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.

1604 Dekker

Dekker

3267- Dekker (The Honest Whore, Part 1 1604, published in Works, 1863, 2: 56, apud H. C. Hart for Ingleby et al. 1932, 1: 65 and 65 n.): “Though no passages are exactly similar, yet the whole idea of moralizing thus upon a skull (especially as it would show upon a stage) seems to me unmistakably taken from Hamlet’s gravedigger scene . . . .”

What’s here?

Perhaps this shrewd pate was mine enemies:

. . .

And must all come to this; fooles, wise, all hither,

Must all heads thus at last be laid together:

. . .

But here’s a fellow; that which he layes on,

Till domes day alters not complexion:

Death’s the best Painter then:

1855 Wade

Wade

3267-3308 Wade (1855, p. 20) : <p. 20> “After this accidentally sudden return of Hamlet to Denmark, we first see him, with Horatio, on his way to the palace, we may presume, in a church-yard beside the grave which a Clown is digging for the reception of the mortal remains of ‘the fair Ophelia,’ whom Hamlet’s neglect and ill-usage, and his mountebank murder of her father, had driven into madness and incident death. Here, his ever-present sense of his own and other men’s mortality is fearfully evidenced; and bitter is his gibing over the relics of man’s visible nature, as the Grave-digger throws up skeleton human skulls and bones out of the church-yard earth:— [cites 3267-3308].” </p. 20>

1982 ard2

ard2

3267 skull] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “The skull affords a traditional motif of moral reflection. LN [Longer Notes].

3267 skull] Jenkins (ed. 1982, Longer Notes, 550-1): <p. 550> “This passage on the skull and the indignities suffered </p. 550> <p. 551>by the dead is especially remisiscent of one in a popular book of meditation by Luis de Granada, comparison with which shows Shakespeare characteristically elaborating and revitalizing a traditional reflection. See Of Prayer and Meditation, trans. Hopkins, 1582, fols. 202-4: ‘Then do they make a hole in the earth of seven or eight foot long, ((and no longer though it be for Alexander the great [[cf. ll. 191-2]] [3385-6], whom the whole world could not hold)) and with that small room only must his body be content [[cf. 108-10]] [3301-3] . . . Then the grave maker taketh the spade, and pickaxe into his hand, and beginneth to tumble down bones upon bones [[cf. 90-1]] [3282-3], and to tread down the earth very hard upon him. Insomuch that . . . the rude grave maker . . . will not stick to lay him on the face, and rap him on the skull [[cf. 88, 99-100]] [3279-80, 3291-3] . . . And the fine dappered gentleman [[cf. 81-2]] [3273-4] who whiles he lived might in no wise abide the wind to blow upon him . . ., here they lay and hurl upon him a dunghill of filthiness and dirt [[cf. 105-6]] [3297-8]. And that sweet minion gentleman also that was wont forsooth to go perfumed with amber . . . must be contented here to lie covered all over with earth, and foul crawling worms, and maggots [[cf. 87, 191-4.]] [3278, 3385-8].’” </p. 551>