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Line 15 - 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.”

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Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman

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

15 Fran. Not a mouse stirring.	1.1.10

1744 Marquis d’Argens

d’Argens

15 mouse stirring] d’Argens (1744, letter 14, apud Michèle Willems) compares the vulgarity of Sh.’s image to Racine’s dignified way of evoking the silence of the night in his 1674 Iphigénie (1.1.9): ‘Mais tout dort, et l’armée, et le vent, et Neptune” [everything is asleep, the army, the wind and Neptune], a translation that does not do justice to the balanced rhythm of the alexandrine.

1761 Voltaire

Voltaire ≈ Voltaire 1733

15 mouse stirring] Voltaire (1761, in Besterman, p. 64, apud Michèle Willems) objects to the “guardroom language”; as early as 1733 (Letters, 125-6) he had deprecated Sh.’s mixed style as ill-fitting tragedy.

1764 Voltaire

Voltaire

15 mouse stirring] Voltaire (1764, in Besterman, pp. 87-8, apud Michèle Willems)

Ed. note: See essay by Willems in Global Shakespeare

1776 Letourneur

Letourner

15 Letourneur (ed. 1776, apud Michèle Willems) in his translation converts the mouse into an insect: “pas un insecte n’a remué.”

1776 Voltaire

Voltaire

15 mouse stirring] Voltaire (1776, in Besterman, p. 201, apud Michèle Willems)

1784 Davies

Davies: Voltaire +

15 mouse stirring] Davies (1784, pp. 6-7): <p. 6> “Voltaire, who, in examining the merit of our author’s plays, disdains the use of no unfair method to depreciate them, has ridiculed this passage of Hamlet, as if the mention of a mouse were beneath the dignity of tragedy. But could there be a properer mode of describing the solitariness which reigned in the place than, by saying, that every thing was so still, that the soft tread of a small reptile had not been heard? The insignificance of an object does by no means lessen the general idea. Have not the most celebrated antient dramatic writers admitted thoughts as low, and words more gross and offensive, into their best tragedies? How does the nice ear of a Frenchman relish the filthy plasters and nasty rags which Philoctetes applies to his sores? Yet Sophocles understood nature, and the laws of decorum, I presume, </p.6> <p.7> as perfectly as Voltaire. Tiresias’s description, in Antigone, of the ordure and filth of the ill-omened birds who had fed on the carcass of Polynices, would raise a nausea in the stomach of a delicate French critic! Men of solid judgement and true taste despise such refinement.” </p.7>

1818 Coleridge

Coleridge (London 1856)

15 Coleridge (1856 [1818], 148; apud Furness, ed. 1877): “The attention to minute sounds,—naturally associated with the recollection of minute objects, and the more familiar and trifling, the more impressive from the unusualness of their producing any impression at all,—gives a philosophic pertinency to this image; but it has likewise its dramatic use and purpose. For the commonness in ordinary conversation tends to produce the sense of realty, and at once hides the poet, and yet approximates the reader or spectator to that state in which the highest poetry will appear, and in its component parts, though not in the whole composition, really in the language of nature. If I should not speak it, I feel I should be thinking it;—the voice only is the poet’s,—the words are my own.”

1818 Coleridge

Coleridge

15 Coleridge (Lectures [1818] 5.2:138-9), speaking of the ghost watch in 1.4 says, <p.138>“ It has been with all of them as with Francesco or his Guard—they were alone, at deep night, in the depth and silence of the Night/twas bitter cold and they were sick at heart—and not a mouse stirring. The attention to minute sounds, naturally associated with the recollection of minute Objects, and the more familiar and trifling they become the more impressive from the usualness of their producing any impression, at all—give gives a philosophic pertinency to this last image/but it has likewise its dramatic use and purpose/ for its commonness could in ordinary conversation tends to produce the sense of reality, and at once precludes the hides the Poet and yet places approximates the Reader or Spectator </p.138><p.139> in to that state in which the highest poetry will appear, and in its component parts tho’ not in the whole composition really is, the language of Nature. If now If I should not speak it, I I feel that I should be thinking it—the voice only is the Poet’s, the words are my own—”. </p. 139>

1857 fieb

fieb

15 stirring] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “To stir, to move one’s self, to become the object of notice.”

1913 tut2

tut2

15 Goggin (ed. 1913): “the silence is intense.”

1987 oxf4

oxf4

15 Hibbard (ed. 1987): “proverbial (Dent M 1236.1).”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2 = oxf4 without attribution

15 Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006)