflects back on both the Queen and Hamlet himself, but this was Shakespeare doing, and clearly intentional; if we were forced to identify Hamlet’s lines, we must needs point to the speech of Lucianus. Sir H. Irving, as Hamlet, mutters the Poisoner’s words with suppressed passion while they are being delivered by the actor.”
1903 rlf3
rlf3 = rlf1
1904 ver
ver: xrefs.
2056-2083 Verity (ed. 1904): “Some think that this speech, or part of it, represents the speech (“some dozen or sixteen lines”) which Hamlet was to insert in the play. This theory is based on the style of the passage: “the diction is different from the remainder of the dialogue, and is singularly like Hamlet’s own argumentative mode” But the speech, being admittedly “argumentative,” is not one that an actor would “mouth” in a declamatory manner, nor does it contain anything which could stir Claudius to sudden and involuntary self-betrayal: hence it coincides neither with Hamlet’s warning to the Players, nor with his forecast to Horatio (78,79). On the other hand, each condition is fulfilled by the speech of Lucianus, [2.2.363-7 (1409-12)].. The latter, indeed, is only six, not sixteen, lines, but Hamlet may have written less than he intended, or the speech may be broken off by the King’s sudden movement [3.2.265 (2136)]. (F.)
“As regards the “argumentative” character of lines [3.2.182-209 (2050-77)], the real explanation, I believe, is that it is part of the Senecan style of the interlude, and therefore quite in harmony with the introduction of mythology in [3.2.155-60 (2024-29)]. Probably this Play-scene approximates more than any other part to the general style of the old play of Hamlet, the Senecan character of which prompted Nash’s satirical allusion to “whole Hamlets, I should say Handfulls of tragical speeches,” drawn from “English Seneca.”
“Some hold that we are not meant to identify any speech at all in Act 2; to his intention we might have credited him with a change of purpose; but what he said to the Players and to Horatio in this scene was said just before the performance began.”
1913 tut2
tut2
2056-2057 Purpose . . . validitie] Goggin (ed. 1913): “strong and sudden resolutions lose their strength as the recollections of the causes which gave them birth become fainter and less vivid. Some critics think that lines [3.2.182-209 (2050-77)] are the lines specially written by Hamlet [2.2.543 (1580-2)]; others insist that lines [3.2.255-60 (2124-30)], i.e. the speech of Lucianus, are Hamlet’s. There has been much discussion on the point, but the latter explanation is the more probable.”
1939 kit2
kit2 ≈ dtn
2056 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “We cannot hold fast to our purposes when we have forgotten what prompted them; if memory fails, no purpose can last long.”
1957 pel1
pel1
2056 slaue] Farnham (ed. 1957): “i.e. dependent upon for life.”
1980 pen2
pen2
2056 Spencer (ed. 1980): “our decisions about what we are going to do depend entirely upon our being able to remember them afterwards.”
1982 ard2
ard2: xrefs.
2056-8 Jenkins (ed. 1982): “The speech of the Player King.—Speculation as to the speech inserted in the play by Hamlet (cf. [2.2.541-2 (1580-1)]and LN) has sometimes fastened on this passage on the grounds that nowhere else is there a continuous stretch of as much as a ‘dozen or sixteen lines’ which could be interpreted and that the general moral reflections here are much in Hamlet’s vein. But cf. n. [3.2.255-60 (2124-30)]. One might have thought this argument sufficiently refuted in its own level by the failure of this passage to come ‘near the circumstances’ of Hamlet’s father’s death or to do anything at all to assist Hamlet’s purpose of discovering the King’s ‘occulted guilt’ [3.2.76-81 (1927-32)]. The echo here of sentiments expressed elsewhere by Hamlet reflects, as with the Pyrrhus speech (cf. [2.2.468-518 (1509-59)] LN, [2.2.488 (1528)] LN), not Hamlet’s mind but that of the creative dramatist fashioning his design. With the present speech cf. not only [3.1.83-7 (1738-42)] but [4.7.111-23 (3110-3112+10)]. With purpose . . . memory . . . forget [3.2.188, 192 (2056, 2060)] cf. Hamlet’s vow to remember [1.5.92-112 (777-796)] and subsequent blunted purpose [3.4.106-11 (2487-91)]; with the interdependence of friendship and fortune [3.3.200-9 (2068-77)] cf. [2.2.363-367 (1409-12)], and the whole career of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; with the discrepancy between intention and achievement [3.2.211-3 (2079-81)] cf. [5.2.382-5 (3877-80)].”
1988 bev2
bev2 ≈ pen2
2056 Bevington (ed. 1988): “i.e., our good intentions are subject to forgetfulness.”
1993 dent
dent
2056-59 Andrews (ed. 1993): “Purpose holds firm for about as long as it takes a fruit to ripen and fall to the ground of its own accord.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2fieb
2056 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “i.e. purposes are easily forgotten.”
2056