3569 Popp’d . . . hopes] Delius (ed. 1854) : “Der König ist zwischen die neue Königswahl und die darauf gerichteten Hoffnungen Hamlet’s unversehens eingesprungen und hat somit letztere verhindert, ihr Ziel zu erreichen.” [The king has sprung up suddenly between the new election and Hamlet’s legal hope and has thus hindered the latter, to achieve his target.]

3569 Popp’d . . . hopes]

3568 He . . . King] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Note ‘my king,’ not my father: he had to avenge a crime against the state, the country, himself as a subject—not merely a private wrong.”

3569 Popp’d] Travers (ed. 1929): “onomatopceically familiar and contemptuous for ‘suddenly came in,’ burst in with a sound of pop, as it were.”

3569 election] Craig (ed. 1931): “The Danish throne was filled by election.”

3569 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Cf. note 3.4.99-101[2478-80]. For ‘election’ v. 5.2.353-54 [3836-45] and Introd. pp. liii-liv.”

3569 Wilson (2nd ed. 1954, pp. liii-liv): <p. liii>“We need not go further back than Dr. Johnson to enquire. Like other eighteenth-century critics, he always calls Claudius ‘the Usurper.’ In other words, Hamlet was thought of as the rightful heir to the throne who had been robbed of his inheritance by an uncle whom he himself describes as ‘a cutpurse of the empire.’ . . . he is not unmindful of the crown; and, far more important, Claudius is not unmindful either. In short, Hamlet’s ambitious designs, or rather what his uncle takes to be such, form a very significant element in the relations between the two men right through the play. . . . </p. liii> <p. liv)

“I shall be told that had Shakespeare intended all this he would have made it plainer. The argument really cuts the other way. That Shakespeare did intend it is proved by Hamlet’s two references to his loss of the crown: the one I have just referred to at 3.4.99[2478], and the words ‘Popped in between th’ election and my hopes,’ spoken to Horatio in the last scene. And the fact that these references occur so late in the play proves that Shakespeeare did not need to make it plainer, that he knew his audience would assume the situation from the start. The events and speeches of the first half of the second scene of the play could leave no doubt in the minds of spectators at the Globe, as they clearly left no doubt in those of most eighteenth-century readers. The dejected air of the crown prince, the contrast between his black doublet and the bright costumes of the rest, his strange and (as it would seem) sulky conduct towards his uncle, above all the hypocritical and ingratiating address of the uncle to him, bore only one possible interpretation—usurpation; and that Hamlet never mentions the subject in his first soliloquy but reveals a far more horrible wrong must have seemed to the original audience one of the most effective dramatic strokes of the play.

“But I shall be told further that Denmark was an elective monarchy, as Hamlet’s own words testify, and that, though disappointed perhaps, he had no legal clase against Claudius. This objection offers a pretty illustration of the dangers of the ‘historical’ method, that is of explaining situations in Shakespeare by reference to his hypothetical sources. I say ‘hypothetical’ because there </p. liv) <p. lv) is no question of an elective monarchy in Saxo and Belleforest, who tell us that Amleth’s father and uncle were governors or earls of Jutland appointed by the King of Denmark. Possibly it was Kyd who enlarged the scene to include the whøle kingdom and possibly he made a point of the elective character of the Danish monarchy in his lost Hamlet.1 But had Shakespeare intended himself to make use of this constitutional idea, we can be certain not only that he would have said more about it, but that he must have said it much earlier in the play. He could assume the audience would realise the fact of usurpation without any underlining on his part, because such realisation merely meant interpreting the Danish constitution in English terms. But it is absurd to suppose that he wished his spectators to imagine quite a different constitution from the familiar to themselves, when he makes no reference to it until the very last scene. My own belief is that in putting the term ‘election’ into Hamlet’s mouth, he was quite unconscious that it denoted any procedure different from that which determined the succession in England. After all, was not the monarchy of Elizabeth and James an ‘elective’ one? The latter like Claudius owed his throne to the deliberate choice of the Council, while the Council saw to it that he had the ‘dying voice’ of Elizabeth, as Fortinbras has that of Hamlet.2 In any event, we can be certain that few if any spectators and readers of Hamlet at the beginning of the seventeenth century gave even a passing </p. lv> <lvi>thought to the constitutional practises of Denmark. And if after the accession of the Scottish King James and his Danish consort, Queen Anne, Shakespeare’s audience came to include a few ‘judicious’ countiers more knowing than the rest, what then? The election in Denmark was in practice limited to members of the royal house; in other words, the choice lay between Hamlet and his uncle. In the eyes of such spectators, therefore, Hamlet’s disappointment would seem just as keen and his ambitious designs just as natural as if the succession had followed the principle of primogeniture. However it be looked at, an elective throne in Shakespeare’s Denmark is a critical mare’s nest.∗

<n><p. lv>“1“There are indications that at some period the Hamlet play was handled by a dramatist who knew more about Denmark than Shakespeare appears to have done; cf. Notes, Names of the Characters and G. ‘Dansker.’”</p. lv> </n>

<n><p. lv>“ 2v. note 52.354 below. Steevens first pointed out that the throne of Denmark was elective; Blackstone corroborated with all the weight of his legal authority, and since he oped his lips not a dog among the critics has dared to bark. v. Boswell’s Malone: Hamlet, pp. 199-200.” </p. lv> </n>

3569 Pop’t] Kittredge (ed. 1936): “Contemptuously familar language. Compare what Hamlet says of the King’s ‘stealing the diadem from a shelf and putting it in his pocket’ [3.4.100-01 (2478-80)].

3569 election] Kittredge (ed. 1936): “See [3.4.99 (2478)] and note.”

3569 election] Parrott (ed. 1938): “the Danish monarchy was elective and Claudius had been elected instead of Hamlet.”

3569 election]

3569 election]

3569 election]

3569 election]

3568 whor’d] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “See [1.5.42ff, 3.4.42-8] and nn [notes].”

3569 Jenkins (ed. 1982): “There was no suggestion in [1.2] of any such ‘hopes’ or of any discreditable manœuvre on the part of Claudius. But is now allowed to appear that he had anticipated the normal process of ‘election’ and so come ‘between’ Hamlet’s hopes and their fulfilment. See [1.2.1 LN [Longer Notes], 3.4.99n].”

3569 election]

3569 Pop’t in] Edwards (ed. 1985): “This is meant to be contemptuous, but probably not as comic as we now feel it to be. ‘pushed in’ might be our equivalent. For Hamlet’s accusation, compare 3.4.99-101.”

3569 election]

3569 election]

3569 Pop’t in]