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.

1857 fieb

fieb

2491 whet . . . blunted] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “To whet, the German wetzen, to sharpen, to edge.—Blunted, i.e. dull on the edge or point, not sharp.”

1877- Tannenbaum

Tannenbaum: MND, Mac. //s; xref.

2491 thy almost blunted purpose] Tannenbaum (n.d., p. 381): “In the mouth of the real Ghost the words ‘thy almost blunted purpose’ would be inappropriate. After all, what was Hamlet’s purpose? Did the Ghost have more knowledge of that than we have? Was it merely to kill the King? or was it to bring him to justice? or to a confession of his crime? or what? The Ghost evidently foresaw that his purpose would require considerable time. Had he not enjoined Hamlet, however he pursued this act, not to taint his mind (i.e., not to lapse into pessimism, not to become a misanthrope <n.> Or does the Ghost mean to warn Hamlet against becoming insane, or against permitting his better and higher intellectual self to be dominated by is lower self? Whichever he means, he implies a considerable lapse of time. </n.>) and not to contrive against his mother aught? All this implied time. The Ghost has no just cause for upbraiding Hamlet with delay, and therefore no cause for appearing on the scene at this time. The spectre which Hamlet saw in his mother’s closet was of his own making.

“That Shakspere was well acquainted with the phenomenon of hallucination is sufficiently attested by the following quotations: ‘Louers and mad men . . . .coole reason euer comprehends’ etc. MND [5.1.4-6 (1796-98)]. ‘Is this a Dagger . . . heat-oppressed Braine?’ Mac. [2.1.33-39 (613-19)]. ‘This bodiless creation ecstacy Is very cunning in.’ Hamlet [3.4.137 (2521)].”

1903 p&c

p&c

2491 almost . . . purpose] Porter & clarke (ed. 1903): “Blunted by the misfortune of killing Polonius instead of the king, which made a sharpening of his aim for the deferred vengeance necessary. The ghost, it may be noticed, refuses to chide Hamlet for the accident, but does imply that he has done justice enough to the part of his mission addressed to his mother; stopping him in over-emphasis of that, most chivalrously, it adjures him not to forget the remaining part.”

1929 trav

trav: contra Stoll

2491 almost blunted] Travers (ed. 1929): “Prof. Stoll has argued that reproaches of this sort (and indeed passages of self-accusal for delay as well), being part of the technique of the Senecan and neo-Senecan tragedy of revenge, are not, even in Shakespeare, really significant of the hero’s psychology. Hamlet, at the beginning of this scene (l. 24-26), had certainly shown sufficient sharpness of purpose; and the fundamental reason for the reappearance of the Ghost now (cp. last note) is pathetic, rather than properly dramatic, effectiveness. Desirable, however, as awareness of the traditions and conventions of a genre undoubtedly is, the risk of its dimming our perception of each individual work is no less evident. Here, for example, was not the audience, in fact, obviously expected to “take the Ghost’s word” for it that his “tardy son” was, to some extent, “laps’d in time and passion?’”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: Son 95, 14

2491 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Perhaps the metaphor of sharpening a blunted sword implies that Hamlet has used his weapon inappropriately (by killing Polonius) and thus jeopardized his mission (see Son 95, 14: ’The hardest knife ill used doth lose his edge’).”