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Line 319 - 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.

319 Fie on’t, {ah fie,} <Oh fie, fie,> tis an vnweeded garden	1.2.135

1843 col1

col1

319 ah fie] Collier (ed. 1843): “The folio, 1623, to the injury of the metre, and in opposition to the quartos, reads, ‘Fie on’t! O fie, fie!’”

1853 col3

col3 = col1

319 ah fie] Collier (ed. 1843): “The folio, 1623, to the injury of the metre, and in opposition to the quartos, reads, ‘Fie on’t! O fie, fie!’”

1861 wh1

wh1 ≈ col3

319 ah fie] White (ed. 1861): The folio has “a corruption by repetition notably recurrent in that text of the tragedy.”

1869 elze

elze

319 ah fie] Elze (ed. 1869, apud Furness, ed. 1877): “In F1 the emphatic iteration of exclamations is very frequent, and is probably due to the pathos of the actors.”

1874 Corson

Corson: F1, cam1 +

319 ah] Corson (1874, p. 10): “‘ah,’ doesn’t express the feeling of the speaker so well.”

Corson: F1, cam1 +

319 garden] Corson (1874, p. 10): “There should be no comma after ‘garden,’ as the relative clause is not used simply as an additional characterization of an unweeded garden, but as an inseparable part of the whole characterization,—an important distinction that should be made in pointing.”

1875 Marshall

Marshall

319 Fie on’t, ah fie] Marshall (1875, p. 125): “The exclamation [quotes Q2] has been variously interpreted. Edmund Kean applied them to the conduct of Gertrude; but they seem more naturally to be directed against the world. The actor might rise here from his seat . . . . ”

1877 v1877

v1877 = elze, Corson

319 ah fie]

v1877 = Corson

319 garden]

1879 Blackwood’s

Anon

319 ah fie] Anon. (1879, p. 469)<p. 469> “He is dragged in the train of the pageant, witnessing his mother’s re-enthronement, looking on at all the endearments of her monstrous bridehood, sick with disgust and misery, unable to turn his back upon it all, or save himself from the dishonour that invades his own veins from hers. “Fie on’t! O fie!’ he cries, with a loathing which involves all the world, and even himself, in its sick horror.” His mother’s remarriage so quickly is something that cannot be revenged. Further discoveries merely compound, do not supersede this first calamity. “The worst that can happen has happened . . . . The murder is brought into the foreground, arresting the attention of the spectator, holding the chief place for a time, then utterly disappearing during the last act as if it had not been—because it is, in fact, not the central strain of the drama at all, but only a tremendous complication giving life and temporary vigour to the </p. 469><p. 470> hero’s terrible illumination and despair.” </p.470>

1880 Tanger

Tanger

319 Fie on’t, ah fie] Tanger (1880, p. 122): re F1 variant: “what seems to be owing to an interpolation of some Actor; metre destroyed.”

1904 Bradley

Bradley

319-20 tis an unweeded . . . grose in nature] Bradley (1904; rpt. 2007, p. 87, n. 20) observes that the metaphor here also occurs in his adjuration to his mother [“And do not spread . . . ranker,” 2534-5]

1925 Farjeon

Farjeon: John Barrymore

319 Fie on’t] Farjeon (1925, rpt. 1949, p. 146): Hamlet’s brain was a lightning brain, an intensely emotional brain, a brain that leapt in the dark and suffered sudden revulsions, a fevered brain that drove him to cry (and not to ponder) ‘Fie on’t’ and ‘Pah!’ and ‘Foh!’ and ‘Ha!’ and ‘O God, O God!’

1929 trav

trav

319 Fie] Travers (ed. 1929): “expressing intense moral disgust, indistinguishable from physical.”

1939 kit2

kit2: analogue

319 vnweeded garden] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "Cf. Rowlands, Hell’s Broke Loose, 1605 (Hunterian Club, ed. p. 3): ’In this vn-weeded Garden of the World.’ "

1950 Tilley

Tilley

319-21 Tilley (1950, W 241): “Weeds come forth on the fattest soil if it is untilled [. . . ] 1600 Bodenham Belvedere, p. 221: As vntill’d fields bring forth nothing but weeds, So vntaught youth yeelds all but vanitie.”

1960 Knights

Knights: Kitto

319 vnweeded] Knights (1960, pp. 32-3) <p. 32> quotes Kitto (pp. 327-8), who says that the weeds have choked both Ophelia and Hamlet. The latter fell victim to the power of evil because he could not act appropriately. </p. 32> <p. 33> Kitto believes that Sh. wrote not to create a character but to place that character in a matrix of evil that brings him and seven others down. Kitto likens Ham. to Greek drama, where “‘evil, once started on its course, will so work as to attack and overthrow impartially the good and the bad . . . .’” </p.33>

Knights: Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (A.D. 524) as a source

319 Knights (1960, p. 36) A possible source for the play that is not mentioned in Bullough is Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy (A.D. 524). Chaucer translated it; also Q. Elizabeth I. “At the heart of it is the perception that man’s essential nature cannot be satisfied by anything less than that goodness which is the desired health of the soul: being, the blessedness of virtue, and happiness are one and the same.” </p. 36> <p. 37> But, says Knights. this is too philosophical and abstract for the character in the play. Sh.’s task seems to be to create a feeling character, rather than an abstraction. </p. 37>

1980 pen2

pen2

320 rancke] Spencer (ed. 1980): “coarsely luxuriant.”

1982 ard2

ard2: kit2

319 an vnweeded garden] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Kittredge notes the echo in Rowlands, Hell’s Broke Loose (1605), ’this unweeded garden of the world.’ ”

1987 oxf4

oxf4: Tilley W241

319-21 tis . . . meerely] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "For Shakespeare, as for his age in general, the properly tended garden was an image of the world as it should be, ordered, productive, wholesome. By the time he wrote Hamlet, he had already painted to memorable pictures of the uncared-for garden: in [R2 3.4.42-7], and in [H5 5.2.38-55]. These vivid descriptions bring out the commonplace nature of the proverbial saying, ‘Weeds come forth on the fattest soil if it is untilled’ (Tilley W241)."

1987 Mercer

Mercer

319 vnweeded garden . . . meerely] Mercer (1987, p. 148): “The image of the unweeded garden is sliding into horrible imaginings of the bed of lust.”

1992 Adelman

Adelman

319-30 tis an vnweeded garden . . . think on’t] Adelman (1992, p. 20, quoted by Griffith, 2005, p. 78): “This image of parental love is so satisfying to Hamlet in part because it seems to enfold his mother safely within his father’s protective embrace: by protecting her from the winds of heaven, he simultaneously protects against her, limiting and controlling her dangerous appetite. But as soon as that appetite has been invoked, it destabilizes the image of paternal control, returning Hamlet to the fact of his father’s loss: for Gertrude’s appetite is always inherently frightening, always potentially out of control as the image of the unweeded garden itself implied, it has always required a weeder to manage its over-luxuriant growth, The existence of Gertrude’s appetite itself threatens the image of the father’s godlike control; and in his absence, Gertrude’s appetite rages, revealing what had been its potential for voraciousness all along.”

1995 Kliman

Kliman

319 Fie on’t] Kliman (1995): Hamlet’s fie echoes Claudius’s fie in 283 (the two lines could be less than a minute apart). Hamlet might say it sarcastically, to recall and echo Claudius. The same might be said for “cannon” seven lines apart [309 316].

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2

319 Fie] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “a strong exclamation of shock, reproach, disgust”

ard3q2: Dent; //s

319-21 tis . . . meerely] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Dent cites ’Weeds come forth on the fattest soil if it is untilled’ as proverbial (W241). For other examples of the neglected garden as a metaphor for social disorder, see R2 3.4.29-47 and H5 5.2.31-67.”