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.

1768 cap

cap

2248 camel] Capell (ed. 1768): “weazel]] “v. Note.”

1773 gent1

gent1

2247-56 Do you . . . by and by] Gentleman (ed. 1773): “Polonius is here played off, in a pleasant characteristic manner.”

1774 gent2

gent2=gent1

1777 anon

anon

2247-56 Do you see . . . by and by] Anonymous (St. James’s Chronicle, Dec. 31, 1776-Jan. 2, 1777: 4): “The Character of Polonius, ever since we have known the Stage, has been totally misunderstood and misrepresented. No Man of Sense, we apprehend, could authoritatively consider his Behaviour and Advice to Laertes, his Conversation with Ophelia, and even with Hamlet, and suppose him to be such a foolish Buffoon as he is now represented by Mr. Baddeley and Mr. Quick, and as he has ever been represented since we remember the Theatro. Shakespeare seems to have intended the Character of Polonius for that of a Courtier in the Time of Hamlet; he therefore appears wise, knowing, and cunning, respected by the Court for his abilities, and reverenced by his Children, but hated by Hamlet, though the father of his Mistress, because he had probably connived at the Murther of the late King, and was employed to sift his Purposes and Designs. Hamlet therefore treats him with Contempt, as a servile Courtier, not as a Man wanting Understanding. When he therefore makes him say and unsay, see a Camel, &c. he means to expose his Servility; and Polonius carries the mean Complaisance of a Courtier to Excess, out of Regard to Hamlet’s supposed Madness . . . . . We with some sensible Friend of the Managers of both Houses, would set before them the Character of Polonius as Shakespeare intended it, and prevail on them to revive it.”

1774 capn

capn

2248 camel] Capell (1774,1:1:138): weazel] “If ‘camel’ be put into this line and the line after it instead of ‘weazel,’ and ‘weazel’ into each of the lines after them instead of ‘camel,’ the reader will have those four lines exactly as all ancient copies have given them; and that in every material respect, excepting—that, for ‘back’d,’ l. 24, the second quarto has ‘black,’ out of which has been coin’d by the moderns a strange reading that can not be assented to: The present correction of the passage in question, stands recommended (among other circumstances) by the gradation observ’d in it; from small to bigger, and then a bigger than that, which all meet with assent.”

1780 Richardson

Richardson

2247-52 Do you see . . . . like a Whale] Richardson (1780, p. 132): “Hamlet, fretted and exasperated with a treatment ill suited to his sentiments and understanding, receives [Polonius] with contempt; he endeavours to impose on him the belief of his madness, but can hardly bridle his indignation. [cites passage]”

1853 Rawlinson

Rawlinson

2247-52 Rawlinson (1853, p. 337): <p. 337>“Hamlet points to a changing Cumulous cloud when he says to Polonius [quotes]. </p. 337>

1882 elze

elze: Mayhew

2247-8 in shape of Camel] Elze (ed. 1882): “Mr. A.L. Mayhew, in Notes and Queries, Mar. 27, 1880, p. 251, quotes the following from La Curne de Sainte Palaye, Dictionnaire Historique de l’Ancien Langage Français s.v. Chameau: Chameau -- Nuage épais. C’est en ce sens qu’on emploie ce mot dans le langage champenois, pour signifier une nuée très épaisse, qui fond tout-à-coup sur une grande étendue de pays. On l’appele balin aux environs de Cosne. According to the Glossaire du centre de la France par le Comte Jaubert (Paris, 1855) I, 117 ballin rather means nuage léger.”

1934 cam3

cam3: xref.

2247 yonder clowd] Wilson (ed. 1934): “Ham. speaks in the royal palace, but also in the unlocalised Eliz. theatre open to the sky; thus he can point upwards to a cloud or to this ‘brave o’erhanging firmament’ [2.2.301 (1347)], and the audience is conscious of no incongruity.”

1939 kit2

kit2: Ant.//

2247-53 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Polonius is merely humouring the supposed madman. There is nothing absurd in his conduct. As to the shifting shapes of clouds cf. Ant. [4.14.2-11 (2826-37)]: ‘Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish; A vapour sometime like a bear or lion, tower’d citadel, a pendent rock, A forked mountain, or blue promontory With trees upon’t that nod unto the world And mock our eyes with air. Thou has seen these signs; That which is now a horse, even with a thought The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct As water is in water.’”

1980 pen2

pen2

2247 yonder clowd] Spencer (ed. 1980): “In an Elizabethan theatre open to the sky, Hamlet’s pointing to a cloud would not seem incongruous.”

1982 ard2

ard2: R.B. Bennett; contra kit; 2 SQ essays, 1 MLR essay;. xrefs.

2247 clowd] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “LN. This episode of the cloud comes as a little demonstration. Polonius, humoring the madman, would seem to know his stops; but it is Hamlet who calls the tune, and it is only when Polonius has piped to it that he consents to answer him (Cf. R. B. Bennett, ‘The Dramatic Function of Hamlet’s Cloud’, Archiv, CCXV, 89-92.) With the apparent change of location one could compare [2.2.206 (1244-5)] (LN). But of course the cloud may be as imaginary as the shapes Polonius is persuaded to see in it. It would be hard to agree with Kittredge that there is ‘nothing absurd’ here about Polonius, who finds a cloud to have a back like a weasel’s when he has just said it is ‘like a camel’. The ease with which, like Osric later [5.2.94-9 (3599-3604)], he is got to assent to contradictory propositions is perhaps point enough. Yet with the fishmonger and Jephthah in mind (see [2.2.189 (1227)] and LN, [2.2.403-4 (1451-2)] and n.) and Ophelia’s flowers to come ([4.5.175-86 (2927-37)] and LN), it is difficult to deny the possibility of some further significance attaching to the creatures mentioned. In the cryptic ‘method’ of his ‘madness’ the man who has warned Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he knows a hawk from a handsaw ([2.2.379 (1426)] and LN) would be capable of warning Polonius that a camel accustomed to bearing burdens may change into a weasel out for blood (cf. [3.2.390 (2261)]) or into a whale which destroys those who take it to be harmless (like the sailors who in legend mistake a whale for an island and when it submerges perish). There have been some attempts to find more esoteric meanings; but quite apart from a lack of convincing evidence for these or their intelligibility to an Elizabethan audience, there seems little point or plausibility in supposing the three animals all to represent lust or to represent in turn one who undertakes more than he can accomplish, who is unable to keep secrets, and who drags to destruction those who put trust in him (SQ, V, 2111-13; X, 446-7). Such explanations seek to draw analogies between the various animals and Polonius; but the ‘mystery’ is not in him but in Hamlet, who has warned us to beware of over-interpretation [1.2.126 (309)].

“The textual evidence suggests that in Q3 ‘black like a weasel’ was an error for Q2 backt which subsequently led to the substitution by actors and editors of ouzel (+blackbird) for weasel (see MLR, XXXIV, 68-70) rather than (as there suggested) that weasel (We(a)zell) in the substantive texts was a mistake for an original woosel(l). The emphasis moreover is on shape not colour.”

1985 cam4

cam4: Booth

2247 see yonder clowd] Edwards (ed. 1985): “Such is the freedom of the Elizabethan stage! This scene is supposed to be taking place indoors at night. Booth used to make Polonius look out of a window.”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2

2247-52 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Since this scene is supposedly set indoors at night, it is generally played as if Hamlet is pretending to see clouds and Polonius is humouring what he assumes to be madness. It would have made different and better sense in the open-air Globe (where indeed, in 2000, spectators looked up at the sky as Hamlet gestured). It would be possible in a modern theatre to have the actors approach (or pretend to approach) a window.”