Line 3270-71 - 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.”
7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations.
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Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand
| 3270-1 {ore-reaches;} <o’re Of-| fices:>one that {would} <could> circumuent God, might it not? | |
|---|
1730 theol
theol
3271 would circumuent God] Theobald (26 Mar. 1730, [fol. 122v] [Nichols 2:577]): <fol. 122v> “could circumuent God]] Shakespeare, certainly, was never guilty of this prophanation. I read, from the old quartos, one that WOULD, &c. i.e. would, if it were in his power.” </fol. 122v>
1747 warb
warb:
3270-1 pate . . . God] Warburton (ed. 1747) : “This character is finely touched. Our great historian has well explained it in an example, where speaking of the death of Cardinal Mazarine, at the time of the Restoration, he says, The Cardinal was probably struck with the wonder, if not the agony of that undream’d-of prosperity of our King’s affairs; as if he had taken it ill, and laid it to heart that God Almighty would bring such a work to pass in Europe without his concurrence, and even against all his machinations. Hist. of the Rebellion, Book 16.”
warb:
3270 ore-reaches] Warburton (ed. 1747) : “which this ass o’re Offices]] People in office, at that time, were so overbearing, that Shakespear speaking of insolence at the height, calls it Insolence in office. And Donne says, Who is he/ Who officers’ rage and suitors’ misery/ Can write in jest --- Sat. Alluding to this character of ministers and politicans, the speaker observes, that this insolent officer is now ‘-er-officer’d by by the Sexton, who, knocking his scull about with his spade, appears to be as insolent in his office as they were in theirs. This is said with much humour.”
1755 John
John : standard
3270 ore-reaches] Johnson (1755, Overoffice) : “v.a. [over and office] To lord by virtue of an office. [cites Hamlet]”
1765 john1
john1 = warb
3270-1 pate . . . God]
john1 = warb +
3270 ore-reaches] Johnson (ed. 1765): “In the quarto, for ouer-offices is, ouer-reaches, which agrees better with the sentence: It is a strong exaggeration to remark, that an ass can ouer-reach him who would once have tried to circumuent.—I believe both the words were Shakespeare’s. An authour in revising his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new observations have produced new sentiments, easily introduces images which have been more newly impressed upon him, without observing their want of congruity to the general texture of his original design.”
1773 v1773
v1773 = john1
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1773 = john1
3270 ore-reaches]
1773 jen
v1773 ≈ v1773 (minus warb’s analogues)
3270 ore-reaches]
Jennens (ed. 1773) : “
o’er-reaches seems preferable, when applied to a politician, not as an
insolent officer, but as a
circumuenting, scheming man.”
1778 v1778
v1778 = v1773
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1778 = v1773
3270 ore-reaches]
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1785 = v1778
3270 ore-reaches]
1787 ann
ann = v1785
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1785 = v1778
3270 ore-reaches]
1790 mal
mal = john1 (minus warb)
3270 ore-reaches] Johnson (apud Malone, ed. 1790) : “Ouer-reaches agrees better with the sentence: It is a strong exaggeration to remark, that an ass can ouer-reachi him who would once have tried to circumuent—I believe both the words were Shakespeare’s. An authour in revising his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new observations have produced new sentiments, easily introduces images which have been more newly impressed upon him, without observing their want of congruity to the general texture of his original design.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1793 = mal
3270 ore-reaches]
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1803 = v1793
3270 ore-reaches]
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1793
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1813 = v1803
3270 ore-reaches]
1819 cald1
cald1 = john1 (reduced as below) + magenta underlined
3270-1 pate . . . God] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “Has official superiority over. ‘O’er-reaches,’ the reading of the quarto, gives an idea more closely and immediately corresponding with the whole of this sentence, and the beginning of the next but one [3273]. Upon those readings Dr. Johnson has well observed, ‘I believe both the words were Shakespeare’s. An authour in revising his work, when his original ideas have faded from his mind, and new observations have produced new sentiments, easily introduces images which have been more newly impressed upon him, without observing their want of congruity to the general texture of his original design.’”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
3270-1 pate . . . God]
v1821 = v1813
3270 ore-reaches]
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1
3270-1 pate . . . God]
3270 ore-reaches]
1848 Strachey
Strachey
3269-71 Strachey (1848, p. 89): <p. 89> “What depth, as well as accuracy and force, there is in his description of the Politician, the Courtier, and the Lawyer! That of the Politician in particular has a profoundness which the events of the last few months enable us to appreciate the better:—’ It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass o’er-offices; one that could circumvent God, might it not?’ God’s government of the world had become a fiction to us, we saw it everywhere superseded by the state systems and state craft of kings, ministers, and diplomatists, who were far too prudent in their own eyes to regard the designs of God’s providence, and far too flrm in their own strength to care for the indications of His will. They seemed to us—if we confessed the truth to have been not only willing, but able to ‘circumvent God,’ and to appropriate to their own selfish or philosophic uses, the men and nations whom God had formed for His glory:—but the wisdom of the wise has been turned into folly ; they are ’o’er- officed by asses;’ and the only prospect of a restoration from the anarchy is derived from the faith, that the old fiction of the government of the world by a Personal, though invisible, Lord, will again assert itself to be a fact.” </p. 89>
1854 del2
del2
3270 ore-reaches] Delius (ed. 1854) : “o’re-Offices]] So die Fol.—to o’er-office=im Amt übertreffen, oder an Amtsthätigkeit hinter sich lassen, sagt offenbar viel mehr, als das matte o’er-reaches der Qs.—Das einfache to office in ähnlicher Weise hat Sh. im (Cor. 5.2. ?[3299-3300]): a Jack-guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus.” [“[o’re-Offices] ]so thefolio. To o’er-office is to step over an office or to leave behind the office position, [which] says far more than the feeble o’er-reaches of the Qs. The simple to office Sh. has in Coriolanus . 5.2.? (3299-3300), a Jack-guardiant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus .”]
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>
1857 dyce1
dyce1 :
3270 ore-reaches] Dyce (ed. 1857) : “The folio has ‘which this Asse o’re offices,’ &c.,—the less proper reading undoubtedly: see Johnson’s note ad. l
1861 wh1
wh1
3270 ore-reaches] White (ed. 1861) : “‘circumvent,’ in the next clause, shows that the 4to. reading is the right one.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc
3270 ore-reaches]
Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868): “This is the Quarto reading; which we think is more pointed than that of the Folio—o’re offices.’”
1869 tsch
tsch
3270 ore-reaches] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “überholt. o’eroffices ist zu gesucht.” [“overreach or grab. o’eroffices is too affected.”]
1872 del4
del4 ≈ del2
3270 ore-reaches] Delius (ed. 1854) : “o’re-Offices]] So die Fol.—to o’er-office=Jemandem amtlich imponieren oder vorangehen, sagt offenbar viel mehr, als das matte o’er-reaches der Qs.—Das einfache to office in ähnlicher Weise hat Sh. im (Cor. 5.2. ?[ 3299-3300]): a Jack-guardant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus. Die Fol. lässt nowvor o’er-offices aus.” [[o’re-Offices] ]so thefolio. To o’er-office is to impress or take the lead of some official, [which] says far more than the feeble o’er-reaches of the Qs. The simple to office Sh. has in Coriolanus . 5.2.? (3299-3300), a Jack-guardiant cannot office me from my son Coriolanus . The Folio omits the now before o’er-offices]
1872 cln1
cln1
3270 ore-reaches] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “So the quartos. The folios have, with various spelling, ‘o’er-offices,’ a word otherwise unknown. If it be not a misprint, it must mean ‘to be higher in office.’ The grave-digger now is superior in official rank to the politician who had always been plotting for that rank.”
1873 rug2
rug2 ≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches] Moberly (ed. 1873): “Many editions read ‘o’er-offices.’ If the former is correct, the sense is probably simply ‘reaches over.’”
1874 Corson
Corson
3269-70 this . . .
ore-reaches]
Corson (1874, p. 32): <p. 32>“The old lout of a grave-digger, in the discharge of his office, lords it over the once scheming pate of the state-official who felt himself able, in the exercise of his state-craft, to circumvent God himself.” </p. 32>
3270 ore-reaches]
Corson (1874, p. 32): <p. 32>“‘o’er-reaches’ is used with a literal reference to the grave-digger, and a metaphorical reference to the circumventing politician. ‘Office’ is used as a verb in [
Cor. 5.2.59 (3299-3300)]: ‘you shall perceive that a Jack guardant canot office me from my son Coriolanus;’ and in [
AW 3.2.124 (1535)]: ‘although The air of paradise did fan the house, and Angels officed all:’ Knight adopts the reading of the F., ‘o’er-offices;’ and it is, without doubt, the more expressive term of the two.” </p. 32>
3271 would]
Corson (1874, p. 32): <p. 32> “‘could’ is better, referring to the politican’s cratiness in getting the better of others.” </p. 32>
1877 v1877
v1877 : ≈warb (only People in office . . . insolence in office) ; ≈ john1 ; ≈ jen ; Corson
3270 ore-reaches]
Corson (
apud Furness, ed. 1877): “The Ff, without doubt, give the more expressive term.”
1877 Gervinus
Gervinus
3270-1 Gervinus (1877, p. 566): <p. 566>“The inclination to simple natural habits which is here manifested would also acount for his aversion to all mean subterfuge and falsehood. In the churchyard he expresses his sincere abhorrence of the vain folly of women, of politiicans who ‘would circumvent God,’ of lawyers and courtiers; towards this kind of ‘water-flies,’ such as Polonius and Osric, the ‘diminutives of nature,’ as they are colled in [
Tro. a.s.? (2901)], he manifests his intense antipathy or sarcastic contempt.” </p. 566>
1890 irv2
irv2
3270 ore-reaches] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “Ff. (instead of the reading of Qq.) have o’er-offices, a word not elsewhere known, perhaps a misprint, perhaps Shakespeare’s coinage for his thought.”
1899 ard1
ard1 ≈ cln1 w/o attribution +
3270 ore-reaches] Dowden (ed. 1899): “O’-er-reaches is used in the literal sense, and for circumvent.”
1931 crg1
crg1 ≈ standard (with Ard1’s help?) : Onions’ Glossary
3270 ore-reaches] Craig (ed. 1931): “the F reading, o’er Offices, Onions defines as ‘lords it over by virtue of his office.’”
1934b rid
rid : standard
3270 ore-reaches] Ridley (ed. 1934, Glossary):
1934a cam3
cam3 : standard
3270 ore-reaches] Wilson (ed. 1934, Glossary): “get the better of.”
cam3 ≈ ard1 w/o attribution
3271 circumuent God] Wilson (ed. 1934): “Cain was the first ‘politician’; he denied that he was his brother’s keeper, and when God asked him where Abel was he quibbled.”
1939 kit2
kit2 ≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches]
3270 ore-reaches] Kittredge (ed. 1939, Glossary):
kit2
3271 one . . . not] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “one who was clever enough, while he lived, to disregard God’s laws and apparently to escape unscathed.”
1938 parc
parc≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches]
1947 cln2
cln2 ≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches]
1951 crg2
crg2=crg1
3270 ore-reaches]”
1957 pel1
pel1 : standard
3270 ore-reaches]
1970 pel2
pel2=pel1
3270 ore-reaches]
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches]
evns1
3271 circumuent God] Evans (ed. 1974): “bypass God’s law.”
1980 pen2
pen2 ≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches]
pen2 ≈ standard
3271 circumuent]
1982 ard2
ard2
3270 ore-reaches] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “o’er-offices]]lord it over ((by virtue of his office)). Cf. [Cor. 5.2.60 (3299-3300)], ‘a Jack guardant cannot office me’. Note the irony of over-officing an intriguer for office. The preference of editors and bibliographers for Q2’s ‘oer-reaches, an obvious substitution, is astonishing. See Intro., pp. 59-60.”
3270 ore-reaches]
Jenkins (ed. 1982, Introduction, 59-60): <p. 59>“When this last example [preference for Q2’s
ore-reaches for F1’s
o’re Offices] is lamented as a characteristic blunder of the Folio Compositor E, we may legitimately inquire how a blunderer arrived at a word which is in Shakespeare’s finest manner, both inventive and </p. 59> <p. 60>exact. . . . it is difficult to think that
offices can have looked enough like
reaches to make that a plausible guess. It seems rather that
ore ((o’er)) suggested
reaches as a stopgap whe the printer was defeated by an unexpected word.” </p. 60>
ard2 ≈ cam3 w/o attribution
3271 circumuent God]
1984 chal
chal:
3270 ore-reaches] Wilkes (ed. 1984): "o’re Offices]] i.e. the grave-digger has usurped the superior role."
chal ≈ cam3 without attribution
3271 circumuent God]
1985 cam4
cam4 : contra ard2
3270 ore-reaches] Edwards (ed. 1985): “A politician was a man who o’erreached, in the sense of duped, his pawns and enemies. Now the tables are turned as the gravedigger o’erreaches ((i.e. handles)) his skull. Jenkins defends F’s reading, ‘o’er-offices’.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4 : ard2 ; OED
3270 ore-reaches] o’re Offices]]
oxf4 ≈ cam3
3271 circumuent God]
1992 fol2
fol2≈ standard
3270 ore-reaches]
1993 dent
dent ≈ standard
3271 ore-reaches]
dent ≈ standard
3271 circumuent God]
1998 OED
OED
3270 ore-reaches]OED trans. To lord it over by virtue of one’s office; to exercise one’s office over. 1602 SHAKS. Ham. V. i. 87 It might be the Pate of a Polititian which this Asse o’re Offices: one that could circumuent God, might it not?
3270 3271