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.

1848 Strachey

Strachey

3471-81 Strachey (1848, p. 91): <p.91> “Yet observe that Hamlet’s excessive relf-consciousnesse; reappears immedi-ately, in his perception that he is mouthing and ranting: and though not being able instantly to check his headlong course, he says he will rant, yet in the very act of so saying he stops:—[cites 3466-86].” </p. 91>

1857 elze1

elze1

3471 S’wounds] Elze (ed. 1857): "Die Fs: Come; eine Censuränderung." ["The Ff; Come, a bowderlizing."]

1872 cln1

cln1

3471 S’wounds] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “This profane oath is changed in the folios to ‘Come.’ See 2.2.355 (1412).”

1889 Barnett

Barnett

3471 S’wounds] Barnett (1889, p. 61): <p. 61>“for God’s wounds.”</p. 61>

1906 nlsn

nlsn: standard

3471 S’wounds] Neilson (ed. 1906, Glossary):

1914 Stewart

Stewart

3471 Stewart (1914, pp. 217-8): <p. 217>“ It is all very easy to understand providing we have gathered what Shakespeare has set before us in the preceding acts. He has shown us the same thing in less complicated situations; and if we have caught it in the simpler expositions, we will easily enough recognize the central idea in this place, where Hamlet finds himself worked upon by more complex influences. Note the high-sounding and really ridiculous feats which Hamlet proposes the moment the two have been dragged from each other’s grasp. Here is the same melodramatic ‘Swounds’ which we saw in a preceding case of the same nature.’Swounds, show me what thou’lt do. Woo’t weep? Woo’t fight? Woo’t fast? Woo’t tear thyself Woo’t drink up eisel? Eat a crocodile?’</p. 217><p. 218> I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave? Be buried quick with her and so will I; And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw Millions of acres on us till our ground Singeing his pate against the burning zone, Make Ossa like a wart! Nay, an’ thou’lt mouth I’ll rant as well as thou. ‘

“In the concluding lines, as in preceding instances, we see his recognition of the fact that what he is saying is mere words. Hamlet is a man who has lost his capacity to have emotion. With the whole tragedy of his life facing him in the persons of the king, the queen, and Ophelia, and the spectacle of the relief that they find in tears and wordy tributes, he is driven to do something to find surcease from the pent-up pain around his own blighted heart. He does his best so far as words and activity go; but that is all it is. He starts out with challenges that are reasonably natural if artificial-’Woo’t weep? Woo’t fight?’ He increases the force of his propositions, as if he felt their ineffectiveness, until finally it becomes ridiculous; and suddenly he sees that it is hollow-hearted rant. ‘Woo’t drink up elsel? Eat a crocodile?’

“The psychology of his strange.conduct is as follows. Hamlet’s heart, early in the play,had been completely broken. He had terrible insights of the world as it is; and the shock of this, upon so noble a nature as Hamlet’s, had caused the very bottom to drop out of his </p. 218><p. 219> soul. Through the experience of hard facts, not morbid imaginings, he had lost his faith in womankind, his pride in his family and himself, his whole set of high ideals regarding the world. He had lost all his youthful delusions —his ability to fall in love, his ambitious aspiring to worldly honor, even that moving passion for wild justice, revenge; and in its place was a terrible deep insight of the hypocrisy, the uncertainty, the self-delusions and unfealty of mankind. Tragedy had struck him in the only place it can strike a man utterly —at home. One moment he was an aspiring youth with the highest ideals and the most charitable excuses for mankind; the next moment he was hit a blow on the very heart and he found him- self viewing the wreck of a world. In his head was the clear penetrating light of hard fact, the insight of things as they are; and in his heart a dull unbearable pain. He was driven to the point where he would rather be out of the world than in it; for life was a mocking pain.

“In tears there is no cure for such a pain. The soft emotion of tears will not erase it; sighs will not blow it away. For this is to be a dead self. In the death of a friend we see the mysterious work of nature and in the mystery there is hope. Tears are its cure. Emotion repays itself for the loss and we cease to weep. We feel that all is well and go on our way enriched in the treasures of our heart. But when a man mourns for what he knows, there is no </p. 219><p. 220> remedy, no relief. For what a man knows in his heart he cannot forget. To have such knowledge as Hamlet had, and in the way he had it, is to pursue a living death. The pain is numb, hollow and dumb; and when we see others taking the benefit of human emotion it rises and gripes us. Is it any wonder, then, that when Hamlet saw Laertes revelling in a very luxury of grief over a dead sister, and thus finding relief from a pain not half so deadly as his own, he should feel that the world and the very scheme of things had there conspired to pain and mock him. And that it should all seem a travesty as compared with his own case? For him there was no such relief — for he could not feel the emotion. Once we take this view, which is in harmony with the whole drift of the play, Hamlet’s words become singularly luminous and consistent. ‘Dost thou come here to whine? To outface me with leaping in her grave?’”</p. 220>

1931 crg1

crg1 ≈ standard

3471 S’wounds]

1934a cam3

cam3

3471-81 Wilson (ed. 1934): “This speech clearly owes much to Florio’s Montaigne, I. ch.4: ‘How the soule dischargeth her passions upon false objects, when the true faile it’; e.g. ‘The philosopher Byon was very pleasant with the king, that for griefe tore his haire, when he said, ‘Doth this man thinke, that baldnesse will asswage his griefe? who hath not seene some to chew and swallow cards, and wel-nigh choake themselves with bales of dice, only to be revenged for the losse of some money?’ Xerxes whipped the Sea, and writ a cartell of defiance to the hill Athos.’”

1939 kit2

kit2

3471 S’wounds] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “See 2.2.603 (1616).

3471 S’wounds] Kittredge (ed. 1939, Glossary): “God’s wounds (an oath), zounds.”

3471 th’owt] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “thou’lt, thou wilt.”

3471 th’owt] Kittredge (ed. 1939, Glossary, thou’t): “thou wilt.”

1951 alex

alex ≈ standard

3471 S’wounds] Alexander (ed. 1951, Glossary, zounds)

1951 crg2

crg2=crg1

3471 S’wounds]

1954 sis

sis ≈ standard

3471 S’wounds] Sisson (ed. 1954, Glossary, zounds): ]

1974 evns1

evns1 ≈ standard

3471 th’owt]

1982 ard2

ard2

3471 th’owt] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “This form of contraction follows Q2 ((cf. [2H4 2.4.266-8])), though with thou’lt at [3480] Q2 itself, and therefore perhaps Shakespeare, is inconsistent.”

1984 chal

chal : kit2 3.2. //

3471 S’wounds

1985 cam4

cam4 ≈ standard

3471 th’owt]

1987 oxf4

oxf4 ≈ Cln1

3471 S’wounds

1992 fol2

fol2≈ standard

3471 th’owt]

1993 dent

dent ≈ standard+

3471 S’wounds