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.

1872 cln1

cln1

3516-17 making . . . vnfold] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Compare [MV 3.3.10 (1695-6)]: ‘So fond To come abroad.’ And [Mac. 2.3.55 (797)]: ‘I’ll make so bold to call.’ This omission of ‘as’ is frequently found in similar passages.”

1874 Tyler

Tyler

3512-51 Vp . . . ordinant] Tyler(1874, p. 24): <p. 24> “Except at the time predestined for action, an invisible restraint keeps back Hamlet’s hand. When this restraint is removed there is no lack of decision. He can then suddenly leave his cabin the dark, with his ‘sea-gown scarf’d about him;’ can seize the ‘grand commission’ of Rosencrantz and Guyildenstern, and can at once devise and substitute a new commission, ordering the sudden death of the bearers, ‘not shriving time allowed.’ But there had been previously in his heart ‘a kind of fighting which would not let him sleep;’ and to the enterprise ‘was heaven ordinant’∗ [3521].”

<n>∗“The Quarto (1604) has ‘ordinant,’ the Folio ‘ordinate.’”</p. 24>

1877 v1877

v1877 : cln1 w/o attribution (Mac. 2.3.47 //)

3516-17 so bold . . . to vnfold] Furness (ed. 1877) : “See [Mac. 2.3.47 (797); 3.1.87-8 (1077); and Abbott, §281.”

1877 Gervinus

Gervinus

3512ff Gervinus (1877, pp. 578-9): <p. 578>“He [Hamlet] is brought to England by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They carry with them a Urias-letter for his death, but they know it not. The open, upright Hamlet opens this letter, writes with feigned hand (an art he had practised in his youth) their names instead of his own, and thus these, the friends of the youth to whom, acccording to his mother’s evidence, he adhered more than to any other, fell into the same pit which was dug for Hamlet, but not by them. They ‘go to’t?’ asks his Horatio in reproachful surprise. But he lightly disregards this emotion of conscience; to dig a mine and pre-</p. 578> <p 579>pare a trip suit his nature better than the direct open deed; his ever ingenious head had alone to act here; to plant a countermine is to hima s easy as a clever idea; he rejoices inconsiderably and maliciously in these arts, praises himself for the quickness of his thought and the rapidity of its accomplishment, and sophistically sees God’s help in the prosperous success—he who would not see the many distinct intimations which pointed out to him his duty of revenge! thus then at last he himself reaches the same point of malice and cunning as his uncle, whose misdeeds he was called upon to revenge.” </p. 579>

1890 irv2

irv2

3512ff`Marshall (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890, p. 21) : <p. 21>“[Hamlet] loses no time, according to the account he gives Horatio, in securing himself against the treachery of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and providing, most cleverly, for their substitution in his place as victims of the king’s treachery. When the pirates take posession of the ship, instead of philosophizing in the background, Hamlet is in the very front of the action, and so is taken prisoner. When Horatio tells him that the king must soon learn from england the trick that has been played him, Hamlet’s answer is, ‘The interval is mine.’ In fact, from being a man of mere words, he has now become a man of action. No doubt Shakespeare was indebted more or less to the old history of Hamlet, whether in the form of ap lay or in that of a story, for the incidents in the latter part of his own tragedy; but still we are justified in supposing that he adopted those incidents deliberately; for the design of the play shows far too much thought and care to admit of the theory that the character of Hamlet was not presented to his mind as a consistent whole, consistent in its very inconsistencies. It is true that Hamlet allows an interval, as it were, to take place in the fencing bout with Laertes; and that he treats Claudius, both in the hypocritical letter he sends him after being set on shore by the pirates, and throughout what may be called the prologue to the fencing scene, with an almost exaggerated courtesy. His innate aversion to open violence, which, as shown by his conduct to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, has been overcome so far that he does not mind shedding human blood by proxy, might have caused him still to delay his vengeance against his father’s murderer, had not the treachery practised towards himself driven him into sudden action.

“As to the objections which are so freely advanced against the slaughter-house aspect of the stage at the end of the play, I cannot but think that they are somewhat superficial; for surely the many deaths which are the result, partly of the crime of Claudius and Gertrude, and partly of Hamlet’s own irresolution, point sternly and appropriately the moral of the tragedy. Had Hamlet proceeded directly to the task imposed on him by his father’s spirit, many of th elived forfeited would have been spared, and he himself might have succeeded to the throne of Denmark; but is is the very essence of crimes, such as are portrayed in this play, that their consequences are far-reaching, and involve the lives of the innocent, as well as those of the guilty.” </p. 21>