Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2743+26 {How all occasions doe informe against me,} | 4.4.33 |
|---|
1791- rann
rann
2743+26 Rann (ed. 1791-): “If the ultimate end of his being, and the price, purchase, that for which he sells his time.”
1817 Hazlitt
Hazlitt
2743+26-2743+60 Hazlitt (1817, pp. 108-9): <p.108> “He is the prince of philosophical speculations, and because he cannot have his revenge perfect, according to the most refined idea his wish can form, he misses it altogether. So he scruples to trust suggestions of the Ghost, contrives the scene of the play to have surer proof of his uncle’s guilt, and then rests satisfied with this confirmation of his suspicions, and the success of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet he is sensible of his own weakness, taxes himself with it, and tries to reason himself out of it. [cites full passage] </p.108><p.109> Still he does nothing; and this very speculation on his own infirmity only affords him another occasion for indulging it. It is not for any want of attachment to his father or abhorrence of his murder that Hamlet is thus dilatory, but it is more to his taste to indulge his imagination in reflecting upon the enormity of the crime and refining on his schemes of vengeance, than to put them into immediate practice. His ruling passion is to think, not to act: and any vague pretence that flatters this propensity instantly diverts him from his previous purposes.” </p.109>
1819 cald1
cald1
2743+26 occasions] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Occurrences.”
1854 White
White
2743+26-2743+40 How. . .
To doo’t]
White (1854): <pp. 418-9> <p.418> “This Scene is omitted from the folio of 1623, and also in the acting copy; but if the object of the play be the representation of
Hamlet — and its action certainly has little other point — how serious an omission is this.
Hamlet was one who speculated without reasoning, whose high-wrought <p.418></p.419> reveries hardly ever assumed the firmness and consistency of thought, who was unyielding without firmness, determined without purpose, who contrived without plan and felt without acting.
Hamlet himself, in the closing soliloquy of this Scene,— to introduce which was evidently Shakespeare’s only objection in writing it,—gives us the key to his indecision in the self-anatomization which is the habit of such natures. They know the action of their own minds, and burrowing in the blind heaps of speculation which press upon them, they unearth only their own hidden motives. They have an intellectual perception of the excellence of action; but, fascinated by musings which hardly attain the dignity of contemplation, their noble purposes never take form; and, led on through a dreamy labyrinth of speculation, they die before they reach the busy day of the actual world. Sadly enough, too, they are all the while conscious that their years glide from them and leave naught behind; and when their last day comes, they ‘close their dying eyes In grief that they have lived in vain.’ ‘Eheu! fugaces Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.’” </p.419>
1857 fieb
fieb
2743+26 informe] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “To inform means to offer an accusation.”
1858 Lloyd
Lloyd
2743+26-2743+60 Lloyd (1858, sig. Rr): “[Hamlet] is ever reminded of the charge laid upon him by the ghost, to recognize it with a pang, to find some excuse for deferring—now mistrust of the ghost, now inaptness of an opportunity, to accuse himself of dullness, and tardiness, even to declare a resolution, but immediately to diverge into the generalities of a philosophical deduction, and allow himself to be carried away from any definite design entirely. He has the means, the skill, the courage, and what should be sufficient motive, but the active stimulus is unequal t the contemplative inertia that opposes it, and never thoroughly masters and possesses his nature; it gains no permanent hold on his attention; his spirit is soon wearied and oppressed by the uncongenial intrusion, and he relapses into the vein more natural to him; it is cursed spite to be called upon to bring back to order an unhinged world,—he may believe from his manner that he finds no great hardship or disgrace either, in having lost the chance of governing the kingdom, of the foreign affairs of which at least he has not cared to inform himself, and there is such entire absence of expressions of regret for his frustrate love that I am not sure he not feel some relief in getting rid of an importunate and interrupting passion.”
Lloyd
2743+26-2743+60 Lloyd (1858, sig. R4v-R5r): <R4v> “Some of the peculiarities of the enlarged quarto are brief enough to be absent from the folio merely by accidental omission; but </R4v><R5r> the soliloquy on the expedition of Fortinbras is not one of these; beautiful as it is, I am, however, disposed to think that the excision of it may have been deliberate,—as unnecessary, prolonging the action, and it may be exhibiting the weakness of Hamlet too crudely, for it shows him making the most definite resolution to revenge precisely as he turns his back upon the last opportunity by quitting the country. The passage, however, with some others, is too fine to be suppressed, though I am inclined to think the poet sacrificed them, and worthily and properly may take their place in brackets.” </R5r>
Furness cites this comment, see n 2743+1. He documents it as follows: “Crit. Essay, Singer’s 2d ed. p. 345.”
1869 tsch
tsch: Johnson (Dict.)
2743+26 informe] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “inform ist der Gerichtssprache entlehnt: to offer an accusation to a magistrate; daher against. Sam. Johnson E. D. v. inform. 3.” [inform is borrowed from legal language: to offer an accusation to a magistrate; therefore against. Sam. Johnson E. D. verb inform 3.]
1875 Marshall
Marshall
2743+26-2743+60 Marshall (1875, p. 70): “The omission of the soliloquy [in stage performances], which seems to me absolutely necessary to the perfect comprehension and appreciation of Hamlet’s character, is so much to be deplored, that I would advise the restoration of this scene at the risk of ending the fourth act here, and of so adding another act to the conventional five, into which, by a most arbitrary system, all tragedies are divided.”
1882- Fleay
Fleay: Kate Field
2743+26-2743+60 Fleay (n.d., p. 94): “Hamlet (4.4) reproaches himself with delay (it is only 3 days since he saw the ghost as shown by the excellent critic Kate Field: the other time analyses of this play are founded on erroneous readings) see how he says ‘he has will and strength and means to do the thing.’” Ed. note: Field’s book on Fechter’s performance as Hamlet, which Fleay evidently alludes to here, was published in 1882.
1885 macd
macd
2743+26-2743+60 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “While every word that Shakspere wrote we may well take pains to grasp thoroughly, my endeavour to cast light on this passage is made with the distinct understanding in my own mind that the author himself disapproved of and omitted it, and that good reason is not wanting why he should have done so. At the same time, if my student, for this book is for those who would have help and will take pains to the true understanding of the play, would yet retain the passage, I protest against the acceptance of Hamlet’s judgment of himself, except as revealing the simplicity and humility of his nature and character. That as often as a vivid memory of either interview with the Ghost came back upon him, he should feel rebuked and ashamed, and vexed with himself, is, in the morally, intellectually, and emotionally troubled state of his mind, nowise the less natural that he had the best of reasons for the delay because of which he here so unmercifully abuses himself. A man of self-satisfied temperament would never in similar circumstances have done so. But Hamlet, was, by nature and education, far from, such self-satisfaction; and there is in him besides such a strife and turmoil of opposing passions and feelings and apparent duties, as can but rarely rise in a human soul. With which he ought to side, his conscience is not sure—sides therefore now with one, now with another. At the same time it is by no means the long delay the critics imagine of which he is accusing himself—it is only that the thing is not done.
“In certain moods the action a man dislikes will therefore look to him the more like a duty: and this helps to prevent Hamlet from knowing always how great a part conscience bears in the omission because of which he condemns and even contemns himself. The conscience does not naturally examine itself—is not necessarily self-conscious. In any soliloquy, a man must speak from his present mood; we who are not suffering, and who have many of his moods before us, ought to understand Hamlet better than he understands himself. To himself, sitting in judgment on himself, it would hardly appear a decent cause of, not to say reason for, a moment’s delay in punishing his uncle, that he was so weighed down with misery because of his mother and Ophelia, that it seemed of no use to kill one villain out of the villainous world; it would seem but ‘bestial oblivion’; and, although his reputation as a prince was deeply concerned, any reflection on the consequences to himself would at times appear but a ‘craven scruple’; while at times even the whispers of conscience might seem a ‘thinking too precisely on the event.’ A conscientious man of changeful mood will be very ready in either mood to condemn the other. The best and rightest men will sometimes accuse themselves in a manner that seems to those who know them best, unfounded, unreasonable, almost absurd. We must not, I say, take the hero’s judgment of himself as the author’s judgment of him. The two judgments. that of a man upon himself from within, and that of his beholder upon him from without, are not congeneric. They are different in origin and in kind, and cannot be adopted either of them into the source of the other without most serious and dangerous mistake. so adopted, each becomes another thing altogether. It is to me probable that, although it involves other unfitnesses, the Poet omitted the passage chiefly from coming to see the danger of its giving occasion. or at least support. to an altogether mistaken and unjust idea of his Hamlet.”
See n. 2743+40.
1889 Barnett
Barnett
2743+26 informe] Barnett (1889, p. 55): “give information, to heaven.”
1891 dtn
dtn
2743+26 Deighton (ed. 1891): “how everything that happens seems to denounce my irresolution.”
dtn: R2 //
2743+26 informe against me] Deighton (ed. 1891): “being a charge against me as informers do against guilty persons; cp. R2 [2.1.242-3 (892)], ‘what they will inform . . . ‘gainst any of us all.”
1904 ver
ver
2743+26-2743+27 ] Verity (ed. 1904): “From opposite types, from the soldiers as from the Players, comes the same reproach to Hamlet, the same instigation to act.”
1907 Werder
Werder
2743+26-2743+60 Werder (1907; rpt. 1977, p. 153-4): <p.153> “On his way to the ship which is to carry him to England he meets the army of young Fortinbras, and at the sight of that untrammelled freedom of motion Hamlet’s soul, tortured by the iron yoke of his task, breaks out into bitter murmuring. . . . If he could only be as that happy man is! Alas, that he must be what that man has been spared from being, and what no one </p.153> <p.154> would wish to be—
must be, and not from his nature and disposition, but rather by the dispensation of God! That is the feeling which utters itself in Hamlet’s fifth and last soliloquy [quotes soliloquy].” </154>
Werder
2743+26-2743+40 Werder (1907; rpt. 1977, p.13): <p.13> “Against Hamlet the evil practices of earth, the suggestions of hell, and the enmity of Fortune, are literally and truly combined to perplex and to crush him; but the harmony of his mental constitution, ‘Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man,’ Bears it out against ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune,’—beaten and shattered indeed, and finally broken, but
unswerving to the last. And yet, up to this very hour, cannot the critics of this Shakespearian masterpiece— including even Goethe, and Schlegel, and Coleridge—notwithstanding that its hero is ‘benetted and round with villainies,’ and has a preternatural embarrassment of the most horrible kind superadded—find any adequate source of his calamities but in what they represent as the ‘morbid’ disproportion of his own character—his ‘excess’ of reflection and imagination—his ‘deficiency of passion and of will.’” </p.13>
1929 trav
trav
2743+26 informe]
Travers (ed. 1929): “in the sense of bearing accusatory testimony before a magistrate.”
1931 crg1
crg1
2743+26 occasions] Craig (ed. 1931): “incidents, events.”
crg1
2743+26 informe against] Craig (ed. 1931): “show up, betray (i.e., his tardiness).”
1939 kit2
kit2
2743+26 informe against me] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “denounce me.”
1947 cln2
cln2 = ver
2743+26 How all occasions] Verity (apud Rylands, ed. 1947): “‘From opposite types—from the soldiers as from the players—comes the same reproach to Hamlet, the same instigation to act’ (Verity).”
1953 Joseph
Joseph
2743+26-2743+60 Joseph (1953, pp. 119-20): <p. 119> “The last soliloquy simply repeats what has gone before: “first. fear of damnation has delayed the Prince, and then he is baffled by a combination of circumstances rather than by a distaste for the deed itself. All this is repeated in the last soliloquy, which </p. 119> <p. 120> could as a result be excised from the First Folio and the versions used by Betterton [Q6, Q7].” </p. 120>
Ed. note: Joseph sees no problem in Hamlet’s self-castigation; he rationalizes as readily as Hamlet does.
1957 pel1
pel1
2743+26 inform] Farnham (ed. 1957): “take shape.”
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ kit
2743+26 informe against] Evans (ed. 1974): “denounce, accuse.”
1980 pen2
pen2
2743+26-2743+60 Spencer (ed. 1980): “The importance of this soliloquy is that it enables Hamlet to make a strong impression on the audience before his long absence, and gives a reassurance that he is still true to his oath of vengeance. It is the most ‘reasonable’ of his soliloquies, and is probably intended to reveal his developing maturity.”
pen2 ≈ cln2
2743+26 occasions] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(such dissimilar chance meetings as with the players and with this Norwegian army).”
pen2 ≈ evns1
2743+26 informe against me] Spencer (ed. 1980): “denounce me, provide evidence to my discredit (as in a law-suit).”
1984 chal
chal
2743+26 informe against me] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “supply evidence accusing me.”
1988 bev2
bev2 ≈ pel1
2743+26 informe against] Bevington (ed. 1988): “denounce, betray; take shape against.”
1993 dent
dent
2743+26 Andrews (ed. 1993): “How everything that happens and everyone I encounter both (a) spies upon and (b) bears witness against me. Hamlet is employing a metaphor from legal terminology.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: MacDonald, Edwards, Hibbard, Pennington, Branagh, Brook, Lavender
2743+26-60 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “MacDonald approves F’s omission of this speech on the grounds that ’the author exposes his hero to a more depreciatory judgement than any from which I would justify him, and a conception of his character entirely inconsistent with the rest of the play.’ Edwards (16-19) and Hibbard (362) also argue that its omission (and that of the preceding dialogue with the Captain) in Q1 and F is an authorial ’cut’ that improves the play. Spencer sees it as important structurally, enabling Hamlet to make a strong impression before his absence in 4.5 to 4.7 and to reveal an increasing maturity. Pennington (112) finds it ’amazing’ that ’perhaps the best of hamlet’s monologues’ should be cut. Kenneth Branagh turns it into a melodramatic climax in his 1996 film, while Peter Brook’s adaptation in 2000 replaced it with ’To be or not to be’, indicating that this is ’Hamlet’s nadir’ (Lavender, 233).”
ard3q2
2743+26-7 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “As at the end of 2.2, Hamlet uses his experience to comment on the larger issues he faces..”
ard3q2
2743+26 occasions] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “occurrences, circumstances.”
ard3q2: standard
2743+26 inform against] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “accuse, bring charges against.”
2743+26