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Line 129 - 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.

129 Speake to me, if there be any good thing to be done	1.1.130

1870 Abbott

Abbott

129 Speake] See n. 3-4

1877 v1877

v1877

129 Speake] Furness (ed. 1877): See n. 3-4

1878 rlf1

rlf1 ≈ Simrock apud Tsch in 130 without attribution

129 if . . . done] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “Alluding to the idea that a ghost may be ‘laid’ when a living person does for him what he himself ought to have done when alive.”

1880 meik

meik ≈ Abbott § 512 without attribution

129 Speake to me] Meikeljohn (ed. 1880): “The importance of this adjuration demands a line for itself. The pause, which the emotion necessitates and the physical need of taking breath compels, fills up the full measure of the line, and represents the missing part. For a number of short lines motivated by the same feelings, see Hamlet’s speech at the end of [2.2].”

Ed. note: Without the stop after me the line could be read as “Speak to me IF there is any good thing to be done” and thus the ghost is silent, because there is no good thing to be done. Q1, with Speake to mee transp. after 130 has that sense.

1891 dtn

dtn

129-30 Deighton (ed. 1891): “if your appearance here means that there is any good deed to be done whereby you will be relieved, and which it will be to my credit to do.”

dtn = tsch; + // 1 H4

130 grace] Deighton (ed. 1891): “cp. [1 H4 2.1.70 (706)], ‘which for sport sake are content to do the profession some grace.’

1903 rlf3

rlf3 = rlf1

129 if . . . done]

1929 trav

trav

130 Speake to me] Travers (ed. 1929): “The solemnity of the appeal, or charge rather, makes the three words fully equivalent, in effect, to a whole ordinary line. Cp. [132], just two intensely pathetic syllables; also, e. g. [141].”

1931 crg1

crg1: standard

129-36 Speake . . . it] Craig (ed. 1931): “Horatio recites the traditional reasons why ghost might walk.”

1952 har

har

129-35 Harrison (ed. 1952) believes that Horatio was about to ask a fourth question, which would have been about the manner of the apparition’s death. Harrison infers this fourth question because, he says, there were four reasons for ghosts to walk. Horatio has a chance to ask about only three when the cock crows and prevents him from asking the fourth. The three others are “to reveal a secret,” to warn, to disclose hidden treasure

1980 pen2

pen2 ≈ har

129-36 Spencer (ed. 1980) notes that in listing the traditional reasons for spirits appearing, Horatio does not reach the last one, revenge for murder.

1982 ard2

ard2: Browne; Marlowe; Dekker, Paracelsus

129-35 Jenkins (ed. 1982): The ghost later mentions his suffering, his lack of ease, corresponding to Hor.’s 1st question; the 2nd question concerns the prior discussion about the state; the 3rd question concerns treasure. All are well-recognized reasons for ghost’s walking. “Sir T. Browne believed ‘that those many prodigies and ominous prognostics, which forerun the ruins of states, princes and private persons are the charitable premonitions of good angels’ (Religio Medici).” Horatio, if he is at one with Browne, “suggests only benign purposes for the Ghost, which he seems now to accept as the spirit of the dead King; but that he knows ghosts may have evil purposes and be devils in disguises he shows in [1.4].” Marlowe in Jew has an analogue about ghosts and treasure. Dekker, New from Hell, also refers to ghost’s who for their soul’s sake should reveal buried treasure. “Paracelsus, however, explains such a ghost as not a soul but a sidereal spirit which survives the body for a time and which, retaining the thoughts and heart of the dead man, is constantly seen at the place of the treasure because his mind was concentrated on it during life (Hermetic and Alchemical Writings, trans. Waite, 2: 303).”

2010 Pequigney

Pequigney

129-36 Speake to me . . . stay and speake] Pequigney (2010, personal communication): “The ’scholar’ Horatio, while imploring the apparition to ’Speak to me,’ posits three reasons—the first two moral, the third ethically ambiguous—that are commonly thought to explain why a ghost returns from the dead: it may return to do ’some good thing,’ or because ’privy to [its] country’s fate,’ which it might ameliorate, or on account of a buried treasure that it had extorted when alive.

The first two of these purposes clearly foreshadow the mission to be revealed by the spirit of King Hamlet; the pertinence of the third-mentioned purpose is more indefinite. The ’good thing to be done’ is to satisfy justice with the punishment of fratricide. It is ’privy to [its] country’s fate,’ not with respect to the pending war with Norway that Horatio has in mind, but privy to the dire fate the country is already suffering: a regicidal monarch and the ’royal bed of Denmark’ now unacceptably ’A couch for luxury and damned incest’ (767-8).

The hoard that a ghost might hide and then return to retrieve is problematic. Guilty of extortion (134), does it return with the good intention of making restitution? Some commentators think so, but that intent is not made explicit in the text. Horatio seems a bit doubtful about this piece of ghost lore when he qualifies it with the phrase ’they say’ (F1 encloses line 135 in parentheses). However, the Dane’s Ghost will, in a feasible analogy, unearth a secret crime: one not of theft (the hidden treasure) but of murder, and one committed not by King Hamlet but against him.”