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.

1773 gent2

gent2

364 I came] Gentleman (ed. 1774): “As we find by the beginning of this scene, that Horatio has not paid his respects to the prince before, ’tis odd he should not have done it.... ”

1982 ard2

ard2: ver

364 Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Verity contrasts Laertes’s reference on the ’coronation’, 234. Quite apart from whether or not Horatio belonged to the court circle, about which the play seems curiously undecided . . . . Shakespeare here ignores the fact that if he has been a month and more in Denmark, Hamlet would have been likely to know of his presence.”

1985 cam4

cam4

364 Edwards (ed. 1985): "How have Hamlet and Horatio contrived to avoid meeting each other in a small court during the last few weeks? Horatio’s part is full of inconsistencies: he serves the role which the moment demands. Though he has been absent at Wittenberg, he is able to inform the Danish soldiers about what is happening in their own country in the first scene. Yet in [3413] he has to be told who Laertes is! See note to [375] below."

1985 Waith

Waith

364 funerall] In lines that Waith (TNK ed. 1985, p. 62) believes are by Sh., Theseus calls for a speedy funeral: “A day or two Let us look sadly, and give grace unto The funeral of Arcite, in whose end The visages of bridegrooms we’ll put on And smile with Palamon . . . ” (5. 6.124-8).

1997 Woodward

Woodward

364 funerall] Woodward (1997, pp. 68, 77, 148-51, 155-6) <p. 148> reports on the speed with which preparations were carried out for the funeral of Prince Henry Stuart, who died on 11 Nov. 1612; </p. 148><p. 149> . By 23 Nov. the court was in mourning. The body lay in state for one month. The funeral procession was on 7 Dec. about 2000 marched </p. 149> <p. 150>

An unusual feature was an effigy of the prince because effigies were normally reserved for monarchs. The chariot on which the coffin rested was especially commissioned. </p. 150><p. 151> The coffin remained on view after the funeral until 19 Dec. 1612 when the coffin was interred. The hearse was possibly by Inigo Jones.

The funeral procession for the eighteen-year-old prince was as elaborate as a monarch’s, and was replicated at the Universities and at Bristol [demonstrating that a funeral spectacle could be separated from the body]. </p. 151>

<p. 68> Mary, Queen of Scots, executed in 1587, had three funerals over the next 25 years. </p. 68> [That could certainly have been in Sh’s mind.] <p. 77> For political reasons the first funeral in England for Mary Queen of Scots took place five months after her death. </p. 77>

<p. 155> Woodward says that some scholars believe that “Shakespeare and Fletcher are arguably exploring the implication of </p. 155><p. 156> Prince Henry’s death in Two Noble Kinsmen, first performed in 1613 or early 1614, where the demise of Arcite thrown from his horse demonstrates how perilous chivalric values are in the face of time and chance.n. 46” </p. 156>

<n. 46> Woodward has a note to Gene Waith’s ed. of TNK and to Mulryne, J. R. “Here’s Unfortunate Revels . . .” in War, Literature, and the Arts in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Ed. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring. Bastingstoke: Macmillan, 1989. See p. 184. </n. 46>

Ed. note: With elaborate funerals in mind, Shakespeare may have intended an audience to realize that it could be some time after the death of a monarch or other important person for the funeral ceremonies to occur. Thus Horatio may have arrived less than a month before this conversation. Still, there has to be elapsed time, by any figuring, between the funeral and the wedding (less than a month Hamlet says in TLN 331).

Woodward pts out that funerals have political purposes. Thus it was impolitic for Claudius to inter Polonius quickly, in hugger-mugger, before Laertes could arrive.

However, the speedy stage funeral of Arcite argues for a convention of a short elapsed time for a fictitious funeral.