Line 2153 - 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
| 2153 For thou doost know oh Damon deere | 3.2.281 |
|---|
1773 v1773
v1773: Edwards analogue
2153 Damon] Steevens (ed. 1773): “Hamlet calls Horatio by this name, in allusion to the friendship between Damon and Pythias. A play on this subject was written by Rich. Edwards, and published in 1582. STEEVENS.”
1784 ays1
ays1=v1773 minus “A play . . . 1582.”
1790 mal
mal = v1785 +
2153 Damon] Malone (ed. 1790): “The friendship of Damon and Pythias is also enlarged upon in a book that was probably very popular in Shakspeare’s youth, Sir Thomas Elliot’s Governour, 1553. MALONE.”
1791- rann
rann ≈v1773 minus Edwards, without attribution
2153 Damon] Rann (ed. 1791-): “Horatio is so called in allusion to the friendship of Damon and Pythias.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813 +
2153 Damon] Malone (apud Boswell, ed. 1821): “It is proverbially used in Tamburlaine, Part I.: ‘—Full true thou speak’st, Whom I may term a Damon for thy love!’ MALONE.”
1843 col1
col1: contra v1773
2153 Damon] Collier (ed. 1843): “Probably a quotation from some ballad or play on the story of Damon and Pythias. Richard Edwards was the author of such a drama, first printed in 1571, (not in 1582, as Steevens tells us, when, in fact, the second impression came out) and included in Dodsley’s Old Plays, Vol. i. p. 180, last edit.”
1857 dyce1
dyce1
2153-6 For thou . . . paiock] Dyce (ed. 1857): “These four lines (excepting the word ‘pajock’) would seem to be a quotation.”
1866a dyce2
dyce2 ≈ dyce1
2153-6 For thou . . . paiock] Dyce (ed. 1866): “Another quotation, surely; the word ‘pajock,’ of course, excepted.”
1872 hud2
hud2: ≈ v1773 minus Edwards analogue + magenta underlined
2153-4 Damon deere . . . Ioue himselfe] Hudson (ed. 1881): “The meaning is, that Denmark was robbed of a king who had the majesty of Jove.—Hamlet calls Horatio Damon, in allusion to the famous friendship of Damon and Pythias.”
1875 Marshall
Marshall
2153-6 For . . . paiock] Marshall (1875, p. 157n): “Mr. Irving speaks only the lines beginning ‘For thou dost know, O dear,’ &c., giving a new force to the word ‘pajock’ or ‘peacock,’ which Hamlet substituted for the manifest rhyme ‘ass’ by looking at the fan of peacock’s feathers which he had borrowed from Ophelia, and held in his hand during the representation of the play, as if that had suggested to him the substitution.”
1877 neil
neil ≈ v1773 + magenta underlined
2153 Damon deere] Neil (ed. 1877): “The allusion to the oft-celebrated friendship of Damon and Pythias, which had been celebrated in Tow Lamentable Songes, printed 1565, and in A Boke entituled the Tragical Comedye of Damonde and Pithyas, 1566, by Richard Edwardes, author of the song When griping grief, etc., quoted in Romeo and Juliet, IV, v.”
1877 col4
col4 = col3 minus “Richard Edwards . . . last edit.”
1885 macd
macd
2153-6 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “The lines are properly measured in Q2.”
1888 Morgan
Morgan: Davis
2153-6 Morgan (1888, pp. 101-2): <p.101> “Shall not this pensive, this calm and self-repressing Hamlet at least allow himself a burst of exultation at the complete success of his long-maturing schemes? That he does not declaim in rotund periods, that he does not call on the avenging gods, is purely characteristic of the balanced and self-correcting brain. . . . </p.101><p.102> [Hamlet] recites in a popular vein a verse, wanting the final rhyme, which Horatio suggests could have been completed in perfect appropriateness to the occasion: ‘For thou . . . a very—”Claudius!”’1 only for ‘Claudius’ Hamlet says ‘pajock’ (that is, ‘peacock,’ or anything that is mere pretense and show without substance). The playfulness of two friends unbending may hardly pass as madness with minds not maddish themselves.”
<p.102><n.> “1This reading is suggested to me by Mr. Davis, and seems to me far more likely than the usual run of conjectural emendation. Horatio says to Hamlet, ‘You might have rhymed.’ And ‘Claudius’ is certainly as good a rhyme to ‘dismantled was,’ as Hamlet’s earlier ‘It came to pass As most like it was,’ or his later: ‘For if the king like not the comedy, Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.’ Besides the text shows that a ‘Claudius’ is exactly what Hamlet is telling Horatio, that ‘dismantled Denmark’ now possesses in the place of ‘Jove himself.’” </n.></p.102>
1891 dtn
dtn: standard
2153 Damon deere] Deighton (ed. 1891): “my dearest friend; an allusion to the friendship of Damon and Pythias, which was proverbial for its sincerity, the former having offered to suffer death in place of the latter.”
1904 ver
ver: xref.
2153-6 Verity (ed. 1904): “The stanza seems to me too applicable to the political circumstances to be a quotation. Here, as again [3.4.56 (2440)], the elder Hamlet is to his son like ‘Jove himself.’ ”
1929 trav
trav
2153 Damon]
Travers (ed. 1929): “and Pythias, disciples of Pythagoras (at the time when Dionysius the Elder tyrannized over Syracuse), were, like Orestes and Pylades, among the celebrated pairs of friends in Ancient Greece. Damon (whose name almost calls for the alliterative epithet) pledged his life for Pythias. Their story (which a master of the Children of the Chapel, Edwards, had made the subject of the tragi-comedy as early as 1566) had, quite lately (1600), been put on the stage again by a very active minor playwright, Chettle (cp. p. 22 n. 10).”
1931 crg1
crg1: standard
2153-6 For . . . very] Craig (ed. 1931): “probably from an old ballad having to do with Damon and Pythias.”
1934 cam3
cam3
2153-6 For thou . . . paiock] Wilson (ed. 1934): “Prob. another stanza from the ballad quoted above, which should end, of course, with the word ‘ass.’”
1980 pen2
pen2
2153 Damon] Spencer (ed. 1980): “Perhaps Hamlet is thinking of Horatio and himself as like Damon and Pythias, the legendary friends.”
1982 ard2
ard2 ≈ ver + magenta underlined
2153-6 For . . . paiock] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “ ‘The stanza seems . . . too applicable to the circumstances to be a quotation’ (Verity). Cf. [3.2.271-2 (2143-4)] above and, mutatis mutandis, the Pyrrhus speech of [2.2.450ff. (1492ff.)] is compatible with Hamlet’s having made this up.”
ard2
2153 Damon] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “A traditional shepherd name from pastoral poetry, appropriately addressed to one who has the ancient virtues of the golden age before the realm was ‘dismantled.’”
1984 chal
chal
2153 Damon] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “typical name for a lover in pastoral poetry (which celebrated the golden age ruled by Jove).”
1993 dent
dent ≈ chal; xref.
2153 Damon] Andrews (ed. 1993): “A poetic sheperd’s name here chosen, perhaps, to recall an era before the fall of the ’Realm’. Dear plays on deer, [3.2.271-2 (2143-4)].”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: 2143-6 xref
2153-4 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “As with the stanza at 263-6 [2143-6], no source has been identified.”
ard3q2: ≈ hud2; Edwards analogue
2153 Damon] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hamlet apparently addresses Horatio as Damon in an allusion to the story of the ideal friendship between Damon and Pythias (Richard Edwards’s play, Damon and Pithias, was acted in 1564 and printed in 1571.).”
2153