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: xref.

2734 Fortinbrasse . . . stage] Stubbs (1736, pp. 35-6): <p.35> “This is a Conduct in most of our Author’s Tragedies, </p.35><p.36> and in many other of our Tragedy Writers, that is quite unnatural and absurd; I mean, introducing an Army on the Stage. Although our Imagination will bear a great Degree of Illusion, yet we can never so far impose on our Knowledge, and our Senses, as to imagine the Stage to Contain an Army: Therefore in such a Case, the Recital of it, or seeing the Commander, and an Officer or Two of it, is the best Method of conducting such a Circumstance. Fortinbrass’s Troops are here brought in, I believe, to give Occasion for his appearing in the last Scene, and also to give Rise to Hamlet’s Reflections thereon, (p. 327) [4.4.32 (2743+26)] which tend to give some Reasons for his deferring the Punishment of the Usurper.” </p.36>

1858 Lloyd

Lloyd

2734 Enter Fortinbrasse] Lloyd (1858, sig. R2r): “The players find nothing attractive in Fortinbras, and are too happy to retrench the character and extirpate all possible allusions to him; but there is a worse evil in this than the curtain falling at last on an unking’d stage, with four princely corpses, and Osric and Horatio only left alive: these foreign incidents give range to the thoughts that relieves them in this the longest of all the plays, that renders the voyage and return of Hamlet less abrupt and remote and exceptional, and the idea which they communicate of the Norwegian prince—the young and tender leader of an adventurous expedition, remains in the mind insensibly from the essential congruity with the theme of the play, so that his appearance and mastery at last is satisfying as the closing in of a grand outlying circuit and the fulfillment of an expectation.”

1885 macd

macd: xref.

2734 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Commencement of the Fourth Act. Between the third and the fourth passes the time Hamlet is away; for the latter, in which he returns, and whose scenes are contiguous, needs no more than one day. See [5.2.362 (3852)].”

1890 irv2

irv2 = Marshall

2734-2743+60 Symons (Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “F.A. Marshall, Study of Hamlet, pp. 193, 194, has the following note on this scene: ‘That Shakespeare intended to refer to some particular expedition in this passage I have not the slightest doubt; but, unfortunately, I have not been able to trace the source of this description. The particulars given are very remarkable; it was a little patch of ground—not worth five ducats to farm—yet it was garrisoned by the Polack. I hoped to find the original of this unprofitable expedition in some of the “adventures” undertaken by sir Walter Raleigh, or by one of the Earls of Essex; but I have not succeeded to my own satisfaction. There are certain points of resemblance between the enterprise of Walter Devereux in 1573, the object of which was to conquer Ulster, or a portion of it, and this expedition of Fortinbras. An unfavourable critic might speak of the members of that adventurous body, of which Walter Devereux was the leader, as “a list of lawless resolutes” without doing them any grievous wrong. Of the apparent value of the country which these brave butchers were to conquer, some idea may be formed from the description given by Froude (vol. x., page 554):

“‘A few years before, Sir Henry Sidney’s progress through Ulster had been gravely compared to Alexander’s journey into Bacria. The central plains of Australia, the untrodden jungles of Borneo, or the still vacant spaces in our map of Africa, alone now on the globe’s surface represent districts as unknown and mysterious as the north-east angle of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth . . . Ulster was a desert.” &c.

“‘One feels on reading this eloquent description that five ducates would have been a high rent to have paid for such a paradise; still the extent of it does not answer to the description in the text. In 1573 Shakespeare was only nine years old; in 1580, when Walter Raleigh joined Grey’s force in the attack upon the fort of Smerwick, in Dingle Bay, he was only sixteen: yet both events might have made some impression on his youthful memory. Smerwick, the wretched fort in which the unhappy Spaniards and Italians held out for two days against the English butchers, answers very well to the officer’s description of the place against which Fortinbras was leading his “lawless resolutes.” It was “a very small neck of land joined to the shore by a bank of sand” (Froude, vol. xi., page 224) . . . . The whole of this scene (with the exception of Fortinbras’ short speech) has no parallel in the Quarto of 1603; it was evidently added by Shakespeare on the revision of the play, a circumstance which confirms me in the belief that he had some enterprise of that time in his mind.’”

1904 ver

ver

2734 Verity (ed. 1904): “Shakespeare’s side-scenes are a specially instructive feature of his dramatic method. The present is essentially a scene of character-contrast: Fortinbras, the resolute man of action, set over against Hamlet, the hesitating dreamer: and the contrast is made more striking by Hamlet’s own appreciation of it, and by the difference of their respective motives of action. Note too the contrast in position, Fortinbras being ‘free from the entanglements which have ruined Hamlet’s career.’ The whole contrast is the raison d’etre of the scene. But except in so far as the elucidation of character (here Hamlet’s) contributes to the movement of a piece, this scene does not advance the action: hence its practical excision from the Folio, where only lines 1-8 are given. Indeed, in the modern acting-versions of Hamlet with which I am acquainted the whole of the Fortinbras element is ‘cut.’”

1937 pen1

pen1

2734 Harrison (ed. 1937): “Fortinbras is briefly introduced here with his army in order that there shall be no need for explanation when he reappears at the end of the play.”

1974 evns1

evns1

2734 Evans (ed. 1974): “4.4. Location: The Danish coast, near the castle.”

1980 pen2

pen2

2734 Spencer (ed. 1980): “We have not heard about old Norway and Fortinbras since [2.2.60-80 (1085-1105]. The vigour of Fortinbras, like that of Laertes, is an adverse reflection upon Hamlet’s inactivity, as he himself recognizes [4.4.48-55 (2743+41-2743+47)].”

1984 chal

chal

2734 Wilkes (ed. 1984): “[4.1. Location: the Danish coast].”

1993 dent

dent

2734 Andrews (ed. 1993): “This scene takes place on the way to the harbour, just prior to the departure for England. The Folio includes only the first eight lines.”

1997 evns2

evns2 = evns1

1999 Dessen & Thomson

Dessen & Thomson

2734 Army] Dessen & Thomson(1999): SD “usually found when a figure enters and/with an army.”

2000 Edelman

Edelman

2734 Army ouer the stage] Edelman (2000): “In Shakespeare, simply a synonym for ‘soldiers,’ with no implication as to their numbers, either in dialogue, or [. . . ] stage directions [ . . .].”