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Line 324 - 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.

324 Hiperion to a satire, so louing to my mother,	1.2.140

1747 warb

warb

324 Hiperion to a satire] Warburton (ed. 1747): “This similitude at first sight seems to be a little far-fetch’d; but it has an exquisite beauty. By the Satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers, and the allusion is to the contention between those two Gods for the preference in musick.”

1752 Dodd

Dodd

324 Hiperion] Dodd (1752, 1: 217): “Hyperion was a name of the sun; Hamlet, afterwards speaking of his father, says ‘See what a grace was seated on his brow, Hyperion’s curls [2440].’”

1765 john1

john1 = warb

324 Hiperion]

1773 v1773

v1773 = john1

324 Hiperion]

1778 v1778

v1778 = v1773 +

324 Hiperion to a satire] Steevens (ed. 1778): “All our English poets are guilty of the same false quantity, and call Hypron Hypron; at least the only instance I have met with to the contrary, is the old play of Fuimus Troes [1633, mistakenly 1603]: ‘—Blow gentle Africus, Play on our poops, when Hypron’s son Shall couch in West.’”

1785 v1785

v1785 ≈ v1778 [correction of date of Fuimus Troes, 1603 to 1633. ]

324 Hiperion to a satire]

1785 Mason

Mason: warb

324 Hiperion to a satire] Mason (1785, p. 374): “This comparison is neither so exquisitely beautiful, or so far fetched as Warburton supposes—Apollo is always represented as the most beautiful of those being who assume human form, and the satyrs as the most deformed: This was probably the only circumstance that Shakespeare had in contemplation, when he wrote these lines.”

1787 ann

ann ≈ v1785 + “Should couch in West.”]

324 Hiperion to a satire]

1790 mal

mal = v1785 minus warb; Mason without attribution; contra Steevens on accent + in magenta underlined

324 Hiperion to a satire] Malone (ed. 1790): Hyperion or Apollo is represented in all the ancient statues, &c. as exquisitely beautiful, the satyrs hideously ugly.—Shakspeare may surely be pardoned for not attending to the quantity of Latin names, here and in Cymbeline; when we find Henry Parrot, the authour of a collection of epigrams printed in 1613, to which a Latin preface, is prefixed, writing thus: ‘Posthúmus, not the last of many more, Asks why I write in such an idle vaine,’ &c. Laquei ridiculosi, or Springes for Woodcocks, 16mo. sign.c.3.”

1791- rann

rann ≈ warb without attribution; ≈ Dodd without attribution

324 Hiperion to a satire] Rann (ed. 1791-): “Apollo to Pan. Hyperion’s curls. [2440] Ham.”

Ed. note: rann in his cross reference to 2440 as usual identifies the speaker. The italics for the 1st 3 words indicate that the idea came from elsewhere, though he does not state where.

1793 v1793

v1793 = v1785, mal; v1793 ≈ Mason without attribution

324 Hiperion to a satire] Steevens (ed. 1793): “Shakspeare, I believe, has no allusion in the present instance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate opposite, the deformity of a Satyr.”

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1793

324 Hiperion to a satire]

1807 Pye

Pye

324 Hiperion] Pye (1807, p. 309) says that “proper quantity” appears not only “in the old tragedy of Fuimus Troes, but it occurs in [Mark] Akenside’s Hymn to the Naiads (1746): ‘—When the might Of Hyperion, from his noon-tide throne, &c.’”

1813 v1813

v1813 =v1803

324 Hiperion to a satire]

1819 cald1

cald1: standard + in magenta underlined

324 Hiperion] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “In this, as in almost every other character, represented as a model of beauty.

cald1: Farmer + in magenta underlined

324 Hiperion] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Dr. Farmer says that Spenser uses this word with the same error in quantity. The fact is, not only did our old poets disregard it, but the moderns also have in this instance made it altogether subservient to their convenience. Shakespeare accepts the same word Posthumus, differently in the same play, Cymbeline: and Mr. Mitford says, ‘That Spenser has Iole, Pylades, Caphareus, Roetean: Gascoygne in his Ultimum Vale: “Kind Erato and wanton Thalia.”

“‘Turberville, in his Ventrous Lover, St.1. “If so Leander durst from Abydon to Sest.”

“‘Lord Sterline in his Third Hour, St. 13, p. 50. “Then Pleiades, Arcturus, Orion, all.” and, p. 87, “Which carrying Orion safely on the shore.”

“‘And in Sir P. Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella instances “In cadence to the tunes, which Amphyon’s lyre did yield.”’ Gray’s Works, 4to. 1816. I.36.

“Gray has accented Hyperion, as our author, and most of our poets modern and antient, in his Hymn to Ignorance (Ib.I.163) and in his Progress of Poetry. ‘Hyperion’s march and glittering shafts of War.’ Though Drummond of Hawthornden, Wand. Muses, (Mitford, Ib.) and an old playwright in Fuimus Troes. 1633. (Dodsely’s Plays, VII. 500); and in modern times, West in his Pindar, O1. VIII. 22, p, 63, and Dr. Akenside in his Hymn to the Naiads, have done otherwise.”

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813 +

324 Hiperion to a satire] Malone (apud ed. 1821): “So, in Whitney’s Emblems, p. 14: ‘The wretched world, so false and full of crime, Did always move Heraclitus to weep.’ ”

Ed. note: Boswell adds to Malone’s note right after the ref. to Parrot

1826 sing1

sing1: cald1, Steevens v1778 + in magenta underlined

324 Hiperion] Singer (ed. 1826): “Hyperion, or Apollo, always represented as a model of beauty. Shakespeare has been followed by Gray in the accentuation of this name:—‘Hype ron’s march and glittering shafts of war.’ Sir William Alexander and Drummond have accented it correctly, Hypríon.”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1 minus a few lines it replaces + in magenta underlined

324 Hiperion to a satire] Caldecott (ed. 1832): “i.e. ‘beauty for deformity.’ Hyperion must here be taken for Apollo. though this word has frequently been confounded with the sun; as from its etymon and the consideration, that both have ever been represented as models of beauty, might well have been: but Hyperios is, though ‘sometyme putte for the Sunne, the brother of Saturne, which giverneth the course of the planettes; and therefore is named the father of the Soone, the Moone, and the morowe.’ Biblioth. Eliotœ. fo. 1559. Phœbus is also indifferently used for Apollo and the Sun; and Phœbus ortus are the rising of the ‘morrowe’ or morn. See Adam’s Geography, 8vo. 1797. p. 373.

[continues with Farmer, Turberville, Lord Sterline, Sydney, Gray, Drummond, Akenside but inserts after Gray:] “And as applicable also to the first part of our note Heywood’s Britaine’s Troy, Fo. 1638. p. 65. ‘Hyperon’s march and glittering shafts of War.’”

1833 valpy

valpy: standard

324 Hiperion] Valpy (ed. 1833): “Apollo.”

1839 knt1

knt1 ≈ cald2 (with illustrations)

324 Hiperion to a satire] Knight (ed. 1839): “The figures which we have selected from two paintings of antiquity. engraved in Landon’s ‘Peintres les plus Célebres,’ (Paris, 1813), happily illustrate the text. Warburton says, ‘By the satyr is meant Pan, as by Hyperion, Apollo. Pan and Apollo were brothers; and the allusion is to the contention between these gods for the preference in music.’ Steevens, on the other hand, believes that Shakspere ‘has no allusion in the present instance, except to the beauty of Apollo, and its immediate opposite, the deformity of a satyr.’ Farmer is careful to point out the error in quantity in Shakspere’s Hyperon; but he candidly admits that Spenser has committed the same error. Gray, whose scholarly would have commanded Farmer’s approbation, if he could not appreciate his poetry, has this line:— ‘Hyperon’s march and glittering shafts of war.’ The commentators have only found one solitary instance of Hyperon amongst the poets of the seventeenth century.”

1854 del2

del2 standard

324 Hiperion] Delius (ed. 1854): “Hypérion (mit dieser Betonung) als Sonnengott kommt öfter bei Sh. ver.” [Hypérion (with this stress) as Sun-god occurs often in Sh.]

1856 hud1

hud1 = sing1 1st sentence only without attribution

324 Hiperion] Hudson (ed. 1856): “Hyperion, or Apollo, always represented as a model of beauty.”

1856 sing2

sing2 = sing1

324 Hiperion]

1861 wh1

wh1: standard

324 Hiperion] White (ed. 1861): “i.e., Apollo to his brother Pan. The third, not the second, syllable of ‘Hyperion” is properly long; but to this pronunciation hardly any of the English poets have been conformed.”

1865 hal

hal = cald2 1st ¶ only.

324 Hiperion]

1868 c&mc

c&mc ≈ sing2 (or standard) without attribution

324 Hiperion] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868): “one of the names for Apollo, . . . a model of beauty.”

c&mc

324 to] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868): “In this passage ‘to’ has the elliptical force of ‘compared to.’”

1869 elze

elze

324 satire] Elze (ed. 1869, apud Furness, ed. 1887) “says he does not know what authority Warburton has for this relationship, which, moreover, cannot be referred to here because of the indefinite article, ‘a satyr.’”

1870 Abbott

Abbott

324 Hiperion] Abbott (§501): “The trimeter couplet. . . . Sometimes the first trimeter, like the ordinary five-accent verse, has an extra syllable. In the following examples the two verses are clearly distinct. They might almost be regarded as separate lines of three accents rather than as a couplet: ‘Hypér | ion tó | a sátyr. | So lóv | ing tó | my móther.’ [324]

1870 rug1

rug1 = warb on Apollo cp to Pan

324 Hiperion] Moberly (ed. 1870): “An Homeric name for Apollo.”

1872 hud2

hud2 = hud1 + in magenta underlined

324 Hiperion] Hudson (ed. 1872): “which literally means sublimity, was one of the names of Apollo, the most beautiful of all the gods, and much celebrated in classic poetry for his golden locks.”

1872 cln1

cln1: standard on accent, on identifcation of Hiperion without attribution, + multiple //s, xref

324 Hiperion] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Hyperion is frequently mentioned by Shakespeare with the accent always on the antepenultimate. See [H5, 4.1.275 (2125); Tro. 2.3. 197 (1404); Tim. 4.3. 184 (1804); Tit. 5.2. 56 (2342)] and [Ham. 3. 4. 56 (2440)]. Hyperion is by Shakespeare identified with the sun, as in Homer’s Odyssey, 1. 8. In Latin, of course, as in Greek, the penultimate is long.”

cln1

324 to a satire] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “compared to a satyr. So in [Cym. 3.3.26 (1582)], ‘No life to ours,’ and [Ham. 739 and 1704].”

1873 rug2

rug2 = rug1 +

324 Hiperion] Moberly (ed. 1873): “‘The former king is to the present one as Apollo to Pan or Marsyas.’”

1875 Marshall

Marshall

324-6 so louing . . . roughly] Marshall (1875, pp. 125-6): <p. 125>“There never was a more beautiful picture of conjugal tenderness than this. I would caution the actor here against showing any tenderness in his voice at the word ‘mother’; Hamlet so loathes the conduct of his mother, he is so overpowered by the disgust which her base treason to his father’s memory inspires in him that </p. 125><p. 126> he can hardly bear to mention her name.” </p. 126>

1877 v1877

v1877: Farmer, cald, Mitford (via cald), Gray, cln1, Abbott (§ 501)

324 Hiperion]

v1877: Mätzner, cln1

324 to a satire] Mätzner (2: 289, apud Furness, ed. 1887): “The comparison of one object with another becomes the relation thereto in a qualitative or quantitative regard. The object introduced by to forms the measure for the comparison.”

v1877: warb, wh, elze +

324 satire] Furness (ed. 1877): “Elze forgets that Pan, as well as Apollo, was said to be the son of Jupiter; but his objection on the score of the indefinite article is sound. Ed.[Furness]."

1880 meik

meik ≈ warb; cln1

324 Hiperion]

1881 hud3

hud3 = hud2

324 Hiperion]

hud3 ≈ Mätzner without attribution

324 to]

1929 trav

trav

324 to] Travers (ed. 1929): ”compared to.” Travers see the comparison as between the “sun-god, as in Homer’s Odyssey, and, thus, all radiant beauty” and “a satyr, who is half-goat and haunts the dark woods.”

trav

324 mother] Travers (ed. 1929): “Her conduct it is (not what Hamlet knows as yet of his father’s death and uncle’s accession) that has already poisoned his world.”

1939 kit2

kit2: standard gloss + observation and xref

624 Hiperion] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "the sun god, the most beautiful of the divinities. The manly beauty of the elder Hamlet is several times emphasized; as by Marcellus in [142, Maiesticall], by Horatio in [375, goodly King], and by Hamlet in his famous speech to his mother: note especially ’Hyperion’s curls’ [2440]."

1957 pel1

pel1: standard

324 Hiperion] Farnham (ed. 1957): “the sun god.”

1958 fol1

fol1: standard

324 Hiperion . . . satire] Wright & LaMar (ed. 1958): “the Greek god of the sun, of ideal manly beauty, was sometimes known as Hyperion. A satyr was a spirit, manlike in form, but with goatlike ears and tail.”

1970 pel2

pel2 = pel1

324 Hiperion] Farnham (ed. 1970): “the sun god”

1980 pen2

pen2

324 Hiperion to a satire] Spencer (ed. 1980): “Hamlet’s insistence (here and at 3.4.65-103) on Claudius’s unworthiness for the kingship is not corroborated by what Claudius does before the eyes of the audience, at any rate in the first half of the play. We are doubtless expected to feel that Hamlet is exaggerating Claudius’s incompetence, while we share his moral indignation at the homicide and incest.”

pen2

324 Hiperion] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(the sun-god). See also 3.4.57. From his scansion here and in other plays it is clear that Shakespeare thought the accent was on the second syllable. Owing to the influence of these two famous passages in Hamlet and to false analogy with such names as Tiberius and Valerious, the customary pronunciation has become ’high-peer-i-on’, and more ’correct’ pronunciations—’hipper-eye-on’ or ’highper-eye-on’—would be intolerable.”

pen2

324 satire] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(pronounced ’satter’). In classical mythology, a satyr had a goat’s legs, talk, ears, and budding horns, the rest of his form being human.”

1982 ard2

ard2: Belleforest

324 Hiperion to a satire] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “The contrast between the two brothers is repeatedly stressed by Belleforest along with the fact that the Queen has allied herself with the worse who has killed the better. See Intro., pp. 91-2. This becomes immensely more significant in Shakespeare: the antithesis here between the sun-god with his majestic beauty, and a creature half man half beast epitomizes in the two brothers the complex nature of man—a god and like a beast—which will be a theme of Hamlet’s later reflections (cf. 2.2.303; 4.4.33-9 CN, and 334 CN below). The imagery enables the basic situation of the play to appear as one in which the beast in man has destroyed the god and now reigns in his kingdom. See Intro., pp. 129-32. Even in this first soliloquy the contrast between the two brother-kings (cf. 336) is not less important, though less often emphasized, than the revelation of Hamlet’s state of mind and his attitude to his mother. Structurally the soliloquy effects a link between the presentation of one king in the preceding part of the scene and the description of the other in the dialogue which follows. The godlike attributes which Hamlet sees in his father are elaborated at 3.4.55-62, when the contrast is resumed. The idea of man as partaking of both god and beast which thus underlies the play is very much the Renaissance concept. No single illustration can suffice, but cf. Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate, and especially the opening pages: ’Neither heavenly nor earthly . . . thou canst grow downward into the lower natures which are brutes. Thou canst again grow upward from thy soul’s reason into the higher natures which divine.’ ’If you see anyone . . . delivered over to the senses, it is a brute not a man that you see. If you come upon a philosopher winnowing out all things by right reason, he is a heavenly not an earthly animal.’ ’We are made similar to brutes and mindless beasts of burden. But . . . as Asaph the prophet says, "Ye are gods, and sons of the most high." ’ (trans. C. G. Wallis, 1940, pp. 5-7).”

1985 cam4

cam4

324 satire] satyr Edwards (ed. 1985): "Grotesque creature, half-human but with the legs of a goat, attendant on Dionysus, and synonymous with lechery."

1987 oxf4

oxf4

324 Hiperion . . . satire] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "This phrase condenses into four words Hamlet’s attitude towards the two men. For him his father is man in his god-like aspect, radiant as the sun; whereas Claudius, the satyr, half man and half goat, is man at his worst, lustful and drunken, since satyrs were the companions of Bacchus. This is the only occurrence of satyr in Shakespeare."

1988 bev2

bev2: standard

324 Hiperion] Bevington (ed. 1988): “Titan sun-god, father of Helios.”

bev2: standard

324 satire] Bevington (ed. 1988): “a lecherous creature of classical mythology, half-human but with a goat’s legs, tail, ears, and horns.”

1992 fol2

fol2: standard

324 Hiperion to a satire] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “i.e., like the sun god as compared to a goatlike satyr”

2000 OED

OED

324 satire] OED has the spelling satiri and under satire sb 4 notes that the word satyr could be confused, perhaps, for a satirical person.

2003 Kliman

Kliman

324 Hiperion to a satire] Kliman (2003): Midas who decided that the satyr Pan was more talented than Apollo at their singing contest earned Ass’s ears, and Sh surely had read that because it enters MND. Cp. Hamlet’s non-rhyme in 2156. But by making it a satyr, Sh. gives the comparison even more point: the king is not even a specific god, Pan.

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: standard

324 Hiperion] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Greek god of the sun. Spencer [Edmund, The Faerie Queene notes resignedly that, because of the influence of this line and Hamlet’s later reference at [2440], the customary English pronunciation has become ’high-peer-i-on’ rather than the arguably more correct ’hipper-eye-on’ or ’highper-eye-on’.”

ard3q2: standard

324 satire] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “grotesque creature, half human and half goat. Satyrs were companions of Bacchus/Dionysus in classical mythology and hence associated with drunkenness and lechery.”