Line 2137 - 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 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2137 <Ham. What, frighted with false fire.> | 3.2.266 |
|---|
1726 theon
theon
2137 Theobald (1726, p. 91): “As Hamlet had thrown some apposite Lines into the Play, in Order to sift the King’s Conscience as to the Fact of his Father’s Murther, and was resolved to watch his Looks and Behaviour narrowly during the Representation; when the Scene comes to touch the Poysoning in the Garden and the King, struck with the Image of his own Deed, can set it out no longer, methinks, it is very improbable that Hamlet, upon this pleasing Stroke of Conviction, should not express his Satisfaction in one half-line at least, upon the Play having a proper Effect, and his being convinced of his Uncle’s Guilt. The Passage ought certainly to be supplied from the Second Folio Edition, and Three more Impressions now before me.”
1733- mtby3
mtby3
2137 false fire] Thirlby (1733-): “Cotgrave: faux-feu, a failing, or missing, or not taking [?] of effect. note. flashing in the pan. Boyer: faux fraix [?], Idle expenses.”
Transcribed by BWK.
1857 fieb
fieb
2137 false fire] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “false cry or alarm of fire.”
1870 rug1
rug1
2137 false fire] Moberly (ed. 1870): “With mere fireworks which look like an attack.”
1881 Oxon
Oxon: xref.; Blackstone
2137 Oxon (1881, p. 21): “If [Hamlet] had slain the King at the end of the play-scene, or when he found him trying to pray [3.3.73-95 (2350-70)], why should he not be branded as a murderer and would be usurper?
“As a murderer, because no one would believe the Ghost’s story unsupported by other evidence.
“As a usurper, because Claudius was apparently, by de jure as well as by de facto, King, the throne of Denmark having been elective according to Blackstone.
“He was forced to watch and wait in his misery till he could make ’the King’s occulted guilt unkennel itself.’”
1882 elze2
elze2: Marston analogue
2137 Ham. What, frighted . . . fire.] Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare Marston, The Insatiate Countesse, A. 2 (Works, ed. Halliwell, III, 132): This false fire has so tooke with him.”
1885 macd
macd
2137 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Is the ‘false fire’ what we now call stage-fire?—‘What! frighted at a mere play?’”
1899 ard1
ard1: OED
2137 false fire] Dowden (ed. 1899): “used of fire-works, blank-discharge of firearms, a fire or night-signal made to deceive an enemy. See A New Eng. Dictionary [OED] under False 14 b, and under Fire 8 a.”
1891 dtn
dtn
2137 Deighton (ed. 1891): “what alarmed by a mean fiction!”
1931 crg1
crg1 ≈ ard1 without attribution minus OED
2137 false fire] Craig (ed. 1931): “fireworks, or a blank discharge.”
1934 rid
rid
2137 Ridley (ed. 1934): “So F (Q1 fires), and a curious omission for the Q2 compositor to make if he had the words in front of him. Nor do I think the remark in itself as simple as, from the general silence, it presumably appears to most commentators. “When it is commented on at all, it is usually in such words as ‘i.e. by a mere play.’ But that is surely the oddest possible comment for Hamlet to make, when the whole design of the play has been to present to the King something so close to the truth that he will give himself away, and to make at a moment when the design has brilliantly succeeded. I suggest rather tentatively that what Hamlet had intended as his climax, the speech of a dozen or sixteen lines, for which critics have so diligently hunted, was to do not with the murder, but with the marriage of Gonzago’s wife (‘you shall see anon how . . .’), and has not yet come: and that Hamlet is exasperated, because the King has gone off at half-cock, and so spoiled his artistic climax.”
1934 cam3
cam3: MHS
2137 What . . .fire] Wilson (ed. 1934): “(F1) Q2 omits. MSH. p. 245. v. G.‘false fire’: fire-works, or blank discharge of fire-arms (N.E.D. [OED] ‘false’ 14b, ‘fire’ 8a).”
1934 cam3 Glossary
cam3: OED
2137 false fire] Wilson (ed. 1934, Glossary): “fire-works, or blank discharge of fire-arms (N.E.D. [OED] ‘false’ 14b, ‘fire’ 8a).”
1939 kit2
kit2: Gosson, Defoe analogues
2137 false fire] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “the harmless discharge of a gun loaded with powder only. Cf. Gosson, Apology for the School of Abuse (ed. Arber, p. 75): ‘When I spare not to greete them with poulder and shot, answeares mee againe with a false fire’; Defoe, Captain Singleton, 1720, p. 149: ‘We saw Lions and Tigers, and Leopards every Night and Morning in Abundance; . . . if they offer’d to come near us, we made false Fire with any Gun that was uncharged, and they would walk off as soon as they saw the Flash.”
1953 Joseph
Joseph
2137 What, . . . fire Joseph (1953, p. 88): “The false fire is a reference . . . to the players whom he has used against his uncle; . . . for the renaissance, players are one kind of hypocrite, showing emotions which they do not feel: so Hamlet has used one kind of hypocrite to unmask the other.” Joseph quotes a sermon preached to James I by Lancelot Andrewes on 6 March 1622 which describes actors as hypocrits.
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ crg1
2137 false fire] Evans (ed. 1974): “i.e. a blank cartridge.”
1980 pen2
pen2 ≈ evns1
2137 false fire] Spencer (ed. 1980): “blank cartridges.”
1982 ard2
ard2 ≈ evns1 + magenta underlined
2137 false fire] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “a blank discharge of weapons, fire without shot. Just so, a play is only make-believe.”
1984 chal
chal
2137 Wilkes (ed. 1984): “F Q omits false fire a) the firing of blanks b) fires lighted to deceive an enemy.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4 ≈ crg1 + magenta underlined
2137 false fire] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “fire-works (feu d’artifice) or discharge of fire-arms loaded with blank cartridges. Dent (F40.I) provides another example of false fire.”
2000 Edelman
Edelman: xref.
2137 false fire Edelman (2000): “A blank charge. Having seen him ‘blench’ [1637] (flinch) at the crucial moment of the ‘Mousetrap,’ Hamlet’s question to Claudius [quotes 2137] likens the Danish King to the raw recruits of Queen Elizabeth’s army, who would regularly flinch, or close their eyes, when firing their calivers. Newly appointed to the Lord Lieutenancy of Northamptonshire in 1586, Sir Christopher Hatton was so disturbed at both the standard of English markmanship and the cost of bullets and gunpowder needed for training that he told muster master, ‘yt is thought convenient that the first training bee made with false fyer,’ saving the expense of shot until the soldiers had learned to keep their eyes open when firing their weapons.”
Transcribed by BWK, who adds: “I don’t understand Ham’s question or statement, however. It is meant to be ironic because the fire is not false but true. But the fact that exposure to false fire could harden a soldier could apply to Claudius as well: he has been hardened and does not again give himself away.”
2137