Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 406 Ham. Did you not speake to it? | 1.2.214 |
|---|
1785 Leigh
Leigh
406 Leigh (1785, apud Hapgood, 1999, p. 13):
Drury’s great hero, —Kemble is his name!—
Appear’d, by Morpheus led, securing fame;
When on the stage, Hibernia’s sons wou’d weep,
Amazing pow’r! For here we go to sleep.
Sudden he starts! each feature turn’d awry,
The lips contracted, vacant is the eye;
The left hand without motion, wrist half bent,
The right slow moves, as if he something meant;
His head and hands affected airs display,
Then opes his mouth, says nothing—walks away!
Quickly returns—stops short—quite resolute—
Exclaims “Horatio did not YOU speak to’t?”
Where is the man—look round, and tell me where—
Who speaks with greater emphasis, not care?
If singularity was Briton’s choice,
In Kemble then must ev’ry heart rejoice;
But Pallas interfer’d, and gave the cue;
If macronic Hamlets, Richards e’re
Cou’d gain the throne, the standard then is there.
1789 Anon.
Anon: Kemble; Garrick
406 Anon. [Kemble?] (1789, pp. 9-12), <p. 9> prefers Kemble’s stress on
you to Garrick’s on
speak: “Horatio had been the constant companion of Hamlet from his early years; they had both ascended the steep and rugged oaths of leaning together; their friendship of course </p.9> <p.10> must have been approved of, and encouraged by the old King. Horatio was most probably admitted often into his presence, and conversed with him with the same degree of familiarity as the young Prince, received the benefit of his advice together with him, and owed him a thousand obligations. Marcellus had attended the old monarch in his wars as a common officer, had discharged his duty faithfully, and most likely met with the same rewards for his fidelity as his brother officer had done; but no intimacy, as we can discover, subsisted between them. It is not therefore improbable, in the highest degree, that Hamlet should address himself equally to those men, when he says, ‘Did you not speak to it?’ Is it therefore unreasonable to suppose, that Horatio would be more interested in the affair than Marcellus, and of course a properer person to address the spirit? Besides, the same awe and fear that </p. 10><p. 11> Marcellus must of course have felt in the presence of the King when living, would operate in the same degree towards his spirit, and that freedom of discourse which Horatio might constantly have enjoyed with him, and, in all probability, did enjoy, must necessarily point him out to young Hamlet as the fittest person of the two to address his father’s ghost. *
“After having given my opinion upon the question, I shall conclude with observing that I conceive Mr. Kemble to be in the right when he removes the emphasis from the word
speak, and place it on the word </p. 11><p. 12>
you; and that allowed, nothing can be more significant than his manner of addressing Horatio.” </p. 12>
<n*> <p.11> “* If the reader will take the trouble of perusing this scene in Hamlet attentively over, he will find, that what has been urged in defence of Mr. Kemble is much more strongly corroborated by the very words Shakespeare put into the mouth of Horatio. </p. 11> </n*>
1793 v1793
v1793: Fielding
406 Steevens (ed. 1793): “Fielding, who was well acquainted with vulgar superstitions, in his Tom Jones, B XI.ch.ii. observes that Mrs. Fitzpatrick, ‘like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to,’ but then very readily answered. It seems from this passage, as well as from others in books too mean to be formally quoted, that spectres were supposed to maintain an obdurate silence, till interrogated by the people to whom they appeared.
“The drift therefore of Hamlet’s question is, whether his father’s shade had been spoken to; and not whether Horatio, as a particular or privileged person, was the speaker to it. Horatio tells us he had seen the late king but once, and therefore cannot be imagined to have any particular interest with his apparition.
“The vulgar notion that a ghost could only be spoken to with propriety and effect by a scholar, agrees very well with the character of Marcellus, a common officer; but it would have disgraced the Prince of Denmark to have supposed the spectre would more readily comply with Horatio’s solicitation, merely because it was that of a man who had been studying at a university.
“We are at liberty to think the Ghost would have replied to Francisco, Bernardo, or Marcellus, had either of them ventured to question it. It was actually preparing to address Horatio, when the cock crew. The convenience of Shakspeare’s play, however, required that the phantom should continue dumb, till Hamlet could be introduced to hear what was to remain concealed in his own breast, or to be communicated by him to some intelligent friend, like Horatio, in whom he could implicitly confide.
“By what particular person therefore an apparition which exhibits only for the purpose of being urged to speak, was addressed, could be of no consequence.
“Be it remembered likewise, that the words are not as lately pronounced on the stage,—‘Did not you speak to it?’ —but—‘Did you not speak to it?’ How aukward [sic] will the innovated sense appear, if attempted to be produced from the passage as it really stands in the true copies! ‘Did you not speak to it?’ The emphasis, therefore, should most certainly rest on —speak. Steevens.”
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
406
1805 Seymour
Seymour ≈ v1793 without attribution
406 Seymour (1805, 2:149): “A modern actor of great merit, while he keeps caprice in the rear of good sense, endeavours, in this scene, to impress a meaning which I suppose could never have occurred to any body but himself—a distinction as to the persons he is addressing: ‘Did yóu not speak to it?’
“This conceit, no doubt, arises from a passage in Horatio’s description, where he says, of Marcellus and Bernardo, that they stood dumb; but it is a petty distinction, unworthy of the actor I allude to, and incompatible with the spirit of the scene, which prompts Hamlet to ask merely the question,—if they had not drawn the ghost into conversation? Hamlet did not care who it was that spoke; all he wanted was, that the ghost should have been spoken to. From this question, there is no inference that what had been said about the silence of Bernardo and Marcellus, was unattended to by Hamlet; his words, on the contrary, refer to that very remark; as if he had said, ‘What! and did ye not speak to it?
Chedworth: Seymour; Steevens; Hurd
406 Chedworth (
apud S
eymour, 1805, 2: 149-50): <p. 149> “This [presumably
Seymour’s] censure (in which Mr. Steevens also concurs) of the emphasis lately introduced in delivering this passage on the stage, is very justly called forth. The desire of novelty, and the affectation of superior acuteness, frequently betrays the actor alluded to into egregious errors.
“What Bishop Hurd says of writers, may (
mutatis mutandis) be applied to this actor’s performances. ‘When a writer, who (as we have seen) is driven by so many powerful motives to </p.149><p.150> the imitation of preceding models, revolts against them all, and determine, at any rate, to be original, nothing can be expected but an awkward straining in every thing; improper method, forced conceits, and affected expression, are the certain issue of such obstinacy: the business is to be unlike; and this he may very possibly be, but at the expence of graceful ease and true beauty for he puts himself at best, into a forced, unnatural state; and it is well if he be not forced, beside his purpose, to leave common sense, as well as good models, behind him, like one who would break loose form an impediment which holds him fast; the every endeavour to get clear throws him into uneasy attitudes and violent contortions; and if he gains his liberty at last, it is by an effort which carries him much further than the point he would wish to stop at.’
Discourse on Poetic Imitation, Hurd’s Horace, Vol. 3m P. 107, 4
th Ed. 1766.
“This gentleman’s first wish seems to have been to avoid the imputation of being the servile imitator of Mr. Garrick; but from all I have been able to learn of that great actor, whom I had not the felicity of seeing more than one, I am persuaded that ‘To copy nature, were to copy him.’ Lord Chedworth.” </p.150>
1807 Pye
Pye: v1793
406 Pye (1807, pp. 310-11): <p. 310> Mr. Steevens contends, and I think properly, for the emphasis being laid on
speak, but were it laid on
you it would not, as he contends, imply that Hamlet entertained the vulgar prejudice that a ghost would only answer a man of learning; but this would then be the force of the expression: I am not surprised that these ignorant soldiers should be afraid to speak to it, but I am that you who are more intelligent and more interested in the investigation of such an ex- </p.310) <p.311> traordinary appearance, should not have had the curiosity to do it.” </p.311>
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
406
1819 cald1
cald1
406 Did you not speake to it?] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “The drift of Hamlet’s question must be taken from his soliloquy; in which it appears, that he was full of distrust and evil prognostic.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
406
1825 European Magazine
"Gunthio" pseudonym = Collier? ; Kemble
406 you not speake] "Gunthio" (1825, p. 342): “A new reading, or new emphasis, introduced by Kemble, which has been the subject of much discussion, pro and con, is now proved to be incorrect, though he still deserves the praise of ingenuity for conceiving it. Horatio having described the first appearance of the Ghost to Marcellus and Bernardo, who ’stande dumbe and speake not to him’ [397] and added that he ’with them the third night kept the watch’ [399], Hamlet asks—’Did you not speak to it?’;
“Kemble, here, by laying a stress upon you, as it had been customary, directed the question especially to Horatio, which drew forth a long sneering note from Steevens [v1793], though, standing as Horatio’s reply does in the common text (’My lord, I did’ [407],) the innovation was at least plausible. The first edition, however, semsto support Steevens’s objection, for it reads, ’My lord, we did’ [Q1CLN 287]).”
Ed. note: At times Gunthio gives Q1 precedence, while elsewhere he considers it a faulty transcription. He does not weigh each variant separately.
1825 Boaden
Boaden: Kemble emphasis
406 Boaden (1825, 1: 96-7, apud Hapgood, p. 119 n. 214): Kemble asked Johnson whether he was wrong to stress you, ‘emphatically and tenderly’; Johnson responded, ‘“To be sure, sir,—you should be strongly marked. I told Garrick so, long since, but Davy never could see it.’”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1
406
1868 c&mc
c&mc: Steevens without attribution
406 Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “The belief was that spirits must be spoken to ere they would speak and unfold what they came to reveal.”
1877 v1877
v1877: Steevens
406
1899 ard1
ard1: standard; Steevens
406 Dowden (ed. 1899): “Actors commonly emphasiz ‘you’; Marcellus and Bernardo had been silent. Steevens argues for emphasis on ‘speak.’”
1982 ard2
ard2:
406 speake to it] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “ Cf. 1.1.38, 54, 58 and CNs ”
1995 Kliman
Kliman
406 Kliman (1995): Hamlet might question Marcellus though Horatio answers, in which case no word would be especially stressed. On the other hand, since Horatio has already said that Marcellus and Bernardo did not speak [397], Hamlet very likely means Horatio.
406