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Line 683 - 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.

683 Ghost. Marke me.	1.5.2

1736 Stubbs

Stubbs

683 Marke me.] Stubbs (1736, p. 23): “The Reader of himself must easily see why the Spectre would not speak to the Prince, but a-part from those who were with him. For it was not a Secret of a Nature fit to be divulg’d.”

1770 Gentleman

Gentleman

683-776 Gentleman (1770, 1: 18): “a narration of a very affecting nature is delivered by the Ghost, in language worthy that inimitable author, who created character s from the force of imagination, and, from the same inexhaustible source, furnished a peculiar mode of expression for each.”

1839 knt1

knt1

683-776 Marke . . . . me] Knight (ed. 1839, 1:170): “and when the revelation comes, who could have managed it like Shakspere! The images are of this world, and are not of this world. They belong at once to popular superstitions, and to the highest poetry, Nothing can be more distinct than the narrative of the vision; nothing more mysterious than the ‘eternal blazon’ that ‘must not be to ears of flesh and blood.’ How exquisite are the last lines of the ghost;—full of the poetry of external nature, and of the depth of human affections, as if the spirit that had for so short a time been cut off from life, to know the secrets of the ‘prison-house,’ still clung to the earthly remembrance of the beautiful and the tender that even a spirit might indulge: [quotes 774-6].”

1982 ard2

ard2: xref; analogue

683 Ghost ] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Only now, alone with Hamlet and in response to his questioning, does the Ghost speak for the first time. Cf. 59, 67, 170 and CN. For the voice associated with ghosts, see 124+9 and CN. the pre-Shakespearean Hamlet was said by Lodge to have ’cried . . . miserably . . . like an oyster-wife’. The ’whining ghost’ of the popular stage, ’screaming like a pig half-stick’d’, was mocked in A Warning for Fair Women (1599), Induction.”

1987 oxf4

oxf4

683 Hibbard (ed. 1987): "having remained silent through two previous scenes, the Ghost speaks at last, taking complete control of the situation. Wielding the threefold authority of supernatural being, king, and father, he very appropriately begins with a command."

1992 fol2

fol2

683 Marke me] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “pay attention to me”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2 = fol2 without attribution

683 Marke me] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “pay attention to me”

2007 Wilson

Wilson: Hawke; Derrideans

683 Marke me] Wilson (2007, pp. 228-9): <p.228> "Taking a cue from </p. 228> <p. 229> Hawke’s perception in his famed essay ’Telmah’ that reprise, back-tracking, ’running events over out of their time-sequence,’ is a fundamental aspect of Hamlet [Hawkes, Rag, 96], Derrideans read the chiasmic reversals of this play as in fact a deconstruction of the illusion of laying things to rest; an anamnesis effected in letters, like Hamlet’s notification of his return to Denmark [3054-7]; the ’letter-bomb’ Rosencrantz and Guildenstern carry to their doom [3548]; or the messages of the Ghost [683] which eerily cross the bourn from which no traveler supposedly returns [1734]." [See Russell Samolsky Angles on Derrida: Jacques Derrida and Anglophone Literature: Oxford Literary Review. 25 (2004); also Margaret Ferguson, "Hamlet: Letters and Spirits" in Parker and Hartman. pp. 292-309, esp. p. 300.] </p. 229>"