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Line 2743+20 - 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.”

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Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

2743+20 {This is th’Imposthume of much wealth and peace,}	4.4.28

1805 Seymour

Seymour: 1H4 //

2743+20 th’Imposthume . . . peace] Seymour (1805, p. 194): “A political plethora. In 1H4 we have ‘the cankers of a calm world and a long peace’ [4.2.29-30 (2404)].”

1819 cald1

cald1 ≈ Seymour (1H4 //) without attribution

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Caldecott (ed. 1791-): “‘The cankers of a calm world and a long peace.’ 1H4. Falst. [4.2.29-30 (2404)].”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

1857 fieb

fieb

2743+20 Fiebig (ed. 1857): “i.e. this (imminent unwarrantable dispute) is like an imposthume, like an ulcer, caused by much wealth and too long a peace, etc.”

1865 Stearns

Stearns

2743+20-2743+22 This . . . dies.] Stearns (1865, pp. 75-6): <p. 75>“How Shakespeare may have acquired his medical knowledge it is, of course, impossible to conjecture. But it is likely that he never received a regular medical education. Since, if he had, and, being a gentleman, and the </p. 75><p. 76> ‘creator of polished gentlemen like Hamlet,” his instinctive good taste in composition would have rarely permitted him to make use of terms and comparisons borrowed from the shop;—though such a convenience may be allowable enough in a ‘lay gent.’ </p. 76> See n. 2528-32.”

1870 rug1

rug1

2743+20 th’Imposthume . . . peace] Moberly (ed. 1870): “An inward sore destroying much wealth and peace.”

1872 hud2

hud2

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Hudson (ed. 1872): “Imposthume was in common use for abscess in the poet’s time.”

1872 cln1

cln1: Johnson’s Dict., Cotgrave

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Clark and Wright (ed. 1872): “an abcess. The word is also written ‘impostem’ and is supposed to be a corruption of ‘apostem’ from the Greek GREEK HERE (Todd’s Johnson’s Dictionary, s.v.). The Latin ‘apostema,’ an abcess, is used by Pliny, xxx. 5.12. Cotgrave (French Dict.) gives, ‘Apostume: f. and Imposthume; an inward swelling full of corrupt matter.’”

1873 rug2

rug2 = rug1 + magenta underlined

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Moberley (ed. 1873): “An inward sore or abscess (Greek here) destroying much wealth and peace.”

1877 v1877

v1877 ≈cln1 (Cotgrave only), cald1 (1H4 //)

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Furness (ed. 1877): “Clarendon: Cotgrave, ‘Apostume: f. An Imposthume; an inward swelling full of corrupt matter.’ Caldecott: Compare 1H4: [4.2.29-30 (2404)].”

1877 neil

neil ≈ rug for Impostume (2743+20) without attribution

1878 rlf1

rlf1: cald (for 1H4 //) + magenta underlined

2743+20 Imposthume] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “Inward sore or abscess. Cf. Ven. 743 and Tro. [5.1.21 (2892)]. Caldecott quotes [4.2.29-30 (2404)]: ‘the cankers of a calm world and long peace.’ For the origin of the word, see Wb.”

1881 hud3

hud3 ≈ hud2 + magenta underlined

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Imposthume was in common use for abscess in Shakespeare’s time. It is a corruption of apostem.”

1883 wh2

wh2

2743+20 th’Imposthume] White (ed. 1883): “an internal swelling.”

1885 macd

macd

2743+20-2743+22 This . . . dies] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “The meaning may be as in the following paraphrase: ‘This quarelling about nothing is (the breaking of) the abscess caused by wealth and peace—which breaking inward (in general corruption), would show no outward sore in sign of why death came.’ Or it might be forced thus:—’This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace, That (which) inward breaks, and shows no cause without—Why, the man dies!’ But it may bean:—’The war is an imposthume, which will break within, and cause much affliction to the people that make the war.’ On the other hand, Hamlet seems to regard it as a process for, almost a sign of health.”

1889 Barnett

Barnett ≈ wh2 +

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Barnett (1889, p. 55): “an inward swelling, a boil. Lat. apostema, an abcess.”

1890 irv2

irv2

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “abcess.”

irv2 ≈ cln1 (Cotgrave def.) , rlf1 (Luc., Tro. //s)

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “Cotgrave has: ‘Aposthume: f. An Imposthume; an inward swelling full of corrupt matter.’ Shakespeare uses the word in two other places, Ven., 743, and Tro. [5.1.21 (2892)].”

1891 dtn

dtn: 1H4 //

2743+20-2743+22 This is . . . dies] Deighton (ed. 1891): “this morbid desire in the body politic to quarrel about nothing, a desire due to superabundance of wealth and the idleness of a long peace, is like an abscess in the physical body which bursts inwardly without showing any visible cause of the man’s death; i.e. this readiness to quarrel merely for the sake of quarrelling shows an unhealthy condition in the state; so, in 1H4 [4.2.29-30 (2404)], the idle, discontented, fellows whom Falstaff enlists are called ‘the cankers of a calm world and a long peace.”

dtn: Skeat; B&F analogue

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Deighton (ed. 1891): “from ‘O. F. apostume, an “inward swelling full of corrupt matter:, Cot.—Lat. apostema, an abscess.—Gk. [GREEK HERE], a standing away from; hence a separation of corrupt matter . . . . Here the prefix im- is due to mere corruption’ (Skeat, Ety. Dict.). Cp. Beaumont and Fletcher, Four Plays in One, ‘the two imposthumes That choke a kingdom’s welfare,—ease and wantonness.”

1899 ard1

ard1: Minshieu, Cotgrave

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Minsheu defines the word ‘a course of evill humours gathered to some part of the bodie’; Cotgrave: ‘an inward swelling full of currupt matter.’”

1903 rlf3

rlf3 = rlf1

1904 ver

ver: standard + magenta underlined

2743+20 Imposthume] Verity (ed. 1904): “abscess; in medical language, ‘a purulent swelling’ (i.e. full of corrupt matter or pus); hence used figuratively of the ‘swelling’ of pride, insolence, etc. O.F. empostume, a peculiar variation of the still older form aposteme, Lat. apostema, Gk., ‘an abscess.’ Old forms in English are apostume and aposteme.

“The idea that times of great national ‘wealth’ (i.e. prosperity) conduce to war occurs in Burke’s Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), and he gives as an illustration “that season of fullness which opened our troubles in the time of Charles the First” (Payne’s ed. p. 44).”

1905 rltr

rltr

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Chambers (ed. 1905): “gathering.”

1906 nlsn

nlsn = irv2 for th’Imposthume

1907 Werder

Werder

2743+20-2743+22 This is . . . dies] Werder (1907; rpt. 1977, p. 162): “That signifies: if all goes well with these men. They plan in their arrogance undertakings that cause danger and destruction.”

1931 crg1

crg1≈ nlsn

2743+20 th’Imposthume] Craig (ed. 1931): “purulent abscess or swelling.”

1934 cam3

cam3: Nashe analogue; Jonson (Cheke analogue)

2743+20-2743+22 This is . . . dies] Wilson (ed. 1934): “Nashe expresses a similar idea in Pierce Penilesse (McKerrow’s Nashe, i.211), ‘There is a certaine waste of the people for whome there is no vse, but warre...if the affayres of the State be such, as cannot exhale all these corrupt excrements.’ Cf. also ‘Sedition is an aposteam, which, when it breaketh inwardly, putteth the state in great danger of recovery’ (Sir John Cheke, quoted in Ben Jonson’s English Grammar, ch. iii).”

1939 kit2

kit2: Bacon analogue

2743+20 Impostume] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “internal abscess or ulcer. Hamlet means that such wars are the result of the corruption which comes from too much peace and luxury. It was an old theory that war is the natural exercise or gymnastics of the body politic, and that a country long at peace develops faults in the national character analogous to the diseases that idle luxury breeds in the human body. Cf. Bacon’s essay Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates; ‘No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic; and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise. A civil war, indeed, is like the heat of a fever; but a foreign war is like the heat of exercise, and serveth to keep the body in health; for in a slothful peace, both courages will effeminate and manners (i.e., morals] corrupt.’”

1942 n&h

n&h = nlsn

1951 alex

alex ≈ Seymour

2743+20 th’Impostume] Alexander (ed. 1951): “septic swelling, so gathering of unhealthy features in body politic.”

1953 HLQ

Jorgensen: Barnes

2743+20-2743+22 This . . . dies] Jorgensen (1953, pp. 336-8) cites several contemporary sources and references within the plays, besides 2743+20-2743+22, to show that Sh’s age thought that too much peace bred illness and that war heals the illness. See Barnaby Barnes, who states that war “is the corrector of all prodigall states, a skilful bloodletter against all dangerous obstructions and plurasies of peace, the most soveraigne purgation of all superfluous and spreading humours or leprosies, which can breed in any general politicke body” (Foure Bookes of Offices [1606, p. 161.]); Fulke Greville, A Treatise of Monarchy, says, “So doth the War and her impiety Purge the impostum’d humors of a Peace, Which oft else makes good government decrease ” (Works, ed. A. Grosart for the Fuller Worthies Library [1870]: 1: 203): Churchyard [Thomas? c. 1575?] visualizes peace as “a swelling soer, that festers sowndest mynd and so bursts owtt in bylls, in botch or elcerrs greatt” (Commendatory verses to Rich’s Allarme [n.d. given]); also John Norden, arguing for war at a time of peace, says that “the bodie may be most sicke when it feeleth no griefe at all . . . And therefore saith the wise man, A disease known is in manner cured ” (A Christian Familiar Comfort and Incouragement [1596]), p. 7. Jorgensen cites other sources that assert that the war is therapy for the illnesses of peace, including, in brief: Cornwallis (1601); 2H4 4.1.63; Samuel Daniels, Civil Wars 4:46.

1957 pel1

pel1 = nlsn

1974 evns1

evns1 = pel1

1980 pen2

pen2=evns1 +

2743+20 Imposthume] Spencer (ed. 1980): “The consequences of the luxury of society and its vices accumulate unperceived during peace, like the pus in a swollen abscess.”

1982 ard2

ard2: SQ, Boorde, Cheke, Holinshed, Greville, Bacon analogues

2743+20 Impostume] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “abscess; ‘an inward swelling full of corrupt matter’ (Cotgrave, v. Apostume). ln. More properly apostume (L. apostema), this way the regular word for any kind of swelling in any part of the body. Hence an attempt to interpret it as cancer (SQ, xx, 88-90) is not justified. Andrew Boorde (The Breviary of Health, 1552, ch. 29) describes ‘a postume’ as ‘no other thing but a collection or a running together of evil humours’ and proceeds to classify them according to the humour which is the supposed source of corruption. He also distinguishes ‘interial’ and ‘exterial’ and adds, ‘These impostumes that be interial and cannot be seen be more periculous than they which a man may see and feel’. With the image in Hamlet cf. Cheke, The Hurt of Sedition, 1549 (Hv), reprinted in Holinshed (Chronicles, 1587, iii.1054), ‘So is sedition . . . the apostume of the realm, which when it breaketh inwardly, putteth the state in great danger of recovery’; Fulke Greville, A Treatise of Monarchy, st. 573, ‘the impostum’d humours of a peace’; and with the idea, Bacon, ‘Of Kingdoms and Estates’ (‘In a slothful peace . . . manners corrupt’).”

1984 chal

chal = evns1

1984 klein

klein

2743+20-2743+23 This . . . dies Klein (ed. 1984): “The remark is probably not an aside, though Hamlet may speak more to himself than fully to the Captain.”

1987 oxf4

oxf4: Tilley; Marston analogue

2743+20-2743+22 This . . . dies] Hibbard (ed. 1987, Appendix): “Compare ‘Peace makes plenty, plenty makes pride, pride breeds quarrel, and quarrel brings war’, cited by Tilley under ‘By peace plenty’ (P139). The entire cycle, which concludes with ‘war brings penury, penury brings peace’, is dramatized in Marston’s Histriomastix (1599).”

1988 bev2

bev2 = evns1 for Imposthume

1993 dent

dent: xrefs.

2743+20 Imposthume] Andrews (ed. 1993): “Abcess, festering sore. Hamlet uses yet another image from the vocabulary of disease. See [4.3.9-11, 4.3.66-68 (2670-2, 2731-3)].”

1997 evns2

evns2 = evns1

1998 OED

OED

2743+20 th’Imposthume] OED (Sept. 15, 1998): “2. fig. a. With reference to moral corruption in the individual, or insurrection in the state: A moral or political `festering sore’; the `swelling’ of pride, etc.

“1565 CALFHILL Answ. Treat. Crosse (1846) 93 It openeth the festered sores, the pestilent imposthumes of our ill desires. 1.Calfhill, James An aunswere to (John Martiall’s) treatise of the crosse 1565 (Parker Soc. 1846) 1622 MALYNES Anc. Law-Merch. 234 The three Impostumes of the world, namely, Warres, Famine, and Pestilence. 1685 R. YOUNGS in Sprat 2nd Pt. Relat. late Wicked Contrivance (1693) 97 Several Imposthims they like~wise haue sent abroad, which I can prove. 1702 Eng. Theophrast. 177 To hinder the impostume of bad humour from breaking. 1839 JAMES Louis XIV, I. 276 This most absurd and abusive imposthume upon an absurd and abusive system was called the Paulette. 1876 BROWNING Pacchiar. xxii, The imposthume I prick to relieve thee of, – Vanity. “

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: 2528-32, 2608-9 xrefs; Tilley

2743+20-22 This. . . dies] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hamlet expresses the commonplace that too much wealth and peace lead to war; see Tilley, P139. The metaphor of a secret disease recalls Hamlet’s words to the Queen at 3.4.145-7 [2528-32] and the King’s words about hamlet at 4.1.21-3 [2608-9].”

ard3q2

2743+20 impostume] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “abscess.”