Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2404 Ham. How now, a Rat, dead for a Duckat, dead. | 3.4.24 |
|---|
1736 Stubbs
Stubbs
2404 How now . . . dead] Stubbs (1736, p. 35): “Hamlet’s killing Polonius was in Conformity to the Plan Shakespeare built his Play upon; and the Prince behaves himself on that Occasion, as one who seems to have his Thoughts bent on Things of more Importance. I wise the Poet had omitted Hamlet’s last Reflection on the Occasion, viz. This Counsellor, &c. It has too much Levity in it; and his tugging him away into another Room , is unbecoming the Gravity of the rest of the Scene, and is a Circumstance too much calculated to raise a Laugh, which it always does. We must observe, that Polonius is far from a good Character, and that his Death is absolutely necessary towards the Denouement of the whole Piece. And our Hero had not put him to Death, had not he thought it to have been the Usurper, hid behind the Arras; so that upon the Whole, this is no Blemish to his Character.”
1773 v1773
v1773: Farmer
2404 How . . . rat] Steevens (ed. 1773): “This (as Mr. Farmer has observed) is an expression borrowed from The Historye of Hamblet, a translation from the French of Belleforest. Steevens.”
See also 2410 and 2411 for other source-related notes on this killing.
1774 capn
capn
2404 Duckat] Capell (1774, 1:1: glossary, ducat): “a foreign Coin, about the Value of our Crown.”
1784 Davies
Davies: contra Voltaire
2404 How . . .
rat]
Davies (1784, pp. 101-102): <p.101> “This line has given occasion to an absurd charge of Voltaire against this tragedy.—‘Hamlet,’ says this writer, ‘kills the father of his mistress, on supposition that it was a
rat which he destroyed.’ Had he read the play, or understood the text if he had read </p.101><p.102> it, he would have known, that Hamlet imagined the person he had killed was the King himself. But this is not the only error into which this great man has fallen respecting this play. The assumed madness of Hamlet he calls real:
Hamlet y devient sou dans la seconde acte. The King, Queen, and Hamlet, drink together on the stage. The actors sing together, quarrel, and fight. It is somewhat surprising, that a man, who had been several years in England, and had written letters in our language, could be so grossly mistaken. To suppose him the inventor of these false criminations would be to degrade genius too much. Mrs. Montague has, by an incomparable defence of our author, defeated the weak attempts, of this envious but brilliant Frenchman, to blast the laurels of our great poet.” </p.102>
2404 How now . . .
dead]
Richardson (1808,
Additional Observations, p. 57): “In that particular mood, when he sees his own wrongs and the guilt of Claudius in a striking light, his resentment is inflamed, his evidence seems convincing; and he acts with a violence and precipitation very dissimilar to, though not inconsistent with, his native temper. In these circumstances, or at a time when he tells us he ‘—Could drink hot blood . . . Would quake to look on’ [3.2.390-2 (2261-3)]. In such a situation and state of mind, he slew Polonius: he mistook him for the king; and so acted with a violence and precipitation of which he afterwards expresses his repentance.”
1843 COL1
col1: Shirley analogue
2404 a rat] Collier (ed. 1843): “In Shirley’s ‘Traitor,’ 1635, Depazzi says of a secreted listener, ‘Sirrah, sirrah! I smell a rat behind the hangings.’”
1854 del2
del2
2404 for a Duckat] Delius (ed. 1854): “Hamlet will “um einen Dukaten” wetten, dass er die Ratte, die er hinter der Tapete zu vermuthen vorgiebt, während er in der That den König vermuthet, todtmachen wird. Die Bühnenweisung, dass er hier durch die Tapete sticht, sowie die, dass er sie nachher aufhebt und den Leichnam des Polonius hervorzieht, ist modern, stimmt aber überein mit dem späteren Bericht der Königin von dem Hergange der That.” [Hamlet is ready to wager a ducat that he can kill the rat that he pretends to suspect behind the curtain, although he really suspects it is the king. The stage direction that he here stabs through the curtain, as well as the one that he afterward lifts the curtain and draws forth the body of Polonius, is a modern addition but agrees with the queen’s later report of what happened. ]
1857 fieb
fieb
2404 for a Duckat] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “For a ducat; he offers to bet a ducat that he killed the pretended rat which he supposed to be the king.—The following two stage-directions concerning Hamlet, making a pass, and lifting up the arras, are most conveniently added by the editors.”
1858 col3
col3 = col1 + magenta underlined
2404 a rat] Collier (ed. 1858): “In Shirley’s ‘Traitor,’ 1635, (3.1 Gifford’s edition, Vol. ii. p. 129) Depazzi says of a secreted listener, ‘Sirrah, sirrah! I smell a rat behind the hangings.’”
1863 Hackett
Hackett ≈ fieb minus ref. to SD + magenta underlined
2404-5 How . . . slaine] Hackett (1863, p. 196): “[Hamlet] Kills Polonius most rashly, pretending to kill a rat, and intending to kill the king, whom he supposes to be the person behind the arras, and to have been there listening and overhearing his terrible expostulations with his mother.”
1865 hal
hal: Harrington analogue
2404 Halliwell (ed. 1865): “Sir John Harington, in a letter dated in October, 1601, gives the following singular and interesting account of the demeanor of Queen Elizabeth at that period,—’I humblie thank you for that venison I did not eat, but my wife did it much commendation. For six weeks I left my oxen and sheep, and venturd to Court, where I find many lean kinded beastes and some not unhorned. Much was my comfort in being well received, notwithstanding it is an ill hour for seeing the Queen. The madcaps are all in riot, and much evil threatened. In good soothe I feard her Majestie more than the rebel Tyrone, and wishd I had never received my Lord of Essex’s honour of knighthood. She is quite disfavourd, and unatird, and these troubles waste her muche. She disregardeth every costlie cover that comethe to her table, and taketh little but manchet and succory potage. Every new message from the city doth disturb her; and she frowns on all the Ladies. I had a sharp message from her brought by my Lord Buchurst, namely thus, ‘Go tell that witty fellow, my godson, to get home; it is no season now to foole it here.’ I liked this as little as she dothe my knighthood, so took to my bootes and returnd to the plow in bad weather. I must not say much even by this trustie and sure messenger, but the many evil plots and designs hath overcome all her Highness sweet temper. She walks much in her privy chamber, and stamps with her feet at ill news, and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage. My Lord Buchurst is much with her, and few else since the city business; but the dangers are over, and yet she always keeps a sword by her table.”
1869 tsch
tsch
2404 dead for a Duckat] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “dead for a ducat liesse sich übersetzen: Todt! was gewettet? ein Dukaten! todt!.” [dead for a ducat may be translated into German: Todt! was gewettet? ein Dukaten! todt! (Dead! what is bet? a ducat! dead!).]
1872 del4
del4 = del2 + magenta underlined
2404 Duckat] Delius (ed. 1872): “Hamlet will um einen Ducaten wetten, dass er die Ratte, die er hinter der Tapete zu vermuthen vorgiebt, während er in der That den König vermuthet, todtmachen wird. Die Bühnenweisung, dass er hier durch die Tapete sticht, sowie die, dass er sie nachhar aufhebt und den Leichnam des Polonius hervorzieht, ist modern, stimmt aber überein mit dem spätern Bericht der Königin von dem Hergange der That, sowie mit der Novelle, der Sh. Hier genauer als in andern Theilen seines Dramas folgt. (Vgl. Einleitung page 360.).” [Hamlet will wager a ducat that he will kill the rat that he claims to think is behind the curtain, while he really thinks it is the king. The stage direction that he here stabs through the curtain, as well as the one that he afterwards lifts it and pulls out the corpse of Polonius, is modern but agrees with the later report the queen makes of the deed, as well as with the novella that Shakespeare follows here more closely that in other parts of his drama. {See Introduction, page 360.}]
1877- Fleay
Fleay
2404 Fleay (n.d., p. 94): “When he does find a spy lurks behind the arras he thinks [his mother] can not have exposed him and herself to any but her husband: consequently his revenge is now sure. He will kill him in his dishonorable act and secure his perdition, He hurries to his revenge and delays it by bringing the blood of another’s father on his own head and so secures the accomplishment of the fatal purpose of an ironical destiny: he, as well as his guilty uncle, his half guilty mother, and the innocent Ophelia, are now alike involved in undistinguished ruin.”
1877 v1877
v1877 ≈ col3, Elze (apud Grimm) + magenta underlined
2404 Rat]
Furness (ed. 1877): “
Collier: In Shirley’s
Traitor,
1635, Depazzi says of a secreted listener, ‘I smell a rat behind the hangings.’—
Works, vol. ii, p.
129, ed. Dyce. [
Gifford asks, in a footnote: ‘But how did this sneer at Sh. escape the wrath of Messrs Steevens and Malone?’ Ed.]
Elze: According to Grimm,
Correspondance Littéraire Secrète, Jan.
11,
1776, ‘Chevalier Rutlige’ defends this exclamation from Voltaire’s sneer on the ground that ‘a rat’ was not only symbolic, but also that it often meant a spy. Compare the phrase, ‘smell a rat.’”
1882 elze2
elze2:
LLL //; Dekker analogue;
Schmidt
2404 dead for a Duckat]
Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare
LLL [5.2.718 (2677)]
: Dead for my life. Dekker’s Honest Whore, Part I, 1.1 (Middleton, ed. Dyce, III, 8):
Wrestle not with me; the great fellow gives the fall, for a ducat. The meaning is: I lay my life (a ducat), that he is dead (that the great fellow gives the fall).
Schmidt, Shakespeare-Lexicon, s.
For, 2, seems to understand the present passage in a different sense.”
1885 macd
macd: xref.
2404 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “There is no precipitancy here—only instant resolve and execution. It is another outcome and embodiment of Hamlet’s rare faculty for action, showing his delay the more admirable. There is here neither time nor call for delay. Whoever the man behind the arras might be, he had, by spying upon him in the privacy of his mother’s room, forfeited to Hamlet his right to live; he had heard what he had said to his mother, and his death was necessary; for, if he left the room, Hamlet’s last chance of fulfilling his vow to the Ghost was gone: if the play had not sealed, what he had now spoken must seal his doom. But the decree had in fact already gone forth against his life.” See [3.3.3 (2274)].
1890 irv2
irv2: elze (Dekker analogue)
2404 for a Duckat] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “Elze compares Dekker’s Honest Whore, part I. i. 1 (Works, vol. ii. p. 5): ‘Wrestle not with me; the great fellow gives the fall, for a ducat.’”
1891 dtn
dtn: col (Shirley analogue)
2404 Rat] Deighton (ed. 1891): “Collier points out that in Shirley’s Traitor, 1635, Depazzi says of a secreted listener, ‘I smell a rat behind the hangings.’”
dtn
2404 dead . . . Duckat] Deighton (ed. 1891): “I’ll wager a ducat I have killed him.”
1903 p&c
p&c: xrefs.
2404 a Rat] Porter & clarke (ed. 1903): “This and Behinde the Arras [3.3.28 (2303) and 4.1.9 (2595)] are the same in all texts, including 1Q. They do not appear in the French original in the first edition of Belleforest (see Sources, p. 153), nor in the edition of 1582, which appears to have been the version used for the translation of 1608, in which these words are given. An occurrence related by Sir John Harrington, in a letter dated October, 1601, may have suggested them. Such a thing is not unlikely to have been whispered all over London: ‘For six weeks I left my oxen and sheep and ventured to Court . . . notwithstanding it is an ill hour for seeing the Queen . . . In good sooth I feared her Majestie more than the rebel Tyrone, and wished I had never received my Lord of Essex’s honour of knighthood. She is quite disfavourd and unattird and these troubles waste her muche. She regardeth everie costlie cover that cometh to her table and taketh little but manchet and succory potage . . . The many evil plots and designes hath overcome all her Highness sweet temper. She walkes much in her privy chamber and stamps with her foot at ill newes and thrusts her rusty sword at times into the arras in great rage .. The dangers are over yet she always keeps a sword by her table.’ ‘I smell a rat behind the hangings’ (Shirley’s ‘Traitor,’ 1635) may indicate the common name for a spy, or may be borrowed from Shakespeare.”
1905 rltr
rltr
2404 Duckat] Chambers (ed. 1905): “an Italian gold coin.”
1907 Werder
Werder
2404 Werder (1907; rpt. 1977, pp.148-149>): <p.148> “Furious and frantic he rushes in wildly to his mother. He hears the cry behind the tapestry, he allows himself to be carried away by his hot impulsive rage, here in this place and in this still hour, close by the bed where he himself was begotten, where the worst personal dishonour has been inflicted upon him, here where the whole air is full of it—here the voice of the wretch (he is thinking only of the King and therefore believes that it is the Kind whom he has heard) calls up all his shame, and, forgetting the strict obligation of his task, he gives full course to his thirst for vengeance—for after the proof by means of the play, he is, of course,
morally free to kill the King,—he is carried away into the grave error of plunging his sword through the tapestry. A grave error indeed! For there is no question here of his
moral right and power. This is the turning-point of the play which includes in itself the second cardinal moment for the understand- </p.148> <p.149> ing of the whole.
“That Hamlet stabs at the tapestry is no proof forsooth that he was a coward and would not have risked the act faced with the enemy; it is wholly the expression and act of his blind passion.
“Without stopping to consider whether he hit or miss, he stabs like lightning blindly into the dark; he looks neither to the right nor left; he listens only to his own thirst for vengeance and is deaf to his duty.” </p.149>
Werder
2404-8 Werder (1907; rpt. 1977, pp. 171-2): <p.171> “When, however, he made the thrust through the tapestry, Hamlet committed a grave error, causing the death of Polonius. The destruction of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was also the disastrous consequence of the same error.
Therefore, on account of that error into which he allowed himself to fall, the original plot of the King’s is changed;
therefore, instead of the commission to demand the arrears of tribute, the sentence of Hamlet’s death is sent to Eng- </p.171> <p.172> land;
therefore, Hamlet has to work against it;
therefore, after an accident has rendered his counter-plotting useless and made it impossible for him to nullify it, these two fall;
therefore, he himself also falls. For that one error, which had also for its consequence the madness of Ophelia, the poet lets his hero atone
with his own life.” </p.172>
1939 kit2
kit2: The Hystorie, Hystoire
2404 a Rat] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Cf. The Hystorie of Hamblet, 1608, Chap. iii: ‘He cried, A rat, a rat! and presently drawing his sworde thrust it into the hangings.’ The exclamation is not found in Belleforest’s Histoire, of which The Hystorie is a translation.”
1947 cln2
cln2 ≈ dtn
2404 for a Duckat ] Rylands (ed. 1947): “I would stake a ducat on it.”
1947 yal2
yal2
2404 for] Cross & Brooke (ed. 1947): “i.e., I wager.”
1953 Joseph
Joseph
2404 a Rat . . . dead] Joseph (1953, p. 119): This act shows “the strength of his . . . will to revenge.” It’s a mistake that puts Hamlet at a disadvantage for “he has little chance of catching his uncle unawares a second time, and can hardly refuse the mission to England.”
1958 fol1
fol1 ≈ dtn + magenta udnerlined
2404 for a Duckat] Wright & LaMar (ed. 1958): “I’ll wager a ducat (a gold coin, worth several dollars).”
1974 ShQ
2404 Barry (1974, p. 124): “The sword thrust on this resounding line [3.4.23] (drumming the repeated t, d, and at sounds) discharges the energy like a lightening flash. The thunder rumbles briefly as the true nature of the deed is discovered, and the terrified Gertrude is stunned to silence. All is accomplished in only thirty-three lines, and the scene, with almost two hundred more lines to run, is prepared now for an impassioned but no longer hysterical confrontation between mother and son, both of whom, at this point, have a serious stain of guilt.”
1974 evns1
evns1 = fol1 minus estimate of worth in American currency
2404 for a Duckat] Evans (ed. 1974): “I’ll wager a ducat.”
1980 pen2
pen2 ≈ dtn
2404 dead . . . Duckat] Spencer (ed. 1980): “I would wager a ducat that I have killed it.”
1982 ard2
ard2: Belleforest, Taverner analogues; xref.
2404 a rat] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Not in Belleforest, yet found in the 1608 translation, where ‘he cried, A rat, a rat’ is apparently a recollection of the play. Cf. [4.1.10 (2596)]. See Intro., pp 89-90. Rats proverbially cause their own deaths by drawing attention to themselves. Cf. Taverner Proverbs (1552, fol. 54), ‘Rats be wont to make . . . a noisome crying . . . to which noise many men hearkening forthwith though it be in the dark night throw at them and so kill them’.”
ard2: contra cln2
2404 for a Duckat] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Not a bet that he is dead but the price for making him dead. Cf. for two pins.”
1984 chal
chal
2404 Rat] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “rat cf. the proverb ‘to smell a rat’.”
chal: xref.
2404 Duckat] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “ducat the value Hamlet fixes on the life he has taken [2.2.366 (1412)].”
1984 klein
klein: contra parc; Falk, Gollancz, Tilley
2404 Klein (ed. 1984): “As usual, the Q2 punctuation is very light; according to Parrott/Craig the question mark was replaced by an exclamation mark in F1; yet this is not really a question. Proverbially rats betrayed themselves (see D.V. Falk in the Shakespeare Quarterly 18 [1976], p.30). Here the anonymous translation of Belleforest, The Hystorie of Hamblet (1608), Ch. 3 is interesting to compare. The French text simply says: "... ou sentant qu’il y avoit dessous quelque cas caché, ne faillit aussi tost d’y donner dedans à tout son glaive". Under the influence of performances of Ham. the translation renders this as: "whereby, feeling something stirring under them, he cried, A rat, a rat! and presently drawing his sworde thrust it into the hangings" (p.206f. in I. Gollancz, ed. The Sources of ’Hamlet’ [Oxford, 1926]). Hamlet’s exclamation alludes to the phrase sb. (2a) ’to smell a rat’ = ’to suspect something’, cf. Tilley R31.”
1985 Ferguson
Ferguson
2404 A rat. . . patches:] ferguson (1985, pp. 295): “Hamlet’s act of stabbing Polonius through the curtain, . . . seems only to increase his passionate desire to make her see her error in preferring Claudius to her first husband. . . ; [but] immediately before Hamlet refers to Claudius as a ’king of shreds and patches,’ the Ghost appears, or rather reappears, with a dramatic entrance that allows the phrase ’king of shred and patches’ to refer to the Ghost as well as to Claudius.”
Ferguson
2404 a rat] Ferguson (1985, pp. 298): “Polonius. . . is the ’rat’ Hamlet mistakenly takes for the king he had already symbolically caught in the Mousetrap play.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4: Dent, Tilley
2404 a Rat] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “’The rat betrayed herself with her own noise’ (Dent R30.1) and ‘I smell a rat’ (Tilley R31) are both relevant here.”
oxf4 ≈ cln2 but attribution to OED
2404 for a Duckat] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “i.e. I would stake a ducat on it (OED for A9b).”
1988 bev2
bev2
2404 dead for a Duckat] Bevington (ed. 1988): “i.e., I bet a ducat he’s dead, whoever I killed; or, a ducat is his life’s fee.”
1993 dent
dent: xrefs.
2404 Andrews (ed. 1993): “The word [How] means ’ho’ the first two times it is used in this line. Compare [4.3.15 (2680)].
“Hamlet alludes not only to the loathesomeness and sneakiness of this creature [Rat], but also to its tendency to make sounds that eventually attract attention and thereby get it killed. Having laid a ‘Mousetrap’, the Prince is elated at the discovery that he has caught an even larger rodent than he’d expected.
“Probably either (a) I’ll wager a ducat (a gold coin), or (b) for the price of a ducat. Hamlet’s image echoes the monetary metaphors of the previous scene (see the notes to [3.3.57, 58, 61, 61-62, 78, 82 (2333, 2334, 2367, 2337-8, 2355, 2358)]; he believes he has caught Claudius ‘At Game’ [3.3.91 (2366)] and plunged him ‘into more Choler’ [3.2.306 (2177)], the raging fires of Hell.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: Cor //; Hibbard, Dent, Tilley
2404 rat] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hibbard cites two relevant proverbs: ’The rat betrayed herself with her own noise’ (Dent, R30.1) and ’I smell a rat’ (Tilley, R31). ’Rat’ could also be used as an insult, cf. Coriolanus’ contemptuous ’Rome and her rats are at the point of battle’ (Cor 1.1.161). It must literally have been the case that rats hid behind curtains and in the spaces between walls in Elizabethan houses.”
ard3q2: Jenkins
2404 Dead for a ducat] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “’I’ll bet a ducat that he is (or will be) dead.’ Jenkins, however, says ’Not a bet that he is dead but the price for making him dead. Cf. for two pins’ (Ard).”
2404
