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.

1736 Stubbs

Stubbs

2514 Nothing . . . see] Stubbs (1736, p. 34): “The Ghost’s not being seen by the Queen, was very proper for we could hardly suppose, that a Woman, and a guilty one especially, could be able to bear so terrible a Sight without the Loss of her Reason. Besides that, I believe, the Poet had also some Eye to a vulgar Notion, that Spirits are only seen by those with whom their Business is, let there be never so many Persons in Company. This Compliance with these popular Fancies, still gives an Air of Probability to the Whole.”

1870 Miles

Miles

2514 Nothing at all] Miles (1870, p. 57): “[The Ghost’s] invisibility to the Queen may be accounted for by supposing a merciful forebearance in the royal spectre and thus ascribing another grace to the proud, tender shade of the buried majesty of Denmark. Indeed, the brief visitation is more like an errand of love than of revenge . . . . Measureless conjugal love makes the apparition real, and explains its being both invisible and inaudible to the Queen.”

1891 dtn

dtn: Mac. //

2514 is] Deighton (ed. 1891): “exists, is not ‘a false creation Proceeding from the heat oppressed brain,’ Mac. [2.1.38-39 (618-19)].’”

1929 trav

trav: Der Bestrafte Brudermord

2514 Nothing at all] Travers (ed. 1929): “In Der Bestrafte Brudermord (sc. VI), Hamlet curtly explains this by the fact that she is “no longer worthy” to look on her first husband’s form. That a Ghost both visible and audible to one of the persons present should be neither to the rest, would not, in any case, rouse incredulity in an Elizabethan audience.”

1934 cam3

cam3: v1877 (Bradley), Heywood analogue

2514 Nothing at all] Wilson (ed. 1934): “Bradley (p.140) believes that the Ghost remains invisible and inaudible to the Queen in order to spare her. A more plausible reason is furnished by Der Bestrafte Brudermord, viz. that she is ‘no longer worthy to look on his form’ (vide Furness, ii. 133); and since in Heywood’s Iron Age (Pt. 2) Act 5, Scene 1, Orestes takes Clytemnestra’s blindness to Agamemnon’s ghost as evidence of her guilt, the notion seems to have been a common one at the period. I suggest that the ‘piteous action’ Hamlet speaks of is one of hands outstretched in supplication to Gertrude and the Ghost’s agitation conveys, first to his amazement that she cannot see or hear him, and then to his horror as he realizes the cause. It is only after she has declared herself completely insensible of his presence that he ‘steals away’ in shame.”

1982 ard2

ard2: Stoll, Scot, James I, Heywood, Moorman, Bradley, Battenhouse, Dover Wilson, Der Bestrafte Brudermord

2514 Nothing at all] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “ln. The curious may make what they will of the fact that when Hamlet has shown his mother the ‘picture’ of his father, the spirit of its original appears to him and not to her. They must recognize, however, that it accords with classical and Elizabethan precedent (see Stoll, Shakespeare Studies, pp. 211-13) as well as with the popular belief that ghosts ‘may be seen of some, and of some other in that presence not seen at all’ (R. Scot, Discovery of Witchcraft, Appendix ‘Of Devils and Spirits’, ch. 28). Cf. James I, Demonology, iii.i, ‘There are sundry that affirms to have haunted such places, where these spirits are alleged to be: and could never hear nor see anything’. The obvious Shakespearean comparison is with Mac. iii.iv; but a closer dramatic parallel is in Heywood’s 2 Iron Age, Act v, where Agamemnon’s ghost appears to Orestes while Clytemnestra sees ‘Nothing’. The present case, however, differs from both these in that the Ghost not only appears but speaks to Hamlet; and it has of course appeared previously to others. Explanations of a subjective apparition are thus ruled out. Speculations as to why then Gertrude did not see it have not perhaps sufficiently considered the consequence for the play’s plot if she had. Hypotheses have ranged from the Ghost’s ‘tender regard for Gertrude’s feelings’ (Moorman, MLR, i, 201; cf. Bradley, p. 140) to the blindness imposed upon her by her guilt (Dover Wilson, WHH, pp. 253-5) – not to dwell on such extraordinary fantastications as the Ghost’s own inadequacy as an ‘alien’ and ‘unhealthy’ spirit whose ‘Olympian attitude’ of ‘scientific detachment’ inhibits ‘a shared faith and love’ (Battenhouse, SP, xlviii, 184-5). Dover Wilson’s explanation has at least the support of early tradition; it is explicit in Der Bestrafte Brudermord: ‘I can readily believe that you see nothing, for you are no longer worthy to look on his form.’ Yet nothing in the Hamlet text suggests this and the very search for an explanation risks destroying plausibility as well as mystery and awe. In the contemporary view, as expressed by James I (loc. cit.) ‘that is only reserved to the secret knowledge of God, whom he will permit to see such things, and whom not’. As the god of his own play, the dramatist permits a symbolic characterization of Gertrude as one who, believing she sees ‘all’, sees ‘nothing’.”

1984 klein

klein: Wilson (Fratricide Punished, 2Iron Age, and Revenge of Bussy analogues); kit (Antonio’s Revenge analogue and Mac. //); contra W.W. Greg (after H. von Struve in MLR)

2514 Nothing at all] Klein (ed. 1984): “That Gertrude neither sees nor hears the Ghost is explained by Wilson as a contemporary conviction, according to which the guilty could not perceive the dead whom they had wronged. Cf. Fratricide Punished 3.5 (p.170): ’I can well believe that you do not see anything, for you are no longer worthy to see his figure’, and Heywood, 2 Iron Age (1632) 5.1.263ff (Klytemnaestra), also Chapman, The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois (1613) 5.1.101ff. (Kittredge). These examples sound like echoes to HAM. Yet there are important examples to the contrary: in Marston’s Antonio’s Revenge 3.2.63-75, the Ghost appears to Maria and reproaches her (partly close to Hamlet’s words lines 68ff and 90ff., see esp. Marston, line 64: ‘What raging heat reigns in thy strumpet blood?’). Maria sees and hears the Ghost only too well. He is even more generous than Hamlet’s father: ‘I pardon thee, poor soul’ (line 69). Cf. also Mac. [3.4.37-108 (1300-85)], where no-one apart from Macbeth perceives Banquo’s Ghost. In the light of what happens in 1.1, 4 and 5, the Ghost cannot be a hallucination (although even that has been proposed, see W.W. Greg after H. von Struve in the Modern Language Review 12 [1917], pp. 393-421). In the present situation, presumably Hamlet’s isolation is to be preserved, Gertrude’s part kept limited, and her attitude ultimately left open; all these factors are important for the further course of events.”

1987 oxf4

oxf4: Tourneur analogue

2514 Nothing at all] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “Perhaps the closest parallel to the Ghost’s being neither seen nor heard by Gertrude is to be found in Tourneur’s The Atheist’s Tragedy, where the Ghost of Montferrers appears to prevent his son Charlemont from killing Sebastian (3.2.43-5), who remains completely unaware of the Ghost’s presence.”

2001 Greenblatt

Greenblatt

2514 Greenblatt (2001, p.191): <p. 191> “Stories circulated throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance of ghosts visible to only a single person . . . . ” </p. 191>