HW Home	Previous CN	View CN	View TNM	View TNI	Next CN

Line 389 - 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.

389 In the dead wast and middle of the night	1.2.198

1617 Minsheu

Minsheu

389 wast] Minsheu (apud Malone, ed. 1790): “Minsheu’s Dict. 1617: ‘Wast, middel, or girdle-steed.’”

1730 Bailey

Bailey

389 wast] Bailey (1730): Vast “large, huge, great, or spacious.” and Waste from Sax. belly “the middle of the body.” and “Waste, those Lands that are not in any Man’s possession, but lie in common.” Also, Waste means “spoil, havock, destroying.”

1773 v1773

v1773 Tmp. 1.2.327 (465)

389 wast] Steevens (ed. 1778, 1: 24 n. 3) re Tmp. 1.2.327 (465): “The vast of night means the night which is naturally empty and deserted, without action. It has a meaning like that of nox vasta.”

1778 v1778

v1778 Tmp. 1.2.327 (465) = v1773 + magenta underlined

389 wast] Steevens (ed. 1778, 1: 28 n. 3), re Tmp. 1.2.327 (465): “The vast of night means the night which is naturally empty and deserted, without action; or when all things lying in sleep and silence, makes the world appear one great uninhabited waste. So, in Hamlet; ‘In the dead waste and middle of the night.’ It has a meaning like that of nox vasta.

“Perhaps, however, it may be used with a signification somwhat different in, [Per. 3.1.1] 1609. ‘Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges.

“Vastum is likewise the ancient law term for waste uncultivated land; and, with this meaning, wast is used by Chapman in his Shadow of Night, 1594:

‘—When unlightsome, vast, and indigest,

‘The formeless matter of this world did lye.’ . . . Steevens.”

Ed. note: The note continues in 154.

1780 mals1

mals1 R3 without ref to Ham.

389 wast] Malone (1780, 1: 212 n. 40) on R3 1.4.39. (875)] “ . . . To seek the empty, vast, and wand’ring air.]] The Folio . . . instead of —to seek the empty &c. has—to find the empty &c. The quarto of 1613, evidently by a mistake of the compositor, reads: ‘To keep the empty &c. This line would, I thing [sic], be improved by a different punctuation: ‘To find the empty vast, and wanding air.’ To find the immense vacuity &c. Vast is used as a substantive, by our author, in other places. So, in [Per. 3.1.1]: ‘Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges—’ Again, in [WT 1.1.29 (31)]: ‘—they have seemed to be together though absent; shook hands over a vast—’ Malone.”

1783 mals2

mals2: v1778 Steevens’s Tmp. 1.2.327 (465) note +

389 wast] Malone (1783, p. 55) “The quarto, 1637, reads—vast, which, may be right. So, in [Tmp. 1.2.327 (465)] ‘ — urchins, Shall for that vast of night that they may work, All exercise on thee.’ The folio has not waste, but wast. Malone.”

1785 v1785

v1785 = mals2

389 wast]

v1785: Tmp 1.2.327 (465) = v1778 Tmp.

389 wast] Steevens (ed. 1785, 1:31 n.1): “The vast of night means the night which is naturally empty and deserted, without action; or when all things lying in sleep and silence, makes the world appear one great uninhabited waste. So, in Hamlet; ‘In the dead waste and middle of the night.’ It has a meaning like that of nox vasta.

“Perhaps, however, it may be used with a signification somwhat different, in [Per. 3.1.1] 1609. ‘Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges.

“Vastum is likewise the ancient law term for waste uncultivated land; and, with this meaning, wast is used by Chapman in his Shadow of Night, 1594:

‘—When unlightsome, vast, and indigest,

‘The formeless matter of this world did lye.’ . . . Steevens.”

1787 ann

ann = v1785

389 wast]

1790 mal

mal: analogues; Minsheu

389 wast] Malone (ed. 1790): “This strange phraseology seems to have been common in the time of Shakespeare. By waist is meant nothing more than middle; and hence the epithet dead did not appear incongruous to our poet. So in Marston’s Malcontent, 1604: ‘ ’Tis now about the immodest waist of night.’ i.e. midnight.

“Again, in The Puritan, a comedy, 1607: —‘ere the day be spent to the girdle,’ —.

“In the old copies the word is spelt wast, as it is in [1277]. ‘then you live about her wast, or in the middle of her favours.’ The same spelling is found in [Lr. 4.6.124 (2567)]: ‘Down from the wast, they are centaurs.’ See also Minsheu’s Dict. 1617: ‘Wast, middel, or girdle-steed.’ We have the same pleonasm in another line in this play: ‘And given my heart a working mute and dumb.’ All the modern editors read—In the dead waste, &c. Malone.”

1793 v1793

v1793 = mal +

389 wast] Steevens (ed. 1793): “Dead waste may be the true reading. See 3: 36 n. 4 [Tmp.] ”

v1793 3: 36 n. 4 , Tmp. 1.2.327 (465) = v1785 Tmp.

389 wast]

v1793 R3 1.4 “To seek the empty, vast, and wand’ring air” = mals1

389 wast] Malone (apud ed. 1793, 10:510 n. 3): “that is, to seek the immense vacuity. Vast is used by our authour as a substantive in other places. See [7:8 n.4] . . . Malone.”

v1793, 7:3 n.4, WT 1.1.29 (31), the xref from v1793 R3

389 wast] Steevens (ed. 1793, 7:8 n. 4): “Shook hands, as over a vast; and embraced. . . .]] Thus the folio 1623. The folio, 1632: —over a vast sea. I have since found that Sir T. Hanmer attempted the same correction; though I believe the old reading to be the true one. Vastum was the ancient term for waste uncultivated land. Over a vast, therefore, means at a great and vacant distance from each other. Vast, however, may be used for the sea, as in [Per. 3.1.1]: ‘Thou God of this great vast, rebuke the surges.’ Steevens.”

v1793 R3 1.4 Steevens’s note probably = mal or before.

389 wast] Steevens (ed. 1793, 10:510 n.3): “Vast, is waste, desolute—vastum per inane. Steevens.”

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1793

389 wast]

in v1803 the xref is to IV.p.39n4

1805 Seymour

Seymour

389 wast] Seymour (1805, 2:148): “The quarto of 1637 reads ‘vast,’ and that, perhaps, is right; but the folio has ‘wast,’ which appears more naturally, and with better sense, than ‘waist’ affords, to suggest ‘waste.’ Milton has an expression somewhat similar: ‘—The void profound of unessential night.’ Parad Lost.

“The ‘void’ is the ‘waste.’”

1813 v1813

v1813 =v1803

389 wast]

1819 cald1

cald1 = mal (analogues Malcontent, Puritan); = mal xref in Ham. without attribution +

389 wast] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “A quibble between waist, the middle of the body, and waste, vast or desolate; as one of the quartos reads.”

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813 except as usual v1821 provides the title and act. scene: Tmp. 1.2.

389 wast]

1825 European Magazine

Gunthio: John Payne Collier?: on Tmp. = v1821 without attribution; Q1 Ham., discovered in 1823

389 wast] Q1’s vast “(to my way of thinking at least,) ’tis not only beautifully expressive, but also perfectly Shakspearian. . . [quotes Tmp. 1.2.326]. The ’vast of night’ is what we familiarly term the dead of the night; of the two readings hitherto received, one (’the dead waist and middle of the night,’) is a vulgar pleonasm, and the other (’dead waste’) mere no-meaning.”

Ed. note: This assertion by Gunthio/Collier? is strengthened by his reference to the Perkins change to vast: see below, 1858

1826 sing1

sing1 ≈ v1813 Tmp. without attribution

389 wast] Singer (ed. 1826): “The first quarto, 1603, has: — ‘In the dead vast and middle of the night.’ I suffer the following note to stand as I had written it previous to the discovery of that copy.

“We have ‘that vast of night’ in [Tmp. 1.2. 327 (465)]. Shakspeare has been unjustly accused of intending a quibble here between waist and waste. There appears to me nothing incongruous in the expression; on the contrary, by ‘the dead waste and middle of the night,’ I think, we have a forcible image of the void stillness of midnight.”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

389 wast]

1832- mEliot

mEliot: sing2 w // in Tmp. where she has the following note:

389 wast] Eliot (ms. notes in 1832 ed, Tmp. 1.2.327 (465), p. 58.): “By vast of night the poet may have meant the chasm or vacuity of night. Some critics have proposed to read, [? ?] shall for that, fast of night.”

1839 knt1

knt1: Singer without attribution; Steevens

389 wast] Knight (ed. [1839]): “This is ordinarily printed ‘dead waist.’ The quarto of 1603, which was unknown to Steevens and Malone, reads ‘dead vast.’ In the Tempest we find ‘vast of night,’ which Steevens explains thus:—‘The vast of night, means the night which is naturally empty and deserted, without action; or, when all things lying in sleep and silence, makes the world appear one great uninhabited waste.’ ”

1843 col1

col1: Gunthio (himself?) knt1 without attribution

389 wast] Collier (ed. 1843), arguing for vast, says, “In the dead vast and middle of the night,]] This is the line as it stands in the quarto, 1603; and if that edition had afforded us no other correction of a misprint in the other quartos and folios, its high value would, we think, have been established. Hitherto, the reading has been, ‘In the dead waist and middle of the night;’ the word waist having been printed wast or waste in all the old copies subsequent to that of 1603. Few corruptions could be more easy than for the compositor to substitute w for v. The word ‘vast’ is here used in the same sense as in [Tmp. 1.2.327 (465)], ‘—urchins Shall, for that vast of night that they may work All exercise on thee.’ ‘Vast of night’ means the vacancy or voidof night; and in the line in our text, ‘the dead vast and middle of the night,’ is the silent vacancy of midnight. To take wast of the quarto, 1604, &c. in the sense of the waist, or middle of a person, is to impute mere tautology to Shakespeare, instead of the fine meaning derived from the supposition, that his reference is to the deserted emptiness and stillness of midnight. See also note 2 to [WT 3:430]. I may add, that I am entirely seconded by Mr. Amyot and Mr. Barron Field in this alteration.”

1844 verp

verp: standard +

389 wast] Verplanck (ed. 1844): “The folios, and some of the quartos, read wast; the first and one other quarto, vast [actually Q4, Q5, Q6, Q7, Q8, Q9, Q10]; either reading may stand as expressive of the same meaning: ‘the vacancy or void of night,’ the deserted emptiness and stillness of midnight; vast being taken in its primitive Latin sense for desolate, void; and waste, in the sense used by the translators of the Bible, —‘They that made the waste,’—‘the waste wilderness.’ To suppose that the poet meant waist, for middle, as several editors have maintained, and many print the text, seems ludicrously absurd.”

1854 del2

del2

389 wast] Delius (ed. 1854): “So oder eigentlich wast lesen Qs, und Fol., wofür die Herausgeber meistens waist emendiren. Sh. sagt in der ihm eigenthümlichen Anwendung der Copula ‘die todtenstille Oede und Mitte der Nacht’ für ‘die todtenstille Oede der Mitte der Nacht.’ Q. A. liest mit gleichem Sinne vast für waste.” [The 4tos and folio actually read wast, for which most editors emend waist. Sh. says in his unique use of grammatical linking the dead-still emptiness and middle of the night for the dead-still emptiness of the middle of the night. [Q1] reads in the same sense vast for waste.]

1856 hud1

hud1 standard: on Q1, //s from various others +

389 wast] Hudson (ed. 1856): “ . . . We have no doubt that vast is the right word. Of course it means void or vacancy. . . . H.”

1856 sing2

sing2 = sing1

389 wast]

-1857 mstau

mstau

389 wast] Staunton (ms. notes in Knight, ed. 1857): “About the waste or middle navell of the day. Taylor (W. P.)’s Merrie . . .Ferry voyage folio 1630.”

1858 col3

col3 = col1 minus last sentence +

389 wast] Collier (ed. 1858): “We ought to add that in the corr. fo. 1632 wast is altered to ‘vast’ [i.e. in the Perkins F2, Collier’s forgery.]”

1861 wh1

wh1: standard

389 wast] White (ed. 1861): “‘In the dead vast and middle of the night’: —Thus the 4to of 1603; the 4to of 1604, and subsequent old copies, ‘the dead wast,’ &c.; and perhaps we should read, ‘the dead waste.’ But in either case the sense would be the same—the dead void; and ‘vast’ seems to have been used substantively in this sense by Shakespeare, if not by his contemporaries. See ‘that vast of night,’ [Tmp. 1.2.327 (465)].”

1865 hal

hal = col1 minus last two sentences, from “See also” to end.

389 wast]

1866 dyce2

dyce2 = col1 minus everything from “Few corruptions” on +

389 wast] Dyce (ed. 1866): Collier “was not aware that the quarto of 1637 has ‘In the dead vast,’ &c.”

1868 c&mc

c&mc: standard w/ ref. to Q1, Tmp.

389 wast]

1870 rug1

rug1

389 wast] Moberly (ed. 1870): “Waste (which the folios read).”

1872 cln1

cln1 xref 81

389 dead]

cln1 to justify vast and its gloss; contra mal; contra cald on pun without attribution

389 Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “‘Vast’ here means emptiness, the time when no living thing is seen. Compare [Tmp. 1.2. 327 (465)]: ‘That vast of night.’ We have it also in the sense of an empty space in [WT 1. 1. 33 (31): ‘Shook hands as over a vast.’ ‘Wast,’ i. e. ‘waste,’ is in origin the same word as ‘vast’ and has the same sense. In [1277], the word ‘waist’ is spelt ‘wast’ in the quartos and ‘waste’ in the folios, and Malone, in the present passage so spells the word, quoting from Marston’s Malcontent, ii. 5 (1604), ‘waste of night.’ There is of course an easy pun on the two words, but it is not probably that Shakespeare meant to make one in this place.”

1872 hud2

hud2 ≈ hud1 (minus //s)

389 wast] Hudson (ed. 1872): “ . . . I have no doubt that vast is the right word. Of course It means void or vacancy.”

1877 v1877

v1877: mal; col; wh1; cln1

389 wast]

1877 col4

col4 = shortened col3 minus. ref. to F2.

389 wast]

1877 dyce3

dyce3 = dyce2

389 wast]

1880 meik

meik: //s w/o naming specific plays

389 dead]

meik

389 wast] Meikeljohn (ed. 1880): “used as a noun. . . . Vast and waste are two forms of the same word (from Lat. vastus).”

1881 hud3

hud3 = hud2 gloss; hud1 // Tmp. ; quotation from Tmp

389 wast]

1883 wh2

wh2 ≈ wh1

389 wast] White (ed. 1883): “vast; so the first quarto: possibly we should read waste (which has the same meaning), with the quarto of 1604.”

1885 macd

macd ≈ cald without attribution

389 dead wast] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Possibly, dead vast, as in the 1st Q; but waste as good, leaving also room to suppose a play in the word.”

macd

390 like your father] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Note the careful uncertainty.”

1885 mull

mull

389 wast] Mull (ed. 1885): “The change to ‘waste,’ which is made in some editions, is unadvisable. Milton uses the word, ‘Through the vast of heaven it sounds,’ which exactly corresponds to its use above.”

1888 macl

macl: contra cam1, v1877, knt ; ≈ mal without attribution

389 wast] Maclachlan (ed. 1888) objects to vast and wast “in the sense of emptiness” because mid-way between midnight and dawn is what is meant. Thus he calls upon a ship-metaphor, where the waist is the exact mid-point of a ship, a technical term made clear to an audience by the word middle. He connects waist with dead in 81.

1899 ard1

ard1= mal Marston analogue; standard // Tmp.; standard gloss

389 wast] Dowden (ed. 1899): “vacancy, void, emptiness.”

1934 Wilson

Wilson MSH

389 wast] Wilson (1934, p. 290): Either waste or vast would be appropriate to the context. But Malone’s waist is not justified: Marston Malcontent, which Malone cites as a parallel, is a jest, and perhaps a parody of Ham. 389 and 2259.

1939 kit2

kit2: standard VN, gloss, parallel Tmp.

389 wast] Kittredge (ed. 1939): Vast, the reading of the Firfst Quarto, is generally preferred by editors to wast (i.e., waste), the reading of the Second Quarto and the Folio. Waste describes the night as a great void, and suggests illimitable darkness. Vast expresses the second of these ideas cldearly and suggests the first. Cf. [Tmp. 1.2.327 (465)]: ’that vast of night.’ "

1947 cln2

cln2: standard

389 wast] Rylands (ed. 1947): "emptiness, waste."

1958 fol1

fol1: standard

389 dead wast] vastWright & LaMar (ed. 1958): “illimitable darkness.”

1978 The Library 5th s. 33.2 (June 1978): 83-107

Bowers

389 Bowers (1978, p. 107): “McKerrow and ‘Substantive Edition,’ ” says on p. 107 that “In practical terms [a bad Quarto] may preserve a few readings that have been mistaken in the good text (as is possible in the dead vast and middle of the night in Q1 Hamlet where Q2 and F1 read waste)” (105).

1980 pen2

pen2: Q1

389 dead wast] Spencer (ed. 1980): “desolate time (of night), as still as death. Q1 reads ’dead vast’, which many editors have found attractive.”

1982 ard2

ard2: v1877; cln1; ard1; kit2; Greg; Sisson; xref; //s, analogues; etc.

389 wast] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Furness, Clark and Wright (Camb.), Dowden, Kittredge are among editors who have adopted Q1’s vast, with the support of Tmp. 1.2.327, ’that vast of night’ (when spirits ’work’). But Greg (Principles of Emendation, p. 66) and Sisson (New Readings) find it unreasonable to depart from the more authoritative Q2 and F. Though wast would be an easy misreading of vast, it was a normal spelling of waste, the sense of which is reinforced by dead (cf. 81 CN); and the association with its homonym wast = waist may have suggested middle (cf. 1277). The hint of a pun is ’improved’ on by Marston, Malcontent, 2.5.91, ’ ’Tis now the immodest waste of night.’”

1985 cam4

cam4

389 wast] Edwards (ed. 1985): "Q2 and F read ’wast’; Q1 has ’vast’ and in view of The Tempest’s ’vast of night’ some editors (e.g. Dowden, Kittredge, Cambridge) adopt it. Malone reads ’waist’. The desolation of ’dead waste’ is surely what is required here, though the latest pun ’waist’ no doubt suggested ’middle’."

1987 oxf4

oxf4

389 dead wast] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "lifeless desolation. Waste often appears as wast, the spelling of Q2 and F, in Shakespeare, and invariably so in Romeo, Venus, and Lucrece. There is, therefore, no reason whatever to reject waste in favour of Q1’s vast, which, in any case, means much the same thing."

2005 Shakespeare. Journal of the British Shakespeare Association

Holderness

389-90 In the dead wast . . . incountred] Holderness (2005, p. 165): “The place where the ghost is to be ’encountered’ . . . is clearly defined as ’the dead waste and middle of the night.” This is where “the living beings who glimpse the darkness, the ’other night’, are seized immediately with the same impulse of self-annihilation and decomposition, ’distilled / Almost to jelly’ [TLN 395-6].”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: cam1, ard1, kit; ard2, oxf4, cam4 [see TN]

389 dead wast] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “lifeless desolation. The Q1 reading has been adopted by some editors (Cam, Dowden, Kittredge) in place of Q2 and F’s ’wast’; they usually cite Prospero’s reference to ’that vast of night’ (Tmp. 1.2.328 ) to support their case. Other editors who do not adopt ’vast’ feel obliged to discuss it (Jenkins, Edwards, Hibbard). As Edwards notes, the meaning is much the same (but waste allows a pun on ’waist’ = middle).”