Line 804 - 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.
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Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 804 Mar. How {i’st} <ist’t> my noble Lord? {D4} | |
|---|
804 824 1736 Stubbs
Stubbs
804-78 How . . . Sweare]
Stubbs (1736, pp. 24-5) <p. 24> “The Sequel of this Scene by no Means answers the Dignity of what we have hitherto been treating of.
Hamlet’s Soliloquy, after the Ghost has disappeared is such as it should be. The impatience of
Horatio, &c. to know the Result of his Conference with the Phantom, and his putting them off from knowing it, with his Caution concerning his future Conduct, and his intreating them to be silent in Relation to this whole Affair; all this, I say, is natural and right; but his light and even ludicrous Expression s to them, his making them swear by his Sword, and shift their Ground, with the Ghost’s crying under the Stage, and
Hamlet’s Reflections there- </p. 24> <p. 25> upon, are all Circumstances certainly inferior to the preceding Part.
“But as we should be very cautious in finding Fault with Men of such an exalted Genius as our Author certainly was, lest we should blame them when in reality the Fault lies in out own slow Conception, we should well consider what would have been our Author’s View in such a Conduct. I must confess, I have turn’d this Matter on every Side, and all that can be said for it (as far as I am to penetrate) is, that he makes the Prince put on this Levity of Behaviour, that the Gentlemen who were with him, might not imagine that the Ghost had reveal’d some Matter of great Consequence to him, and that he might not therefore be suspected of any deep Designs. This appears plausible enough; but let it be as it will, the whole, I think, is too lightly managed, and such a Design as I have mention’d might, in my Opinion, have been answered by some other Method more correspondent to the Dignity and Majesty of the preceding Part of the Scene. I must observe once more, that the Prince’s Soliloquy is exquisitely beautiful.” </p. 25>
1773 gent1
gent1 note
824
804-24 How . . . pray] Gentleman (ed. 1773): “Hamlet’s dalliance with the natural, yet improper, curiosity of his friends, is well imagined: it varies action, and turns the main subject.”
1774 gent2
gent2 ≈ gent1 minus struck through
804-24 How . . . pray] Gentleman (ed. 1774): “Hamlet’s dalliance with the natural, yet improper, curiosity of his friends, is well imagined; it varies action, and turns the main subject.”
1813 Coleridge
Coleridge
804-77 Coleridge (Lectures on Shakespeare and Education, Lecture 3, rpt. in the
Bristol Gazette, 11 Nov. 1813; rpt.
Coleridge, 1987, 5.1:544-5):<p.544>“The Lecturer, in descending to particulars, took occasion to defend from the common charge of improbable eccentricity, the scene which follows
Hamlet’s interview with the Ghost. He showed that after the mind has been stretched beyond its usual pitch and tone, it must either sink into exhaustion and inanity, or seek relief by change. Persons conversant with deeds of cruelty contrive to escape from their conscience, by connecting something of the ludicrous with them: and by inventing grotesque terms: and a certain technical phraseology to disguise the horror of their practices.
“The terrible, however paradoxical it may appear, will be found to </p. 544><p. 545> touch on the verge of the ludicrous. Both arise from the perception of something out of the common nature of things: something out of place: if from this we can abstract danger, the uncommonness alone remains, and the sense of the ridiculous is excited. The close alliance of these opposites appears from the circumstance, that laughter is equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: in the same manner there are tears of joy, as well as tears of sorrow, so there is a laugh of terror, as well as a laugh of merriment. These complex causes will naturally have produced in Hamlet the disposition to escape from his own feelings of the overwhelming and supernatural by a wild transition to the ludicrous: a sort of cunning bravado, bordering on the flights of delirium.”</p. 545>
1819 cald1
cald1 n
848 ≈ Stubbs without attribution
804-78 How . . . Sweare] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “This conduct (referring to 847) of Hamlet at such a moment has been thought by some to have been unwarrantable, far too trifling and ludicrous, and ill corresponding with nature or the decorum of dramatic character. To us, on the contrary, it seems to be a very natural process, that a mind, labouring under the impression of the importance of an awful secret in so awful a manner disclosed, of the ‘bloody instructions’ accompanying it, and the necessity of preventing any part of the transaction from transpiring, should, upon the first opportunity given him to reflect, use a forced gaiety, and assume an air of levity and carriage most opposite and foreign to his real feeling, for the purpose of inducing a belief in others, that nothing of deep interest or much more than ordinary concern had occurred.
“Secresy was indispensably necessary to the success of his purposes: and there is scarce any thing more remarkable in the conduct of this play than the eagerness and repetition with which the Ghost enforces this necessity, and the obligation of such an oath. An assumed air of gaiety and hilarity was, by its tendency to quiet suspicion, the best course to attain this end.”
BWK: On the contrary, Hamlet’s manic behavior seems so strange that the men cannot help but wonder at it; thus, it attracts more notice than a more serious demeanor would. Part of the issue is that Hamlet cannot lie.
1832 cald2
cald2
804-78 How . . . Sweare]
1856 hud1
hud1: Coleridge
804-77 Hudson (ed. 1856): “This part of the scene after Hamlet’s interview with the Ghost has been charged with an improbable eccentricity. But the truth is, that after the mind has been stretched beyond its usual pitch and tone, it must either sink into exhaustion and inanity, or seek relief by change. It is thus well known, that persons conversant in deeds of cruelty contrive to escape from conscience by connecting something of the ludicrous with them, and by inventing grotesque terms and a certain technical phraseology to disguise the horror of their practices. Indeed, paradoxical as it may appear, the terrible by a law of the human mind always touches on the verge of the ludicrous. Both arise from the perception of something out of the common order of things,—something, in fact, out of its place; and if from this we can abstract the danger, the uncommonness alone will remain, and the sense of the ridiculous be excited. The close alliance of these opposites—they are not contraries—appears from the circumstance, that laughter is equally the expression of extreme anguish and horror as of joy: as there are tears of sorrow and tears of joy, so there is a laugh of terror and a laugh of merriment. These complex causes will naturally have produced in Hamlet the disposition to escape from his own feelings of the overwhelming and supernatural by a wild transition to the ludicrous—a sort of cunning bravado, bordering on the flights of delirium.—Coleridge. H.”
1879 Clarke & Clarke
Clarke & Clarke: standard
804-77 Clarke & Clarke (1879, p. 514): “Excellently does the immethodical phraseology in this speech help to depict the tumult of the speaker’s mind at the present juncture; partly occupied with awe inspired by the recent appearance of his father’s spirit, partly with the conception of his plan for the future in assuming madness.”
1885 macd
macd n
806 ≈ cald without attribution
804-77 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Here comes the test of the actor’s possible [sic]: here Hamlet himself begins to act, and will at once assume a rôle, ere yet he well knows what it must be. One thing only is clear to him—that the communication of the Ghost is not a thing to be shared—that he must keep it with all his power of secrecy: the honour both of father and of mother is at stake. In order to do so, he must begin by putting on himself a cloak of darkness, and hiding his feelings—first of all the present agitation which threatens to overpower him. His immediate impulse or instinctive motion is to force an air, and throw a veil of grimmest humour over the occurrence. The agitation of the horror at his heart, ever working and constantly repressed, shows through the veil, and gives an excited uncertainty to his words, and a wild vacillation to his manner and behaviour.”
1954 Walker
Walker
804 i’st] Walker (StB 7 (1955): 11): “In Hamlet Q2, for instance nearly all of the erroneous apostrophes occur in the work of one compositor and we cannot therefore suppose that these apostrophes were a feature of Roberts’s manuscript. The same holds for the frequency with which erroneous apostrophe occur in the work of Jaggard B.”
1997 Eric Rasmussen
Rasmussen: contra Walker
804 i’st] Rasmussen (private communication, e-mail 10 June 1997): “Alice Walker’s assertion about apostrophes in Q2 is simply wrong. The contraction "ist" only occurs 16 times in Q2. It is spelled "i’st" several times by compositor X, but the anomalous apostrophe appears in compositor Y’s pages as well (2890 and 3210). In fact, Y uses "i’st" more than "ist." X uses "i’st" at 804, but so what? He also uses "i’st" at 835, 2497, 3526, 3571, but he uses "ist" at 95, 223, 554, 617, 3610+17, 3672, and 3782. There is no evidence that either compositor necessarily preferred "ist" to "i’st" (or vice versa) nor that the apostrophe can confidently be ascribed to a compositor rather than to his copy.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: standard
804 How is’t] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “How is it (with you), i.e. are you all right?”