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Line 3529, etc. - 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. 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.

Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

3529 Hora. I beseech you.	5.2.28

3530 Ham. Being thus benetted round with villaines, 3530

1743 mF3

mF3

3530 benetted] Anon. (ms. notes in F3, 1734) : “benet A.S. caught in a net—entangled—Or besetted. Or benihted, in the dark. This last sutes with what Hamlet said before, ‘Up from my Cabin My Sea gown scarft about me in the dark Gropd I to find them out.—’”

1774 capn

capn

3530-1 Being . . . Brains] Capell (1774:1:1:147) : ) The correction in this line was pointed out by the metre; the word correcting is figurative, and the most common of all metonymies,--the thing for the person. By another metonymy--of the cause for the effect, the word ‘brains ,’ [3531] in the next line, is put for — ‘the performance, the counterplot, which was to be the product of Hamlet’s brain: The sense therefore is; Before I could take the very first step towards forming my own scheme, they had already proceeded a considerable way in the execution of theirs. This first step, which is here called the prologue , was Hamlet’s getting the commission into his power, in order to discover the depth of the contrivance against him, and thereby to disappoint it.” Reuisal. “Or” is us’d for — ere, or, or ere , as was common in Shakespeare’s time. [TLN? ≈ The changes in the opposite page, are in the four latter moderns. [POPE, THEOBALD, WARBURTON, HANMER]

1808 Richardson

Richardson

3530-48 Richarson (1808, pp. 57-8): <p. 57> “In a similar situation [the slaying of Polonius], when he had no leisure nor inclination to weigh </p. 57> <p. 58> and examine appearances, he wrote the death-warrant of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. [cites 3530-48]

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had been employed as spies upon Hamlet: under the disguise of friendship for him, they had accepted of this infamous office; they were in some measure accessory to his intended assassination: ‘thy made love to this employment; ‘ [3560] and therefore, as the defeat grew from their own insinuation,’ [3561-2] ‘there was no occasion why it should sit near to Hamlet’s conscience.’ [3561] If leisure had been given him to reflect, perhaps he would not have sacrificed them; but having done the deed, he does not charge himself with deliberate guilt. He does not contend that his conduct was entirely blameless; he only tells us, ‘They are not near my conscience.’” </p. 58>

1848 Strachey

Strachey

3530-8 Strachey (1848, pp. 92): <p. 92>“On reading the commission, he finds the danger so imminent, that the instinct of self- preservation, and not any of his elaborate mental processes, dictates what is to be done, and makes him do it forthwith:—’Being thus benetted round with villains, Ere I could make a prologue to my brains, They had begun the play: I sat me down; Devised a new commission, &c.’ The important consequences of his courage in boarding the pirate on the instant of grappling, which at once freed him from the chance of his courtier-gaolers discovering his counterplot, and brought him back in time to forestall the king’s knowledge of it, throw still farther light on the importance of promptness in action, while they encourage him to try again a weapon he has already found himself so well able to wield, though he had so often shrunk from handling it.”</p. 92>

1857 elze1

elze1

3530 villaines] Elze (ed. 1857, 250): <p. 250>"[villains]so lesen die Drucke; mehrere Herausgg. haben dem Verse zu Liebe geändert: with villainy, oder ’villaines’." [so read the prints; more editions have altered the verse to read, ’with villainy’ or ’villaines.’]

1860 Walker

Walker

3530 villaines] Walker (1860, 2: 45): <p. 45>“ . . . and so in [Ham. 5.2.? (0000)],—[cites 3530] the folio, and (teste Var.) the quarto also, have villaines, which Knight (nimius solii sectator) has thought worth restoring. 26

<n>26 “Mr. Knight is not the only recent editor who has restored this corruption—ed. [Lettsom?].” </n></p. 45>

1864-68 c&mc

c&mc : cap

3530 villaines] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1864-68, rpt. 1874-78): “The old copies print ‘villaines’ for ‘villainies.’ Capell’s correction.

1869 stratmann

stratmann

3530 villaines] Stratmann (ed. 1869): “Capell and Singer print ‘villainies’.”

[Ed:A clear sign of Stratmann’s use of SING1; SING2 reads with CALD2 ‘villains.’]

1872 del4

del4 : capn

3530-1 Being . . . Brains]Delius (ed. 1872): “villainies verbesserte Capell das villaines der alten Ausgg.” [“Capell improves the villaines of the old editions [with] villainies.”]

1872 cln1

cln1 : standard VN

3530 villaines] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “villanies]] So the quartos, with various spelling. The folios ‘villaines,’ or ‘villains.’”

1875 Marshall

Marshall

3530-58 Marshall (1875, pp. 66-67): <p. 66> “The language of Hamlet indicates great excitement, and, as I have said before, it is characterised by a childish exultation in the success of his strategy. That he should have thus craftily obtained, at the same time, such strong proofs of the King’s treachery, and so ready a means of avenging himself on the two time-serving courtiers who had been so faith- </p. 66> <p. 67>less to their professed friendship for him, seems to have produced no other impression on his mind than one of delighted self-satisfaction; no gratitude to Providence for his almost miraculous escape from so imminent a danger finds a place in his heart; and we feel almost disgusted for the moment at what strikes us, at first sight, as a mixture of malice and vanity.” </p. 67>

1877 v1877

v1877 : Walker

3530 villaines] Furness (ed. 1877): “For other instances of the confusion of villaine and villainie in the Folio, See Walker (Crit. ii, 44).”

1881 hud2

hud2 : CAP

3530 villaines] Hudson (ed. 1881): “villainies]] The old copies have villaines. Corrected by Capell.”

1885 macd

macd

3530 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—the nearest, Rosincrance and Guildensterne: Hamlet was quite satisfied of their villainy.”

1889 ard1

Ard1 ≈ v1877 w/o attribution

3530 villaines]

1980 pen2

pen2

3530 benetted] Spencer (ed. 1980): “ensnared.”

1985 cam4

cam4 ≈ standard

3530 benetted]

cam4 ≈

3530 villaines] Edwards (ed. 1985): “Both F and Q2 agree in reading ‘villains’ and that is presumably what stood in Shakespeare’s MS. But this leaves the line metrically lame, and the abstract is so much more apt here than the concrete that it is usually assumed that ‘villainies’ was what Shakespeare meant to write.”

1987 oxf4

oxf4 : OED : Abbott ; see n. 2217-8

3530 Hibbard (ed. 1987): “hemmed in by. The metaphor is from hunting deer and the like by driving them into nets; see note to 3.2.329 [2217-8]. For with meaning by see OED with prep. 40a and Abbott 193.”

1993 dent

dent ≈ standard

3530 benetted]

dent

3530 villaines] Andrews (ed. 1993): “Most editors emend to villainies. But Hamlet seems to be thinking primarily of the enemies arrayed against him at this moment: the two agents he assumes to be privy to the King’s intentions, Rosencrans and Guildenstern.”