Line 2259 - 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 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2259 Tis now the very witching time of night, | 3.2.388 |
|---|
1752 ANON
anon: Mac. //
2259 Anonymous (1752, p.36-7): <p.36> “
Shakespeare, according to ancient Superstitions, has every where represented Night as unhallowed and prophane: In his
Mac. [2.1.49-56
(629-636)] he has described it with the greatest Horror. ‘Now o’er one half the Globe Nature seems dead, and wicked Dreams abuse The curtain’d Sleep: Now Witchcraft celebrates Pale
Hecate’s Offerings, and wither’d Murther (Alarum’d by his Centinel the Wolf, Whose Howl’s his Watch) with his stealthy Pace, With
Tarquin, ravishing, slides tow’rd his Design, Moves like a Ghost.’ — </p.36><p.37>
“It was Night when Canidia and her infernal Crew performed their diabolical Operations, of which Priapus so grievously complains. Hor. Sat. 8. Book I.”
Transcribed by ECR.
1752 Dodd
Dodd: 2h6 //
2259-67 Tis now . . . . none] Dodd (1752, p. 243): “See 2H6 [4.1.1-11 (2170-80)].”
2259-67 Tis now . . . .
none]
Richardson (1780, pp. 132-3): <p.132> “All the circumstances of the murder are stamped indelibly on the imagination of Hamlet. He, though vehemently incensed, the gentle and affectionate principles of his nature preserve their influence, and to the unhappy Gertrude he will not be inhuman. His character, in this particular, is finely distinguished from the Orestes either of Sophocles or of Euripides. His gentleness is far more natural, and renders him more ami- </p.132><p.133> able and more esteemed*. His violent resentment against his uncle is contrasted, in a very striking manner, with the warnings of his moral faculty, and the tenderness of his affection.” </p.133>
<p.132>
[ *In favour of Orestes, it may, however, be argued, that he was compelled to put Clytemnestra to death by religious motives and the voice of the oracle: Hamlet, on the contrary, was deterred by a familiar authority from conceiving vengeance against the Queen, and was warned by the ghost, ‘Not to contrive against his mother aught [1.5.85-6 (770-1)]. ]
</p.132>
1819 cald1
cald1: MND //
2260 now . . . night] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “‘Now it is the time of night That the graves all gaping wide.’ MND [5.2.379-80 (2162-3)]. Puck.”
1819 mclr
mclr
2259-70 Tis . . . . consent.] Coleridge (ms. notes in Theobald, ed. 1773): “The almost Hamlet arrives to, is a disposition, a mood, to do something. What is still left undecided. While every word, he utters, tends to betray his disquiet.”
Transcribed by BWK.
1854 White
White: contra dyce [see n. 2262-3]
2259-63 Tis . . .
looke on]
White (1854, pp.415-417): <p.415>“ ‘
Ham. ’Tis now the very witching time of night . . . Would quake to look on.’ Mr. Dyce [see n. 2262-3], turning from the original folio to the quartos, advises, that in
Hamlet’s exclamation, as it stands in the original, ‘Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on,’ <p.415></p.416> we should transpose three words and change one letter, to read, ‘And do such business as the
better day,’ &c. He says, that in the reading of the quartos, ‘ And do such business as the
bitter day,’ ‘
bitter’ was misprinted for ‘
better’; and the editor or printer of the folio,‘ not perceiving that it was a misprint, made his
stupid transposition.’ And he quotes, to sustain ‘better day,’ Milton’s, ‘Hail
holy light, offspring of Heaven,’ &c.
“The suggestion is plausible, and the quotation not amiss; but O! Mr. Dyce, if you love us humble lovers of Shakespeare, if you venerate his mighty genius, if you would preserve your well-earned reputation, let not your acuteness and your learning lead you astray; and spare us, spare us that ‘bitter business’ which ‘the day’ – any day, worse or better, lit by the sweet light of heaven — ‘would quake to look on!’ Spare us, good Mr. Dyce! our keen relish of this most Shakesperian morsel, or we shall lose not only that; but some one, sheltering himself under your eminent name, and emulating your ingenuity, will be proposing to read a certain line in
MND, ‘In maiden
fancy, hesitation free’ [2.1.164 (541)]. This undeniably gives a sense, and requires but the transposition of two words and the change of two letters in the original. But still, as there is the best reason – the testimony of the folio— for believing that Shakespeare wrote, <p.416></p.417> ‘In maiden meditation, fancy free.’ and as, from use, we have become somewhat partial to the line in that form, we would not willingly see the ‘ingenious’ alteration made.
“With no other feelings would we all regard the change of Hamlet’s ‘bitter business’ which ‘the day would quake to look on’ into a ‘business’ which ‘the better day would quake to look on.’ Better strike the lines from the soliloquy, than thus emasculate them.” </p.417>
1855 Wade
Wade
2259-63 Tis now . . . looke on] Wade (1855, p. 10): “This thought of churchyards and the place to which they are supposed to lead, puts him, he assures us, into the very mood in which we might expect him to go straight to the performance of his vow. . . . And in this terrible state of mind he neither attempts to ‘drink hot blood’,’ either by mouth or by sword, or to do any ‘bitter business’ calculated to frighten daylight; but—goes, very dutifully, to talk to his mother, who has sent for him!”
1870 Miles
Miles
2259-70 Miles (1870, p. 52): “[Hamlet] has hardly time to hurry [Polonius and R&G] from his presence, before the dark thought underlying all this mirth betrays itself: he is trembling on the verge of matricide.”
1891 dtn
dtn: standard (incl. Mac. //)
2259 the very . . . night,] Deighton (ed. 1891): “the very time of night when witchery abounds, when as Macbeth says [Mac. 2.1.51-2 (631-2)] ‘witchcraft celebrates Pale Hecate’s offerings.’”
1907 Werder
Werder
2259-63 Tis now . . .
looke on]
Werder (1907; rpt. 1977, p. 142): <p.142> “Hamlet, who needs the play for evidence, calls out: ‘Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as the day Would quake to look on.’ Thorough judges of human nature, who have no confidence in Hamlet and do not believe that he will bring anything to a conclusion, forget that he may be able to do more and do better
because he forbears to act. Hamlet is yet man enough and has spirit enough to control himself.” </p.142>
1931 crg1
crg1
2259 witching time] Craig (ed. 1931): “i.e., time when spells are cast.”
1939 kit2
kit2: xrefs.
2259-70 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Hamlet’s imaginative nature pictures him to himself as capable of any atrocity in the way of revenge. We are not, however, to suppose that there was any danger of his killing his mother. Indeed, the Ghost has expressly warned him not to harm her [1.5.85-8 (770-3)]. One purpose of this speech is to enlighten the audience, so that, when Hamlet threatens the Queen in [3.4.18-21 (2397-401)], they may know that he does not mean to do her any harm.”
1947 cln2
cln2
2259-70 Rylands (ed. 1947): “The soliloquy which closes [this scene] reveals that Hamlet is aware of a change in himself. The task laid upon him, the horror of all that he has learned about those about him, his isolation, and his self-distrusts have combined to develop in him (partly in disgust, partly in self-defense, partly to meet the necessities of circumstance) a certain callousness and ruthlessness which he fears. That hardness, already finding expression in the dismissal of Ophelia, comes out in extremest form . . . when he spares Claudius at his prayers lost, killing him so, his enemy should escape the everlasting torments of hell.”
1974 evns1
evns1
2259 witching] Evans (ed. 1974): “i.e. when the powers of evil are at large.”
1982 ard2
ard2: xrefs; 2H6, Oth. //s
2259 ‘Tis now . . . night] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “ln. The absence of the heavy rhetoric of an earlier style does not disguise that we have here, in highly condensed form, the traditional night-piece apt to prelude a deed of blood. For a representative example, see Locrine, v.iv.I ff., with earthquake and ‘hellish night’ presaging ‘bloody massacres’; and in Shakespeare, 2H6 [4.4.1ff. (2533ff.)], where, before the murder of Suffolk, the ‘jades’ of night ‘breathe foul contagious darkness in the air’. Nor should the traditional nature of the selected details obscure their relevance. ‘When churchyards yawn’, Hamlet will be most susceptible to ghostly influences; when ‘hell . . . breathes out Contagion to this world’, the revenge to which he is ‘prompted . . . by heaven and hell’ [2.2.584 (1625)]; cf. [1.5.93 (778)]) shows ‘heaven’ in eclipse. Hell is manifest in evil and destructive passions. The new resolution that comes to Hamlet when the Ghost’s story is confirmed reveals not so much an acceptance of duty as an exultation in hate, vindictiveness, blood lust. In this mood the hero comes closest to the villain he would damn [3.3.88-95 (2363-70)], even resembles the evil figures of other plays: Iago, scheming against Othello, says “Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light’ Oth. [1.3.403-4 (749-50)]. With Hamlet hell’s supremacy is a phase only; but it occupies the centre of the play and may be said to begin when the ‘nephew to the King’ wears the face of Lucianus [3.2.244 (2112)] and to last till he has with rash brutality slain Polonius. See also Intro., p. 156.”
ard2: xref.
2259 witching] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “associated with witch-craft. It may not be irrelevant to recall that the rites of the witches’ sabbath included the drinking of human blood (cf. [3.2.390 (2261)]).”
1984 chal
chal
2259 witching] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “appropriate to witchcraft.”
1986 Tennenhouse
Tennenhouse: Nashe
2259-63 Tis now . . . look on.] Tennenhouse (1986, p. 93, quoted by Griffiths, 2005, p. 123): “This is the language which Nashe (1567-1601) identified a decade earlier as that of the ’English Seneca’ which characterized earlier productions of ’whole Hamlets’. [from his Preface to Menaphon (1589) by Robert Greene (1558-92)] By giving him this familiar stage speech, Shakespeare distinguishes Hamlet’s exercise of authority from the rituals and processionals concluding the chronicle history plays.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4: OED
2259 witching time] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “i.e. time most suitable for the activities of witches. The phrase appears to have originated in this passage (OED witching ppl.a. 2b).”
1993 Lupton & Reinhard
Lupton & Reinhard
2259 Lupton & Reinhard (1993, p. 99): “A similar foreignness [see n. 51, above] infects such moments as Hamlet’s speech, [quotes 3.2.388 (2259)].”
2001 ShSt
Paster
2259-2263 Paster (2001, p. 48-49): <48>
“These same correspondences inform the scene’s rhetorical and emotional climax when Hamlet, picking up the demonic accents and mood of the murderous Lucianus, melodramatically proclaims his own state of mind: </48> <49>. Midnight as represented here is both frightening to the imagination and physically unhealthy, with churchyards yawning up not only ghostly visitors to trouble the conscience but also noxious exhalations to trouble the porous flesh of the humoral body. But even more important for the psychological and physiological correspondences I have been tracing is the literalizing trope of Hamlet’s bloodthirstiness. I read this declaration as the physiological expression of a new mood and interest, a change in materialized consciousness brought about by the provocative images of the play, Claudius’s reaction to it, the sharp exchange with Guildenstern, and Gertrude’s invitation to her closet
.” </49>
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: ≈ chal; Mac //
2259 witching time] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “hour appropriate for witchcraft (see Mac 2.1.49-52); another opportunity for a bell to chime or a clock to strike.”
2259