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Line 55 - 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 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman

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

55 Bar. Lookes {a} <it> not like the King? marke it Horatio.	1.1.43

1819 cald1

cald1

55 Caldecott (ed. 1819): “After this speech [54], in the quarto of 1611 (enlarged to almost as much again as the original copy) followed that of Horatio: ‘Most like: it horrowes me with feare and wonder’ [56]. And this appears to us to be the true and better reading. It is natural, that the surprise and terror of the speaker should bear some proportion to the degree of his former confidence and incredulity: and the art and address of our poet is shewn by making Horatio’s answer (a reply not to the last speech and request made, but an observation upon an observation of a preceding speaker) expressive of that alarm in which he was absorbed.

“But, for the purpose, it is presumed, of making this answer more obviously intelligble, our Player Editors, or the taste of the age twelve years afterwards, interposed the speech of Bernardo’s: ‘Looks it not like the king? mark it, Horatio.’”

Ed. note: Caldecott had only Q3 [1611]; Q1 was not discovered until 1823, first facsimile produced in 1825.

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1 + // after absorbed

55 Caldecott (ed. 1832): “and in the same way in [JC 1.3.137 (582)]. does Cinna, the conspirator, by passing over the only question asked and eagerly advertising to matter of more immediate interest, disclose the agitation and fever in his mind.”

1870 Abbott

Abbott

55 a] Abbott (§ 402): “Ellipsis of Nominative explained. This ellipsis of the nominative may perhaps be explained partly (1) by the lingering sense of inflections, which of themselves are sometimes sufficient to indicate the person of the pronoun understood . . .; partly (2) by the influence of Latinl partly (3) by the rapidity of the Elizabethan pronunciation, which frequently changed ‘he’ into ‘’a’ (a change also common in E. E.), and prepared the way for dropping ‘he’ altogether.”

Abbott

55 Horatio] Abbott (§ 469): “ . . .polysyllabic names often receive but one accent at the end of the line in pronunciation. Proper names, not conveying, as other nouns do, the origin and reason of their formation, are of course peculiarly liable to be modified; and this modification will generally shorten rather than lengthen the name.”

1870 rug1

rug1 ≈ cald

55 Moberly (ed. 1870): “This line is not improbably an interpolation. It does not appear in the three quarto copies published between 1611 and Shakspere’s death in 1616, and, as Mr. Caldecott remarks, Horatio’s sudden terror is well expressed by a disjointed exclamation.”

1874 Schmidt

Schmidt

55 a] Schmidt (1874): “A, a mutilation of the pronoun he, not only in the language of common people [cites instances] but of well-bred persons [cites many instances].”

1880 Tanger

Tanger

55 a] Tanger (1880, p. 121): ascribes the variant in F1 as “probably due to the critical revision which the text received at the hands of H.C. [Heminge & Condell], when it was being woven together from the parts of the actors.”

1889 Century online http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/

Century

55 a] Century (1889): “a6 [[ E. dial. <ME. dial. a, corruptly for he, he, heo, she, he, it, heo, hi, they.]] An old (and modern provincial) corruption of all genders and both numbers of the third personal pronoun, he, she, it, they. [. . . ].”

1891 dtn1

dtn1

55 the King] Deighton (ed. 1891): “the dead king, Hamlet’s father.”

1918 Wilson

Wilson

55 a] Wilson ( “Shakespeare’s Versification and the Early Texts.” TLS 1 July 1918,p. 313) believes Sh. wrote more contracted forms than the compositors set. He can’t imagine a compositor changing an uncontracted form to a contracted one. Thus, along with others, he believes a stood for he in Sh.’s mss.

1934 Wilson

Wilson MSH

55 a] Wilson (1934, pp. 230-1) < p. 230> finds thirty-seven examples of a for he in Q2, all of which </p. 230> <p. 231> F1 has in a more formal form. More in Q2 than in any other quarto, but Wilson believes this is Sh.’s. </p. 231>

1934 cam3

cam3

55 a] Wilson (ed. 1934) xref to MSH 230-1.

1938 parc

parc: Wilson +

55 a] Parrott & Craig (ed. 1938) point out that Wilson counts 37 instances of a for he or it in Q2. They note only one instance of a for he in F1, at 3367 (Clown).

1982 ard2

ard2

55 a] Jenkins (ed. 1982): a colloquialism for he. He states that he and it are used when the ghost is thought of as respectively Hamlet’s father or an apparition, but then admits there is no consistent pattern.

1985 cam4

cam4 = Wilson on Sh.’s ms. without attribution + in magenta underlined

55 a] Edwards (ed. 1985): “This representation of an informal slurred pronunciation [. . . ] of the pronoun, presumed to derive from Shakespeare’s MS [. . . ].” F1’s it is a gain in consistency “since everyone refers to the apparition as ‘it.’”

1999 Kliman

Kliman

55 a] Kliman (1999): Since a in Q2 usually correlates to he in F1, he may be what Q2 means here, in contrast to the neuter it. Some eds. selectively use the a form of he, for example, by Polonius in 951 but not by Horatio in 375.

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: standard gloss + Hope (2003)

55 a] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “he. A colloquial form in Middle English, especially in the south and west of England, which occurs frequently in Q2 but only once in F. Hope (1.3.2c) notes that Shakespeare’s linguistic roots in this dialect make him one of the final citations for the usage in OED, but that the form is ’highly unstable textually,’ and liable to be changed to ’he’ by scribes and compositors. ”

ard3q2

55 marke it] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “observe it closely”