Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 846-7 Ham. {Ha,} <Ah> ha, boy, say’st thou so, art thou there {trupenny} <true- |penny>? | |
|---|
804 846 847 859 2498
1604 Marston
Marston
846-7 trupenny] Marston (The Malcontent,1st ed., 1604, 3:3 apud Ingleby et al. 1932, 1: 129 and 129n): “[Enter Mendoza; Malevole addresses him]. Illo, ho, ho, ho! arte there, old true-peny? Where hast thou spent thy selfe this morning? I see flattery in thine eyes and damnation i’ thy soule. Ha ye huge Rascal!”
“[This and other similar quotations show the fame and and reputation of Shakespeare, being popularly known lines quoted or imitated for the puyrpose of causing a good-humoured laugh at the mis-appropriation. B. N.]”
1684 Southerne
Southern
846-7 trupenny] Southern (1684, apud Shakspere Allusion-Book 2: 302): One of several uses of the word that the editors of the Shakspere Allusion-Book think may derive from Ham. including Nashe, 1589; and Return from Parnassus, 1606. See 2:302 notes.
1746 Upton
Upton
846-7 trupenny]
Upton (1746, pp. 9-10) comments in a footnote: <n><p.9>“ In Hamlet Act. I [846-7] there is an allusion, still more distant, to the
Vice; which will not be obvious at first, and therefore is to be introduced with a short explanation. This buffoon character was used to make fun with the Devil; and he had several trite expressions, as,
I’ll be with you trice;
Ah, ha, boy, are you there, &c. And this was a great entertainment to the audience, to see their old enemy so belabour’d in effigy. In [
H5 4.4.70 (2449)] a boy characterizing Pistol says,
Bardolph and Nim had ten times more valour, than this roaring Devil i’
th’
old play; every one may pare his nails with a wooden dagger. Now Hamlet, having been instructed by his father’s ghost, is resolved to break the subject of the discourse to none but Horatio; and to all others his intention is to appear as a sort of madman; </p. 9><p.10> when therefore the oath of secrecy is given to the centinels, and the Ghost unseen calls out
swear; Hamlet speaks to it as the
Vice does to the Devil.
Ah, ha boy, sayst thou so? Art thou there, trupenny? Hamlet had a mind that the centinels should imagine this was a shape that the Devil had put on; and in Act III. [1638-9] he is somewhat of this opinion himself,
The Spirit that I have seen May be the Devil. This manner of speech therefore to the Devil was what all the audience were well acquainted with; and it takes off in some measure from the horror of the scene. Perhaps too the poet was willing to inculcate, that good humour is the best weapon to deal with the Devil,
Trupenny is either by way of irony, or literally from the Greek [GREEK],
veterator. Which word the Scholiast on Aristophanes Clouds v. 447 explains [GREEK].”</p.10</n>
1748 Upton2
Upton2 = Upton1 +
846-7 trupenny]
Upton (1748, pp. 396-7), re
R3:
Thus like the formal vice, Iniquity: <p.396>“Several have tried to find a derivation of
the Vice: if I should not hit on the right, I should only err with others.
The Vice is either a quality personalized, as
bih and
KARTOE in Hesiod and AEscylus;
Sin and
Death in Milton; and indeed
Vice itself is a person, [
P.L. 11.517]: ‘And took
his image whom they serv’d, a brutish
Vice.’ </p. 396><p. 397>
his image, i.e. a brutish Vice’s
image: the
Vice, Gluttony; not without some allusion to the
Vice of the plays.
Or Vice may be in the abstract, as in Martial, ‘Non Vitiosus homo es, Zoile, sed Vitium. But rather, I think, ’tis an abbreviation of
Vice-Devil, as vice-roy, vice-doge, &c. and therefore properly called
the Vice. He makes very free with his master, like most other Vice-roys, or prime ministers. So that he is the Devil’s
Vice, and prime minister; and ’tis this that makes him so sawcy.
” </p.397 >
1773- mstv1
mstv1: Upton
846-7 trupenny] Steevens (1773-): “Mr Upton thinks that here is a distant allusion to ye Vice, a droll character in our old plays. See his Dissertation, Vol. VII. p.153,154.”
This note doesn’t get into v1778, v1785, or v1793. I wonder what the volume and page number refer to? either v1773 or v1778? Better look up; note put into check original editions doc. I need to refer to UPTON anyway directly, then possibly indicate that Steevens knew the note. I believe this might be a ref to R3, the note at the end of the play. Yes, and at first I copied the note from v1793 note on R3.
1778 v1778
v1778
846-7 trupenny] Steevens (ed. 1778), “This word, as well as some of Hamlet’s former exclamations, we find in the Malcontent, 1604: ‘Illo, ho, ho, ho; art there old True-penny?’”
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778
846-7 trupenny]
1787 ann
ann = v1785 minus the quotation
846-7 trupenny]
1790 mal
mal = v1785 (subst.)
846-7 trupenny]
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal
846-7 trupenny]
1793 v1793 R3
john1
846-7 trupenny] Johnson (apud Steevens, ed. 1793, 10: 707): “Mr. Upton’s learning only supplies him with absurdities. His derivation of vice is too ridiculous to be answered.
“I have nothing to add to the observations of these learned criticks, but that some traces of this antiquated exhibition are still retained in the rustick puppet-plays, in which I have seen the Devil very lustily belaboured by Punch, whom I hold to be the legitimate successor of the old Vice. Johnson.”
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
846-7 trupenny]
1805 Seymour
Seymour
846-7 trupenny] Seymour (1805, 2:162): “This phrase in used by Beaumont and Fletcher in the Loyal Subject, Act I: ‘Go thy ways old true-penny’.”
This analogue does not help much.
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
846-7 trupenny]
1819 cald1
cald1 = Steevens
846-7 trupenny]
End note 108, p. 38 + general comment on Hamlet’s behavior; see 804. Both, perhaps, should be at the end or beginning of Hamlet’s speech.
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813
846-7 trupenny]
1830 Forby
Forby
846-7 trupenny] Forby (1830): “True-Penny, s. Generally, ‘Old True-penny,’ as it occurs in sh. Hamlet, where the application of it to the ghost is unseemly and incongruous, yet it has attracted no notice from any commentator. Its present meaning is, hearty old fellow; staunch and trusty; true to his purpose or pledge.”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1 (Steevens) + in magenta underlined
846-7 trupenny]
Caldecott (ed. 1832): “ ‘
The good olde Truepennie, their prelate.’ Nash’s Almond for a Parrot. 4to. without date or printer. Steevens cites the
Malcontent, 1801 [quotes as in
cald1 and v1778)
Ed. note: The rest of the note = cald1 in 804 doc.
1843 col1
col1: cald2 re Nash without attribution + in magenta underlined
846-7 trupenny] Collier (ed. 1843): “ ‘True-penny’ was used by authors besides Shakespeare, by Nash, for instance, in his ‘Almond for a Parrot.’ It is (as I learn from Mr. Pryme, Mr. Kennedy of Sheffield, and other authorities) a mining term, and signifies a particular indication in the soil of the direction in which ore is to be found. Hence Hamlet may with propriety address the ghost under ground by that name.”
Ed. note: For Hamlet to apply the jargon of mining to his father’s spirit does not seem appropriate. OED does not list this def. Of course, pioner also could mean miner.
1842 Lewes
Lewes
846 Lewes (1842, pp. 122-3): <p. 122>“The difference between the symbol and the allegory is this: the one takes a form and vivifies it with an idea; the other takes a name, an abstraction, to
indicate the idea. The Greeks were eminently symbolical, the Egyptians allegorical. Thus also the Greeks rendered even the passions of men objective, as witness Orestes, who after his matricide is overwhelmed with remorse and horror; but his hurrying feelings assume shape, become Eumenides, and are represented by actors! Shakspeare is full of similar personifications, such as the appearance of the Ghost when Hamlet is with his mother (which must be distinguished from the first ap- </p. 122><p. 23> pearance, inasmuch as the queen does not see it), Richard’s dream, Banquo’s ghost at the banquet, etc.” </p. 123> See also 2498.
Ed. Note: This is from his essay on Goethe, and he sometimes bring in Sh for comparison. I believe he is saying that personification of a feeling is a symbolical rather than an allegorical method—and that when others do not see or hear a ghost, it can be said to be a personification of a feeling (as the Eumenides were for Orestes). Thus, if the others do not hear the ghost in the cellarage (and whether they do or not is an open question to be determined in performance), Lewes might interpret its appearance as a personification of Hamlet’s feelings—though what those feelings would be besides craziness, I am not sure.
1854 del2
del2 ≈ col1 without attribution
846-7 trupenny] Delius (ed. 1854): “true-penny ist in bergmännischer Sprache das Anzeichen von Metalladern in der Erde. Hamlet nennt den Geist so, weil dessen Stimme aus der Erde kommt, wie er ihn eben deshalb nachher, wo die Stimme des Geistes an einer andern Stelle emportönt. old moleund pioner nennt.” [true-penny, in mining terminology the sign of the metal in the earth. Hamlet names the ghost thus because his voice comes from the earth, just as later he calls him old mole and pioner when the ghost’s voice rises up from various places.]
1856 sing2
sing2 ≈ col1
846-7 trupenny] Singer (ed. 1856): “Mr. Collier was informed by some gentlemen of Sheffield that true-penny is a mining term, signifying a particular indication in the soil of the direction in which ore is to be found.”
1858 col3
col3 = col1
846-7 trupenny]
1865 hal
hal = Forby without attribution, Steevens without attribution + in magenta underlined
846-7 trupenny] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “True-penny, a jocular term for a merry hearty old fellow, and I suspect sometimes applied to a sexton. If so, Hamlet uses the term very appropriately, ‘What have we heere, old Trupenny come to towne to fetch away the living in his old greasy slops,‘ Return from Parnassus, 1606. ‘Illo, ho, ho ho! art there old Truepenny,’ Malcontent, 1604.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc ≈ Forby or hal without attribution, magenta not underlined; = sing2 without attribution on col1; + in magenta underlined;
846-7 trupenny]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “
A familiar epithet for an honest fellow; and it has peculiar appropriateness as here used by Shakespeare in reference to the ghost’s voice beneath the earth, since it has been asserted by Mr. Collier, on the autority of competetnt informants, to be a mining term, significative of a particular direction in which ore may be found.
The tone of forced ease taken by Hamlet in this period of excitement is finely and boldly imagined, as well as wonderfully in keeping with the whole mental development of the character.”
1870 rug1
rug1
846-7 trupenny] Moberly (ed. 1873): “A quotation from a play of the time.”
1872 hud2
hud2 ≈ c&mc without attribution
846-7 trupenny] Hudson (ed. 1872): “an old familiar term for a right honest fellow.”
1872 cln1
cln1: col1; Johnson (Dictionary?); Steevens on Malcontent + author, Marston—all these with attribution—+ Congreve analogue
846-7 trupenny] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Said by Collier to be originally a mining term, applied to indications in the soil where ore was to be found. A familiar phrase for an honest fellow.’ (Johnson.) Steevens quotes from Marston’s Malcontent, produced 1604 (iii.3): ‘Illo, ho, ho, ho! arte there, olde true pennu?’ Marston evidently had Hamlet in his mind. And so probably had Congreve, when he makes a son irreverently address his father as ‘old truepenny,’ Love for Love, iv.10.”
1873 rug2
rug2 ≈ rug1
846-7 trupenny] Moberly (ed. 1873): “A name used in a play of the time.”
1875 Trollope
Trollope
846-76 Trollope, in a letter to George Henry Lewes, with whom he disagrees (1875, in George Eliot Letters 9,166), says: “I have always fancied that Shakespeare intended Hamlet to be, not mad, but erratic in the brain, ‘on and off’—first a a little ajar, and then right again, and then again astray. In the scene which you quote as displaying want of reverence it has seemed to me that the language has been intended to ape want of reverence,—to pretend to Horatio and the others that he was at ease etc. etc.”
1877 v1877
v1877: Steevens, col, Forby (minus comment on appropriateness), hal, Upton
846-7 trupenny]
Furness (ed. 1877):
Note that
Furness does not include the
john note against Upton. From Forby,
Furness takes only the def.
1879 Clarke & Clarke
Clarke & Clarke ≈ c&mc on mining term
846-7 trupenny] Clarke & Clarke (1879, p. 747)
1881 hud3
hud3 = hud2
846-7 trupenny]
1884 Mackay
Mackay: Forby, Collier, Johnson
846-7 trupenny]
Mackay (1884, pp. 64-5): <p. 64>“Forby, quoted in Halliwell’s ‘Archaic Dictionary,’ thinks that the application of this phrase by Hamlet to the ghost of his father (Act I. Sc. 5) is unseemly and incongruous, and is of opinion that it means staunch and trusty, true to his purpose or pledge. Mr. Collier, led astray apparently by the word ‘cellarage’ that occurs in the same passage, where the ghost, ‘from below,’ exclaims to Horatio and Marcellus, whom Hamlet adjures to secrecy, ‘Swear!’ describes
True-Penny as a mining term that signifies a particular indication in the soil, of the direction in which ore is to be found. Surely perverted ingenuity never went further! Forby’s explanation, derived from the ordinary English sense of
true, though it takes no account of the word
penny, is infinitely preferable to Mr. Collier’s. It is nevertheless possible that
True-Penny, apparently used by </p. 64> <p. 65> Shakspeare [sic] in a jocular and disrespectful sense, was intended by the poet to conceal or slur over the deep tragic emotion of Hamlet’s mind, so that his two friends might not suspect the intensity of his feeling; especially as further on in the scene, where the ghost from below again urges them to ‘swear,’ he addresses him familiarly as ‘old mole [859].’ Hamlet has, however, addressed the apparition once before with the words, ‘Alas, poor ghost! [688]’; and afterwards, in the third reiteration of ‘swear,’ adjured it with the words, ‘Rest, rest, perturbed spirit’; neither of which phrase partakes of irreverence. Perhaps the Keltic etymology of
True-Penny, as employed in this passage, expresses the real meaning, and conceals a play upon the words identical in sound, but in meaning, in Keltic and Saxon. In Keltic
truagh (pronounced
tru-a) signifies unhappy, wretched, miserable; and
peine, torment or punishment. This, as a phrase of commiseration, should be read by the gloss of the ghost’s first speech to Hamlet:— ‘I am thy father’s spirit Doomed for a certain time to walk the night, And for the day condemned to fast in fires; Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purged away’ [694-98]. In this sense,
truagh peine would be a phrase of the deepest pity, and would better suit the solemn character of the whole scene than the ludicrous
True-Penny in the Saxon sense.
True-Penny has not been traced to any writer before or contemporary with Shakespeare; and Johnson’s and other dictionaries cite him as the sole authority for it.” </p. 65>
1886 Very
Very
846-7, 859 Very (1886, p. 65): “The words of Hamlet as a lover are, as we think, in some respects parallel to those addressed by him as a son to his father’s shade.—when he exclaims to the ghost beneath [quotes 846-7, 859]. In the height of emotion and mental conflict to which he is raised by these contemplations, he finds relief, as in the graveyard, in expressions which seem strangely at variance with each other; but which, in reality, are but natural alternations. So much does he dwell in the world of spirits that there is a sort of ludicrous aspect upon which his mind seizes as often as it returns to this.”
Ed. note: Very is not very good at explaining himself, nor very convincing.
1885 mull
mull: standard
846-7 trupenny] Mull (ed. 1885): “an honest fellow.”
1888 macl
macl = cam on Hamlet’s manic behavior
846-60
1918 MLR
Wilson contra Greg in MLR 1917
846-7 trupenny] Wilson (1918, p. 137): Responding to what Greg calls the silliness of the cellarage scene, Wilson asserts that an audience could only believe from Hamlet’s behavior in these lines that he was “tottering on the verge of madness.” Rather than being silly, it was a “blend of the comic and the infernal” with a “powerful effect.” Ed. note for Greg’s view of the ghost as imagined by Hamlet, see ghost doc.
1930 TLS
Wilson
846-7 trupenny] Wilson (apud anon. rev. “The Shakespearian Ghost,” TLS 1930: 24) asserts that Hamlet speaks this way to persuade his auditors that the spirit is a devil or familiar. Ed. note: But Hamlet also had called it “an honest Ghost” only a few seconds before, in line 831. Of course, honest has various connotations.
1938 parc
parc
846-7 trupenny] Parrott & Craig (ed. 1938): “honest fellow.”
1939 kit2
kit2: standard gloss; hal without attribution on Parnassus + bib ref.
846-7 trupenny] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "honest old boy." Parnassus ed. Macray, p. 101
1947 cln2
cln2: standard
846-7 trupenny] Rylands (ed. 1947): "good fellow."
1957 pel1
pel1: standard
846-7 trupenny] Farnham (ed. 1957): “honest old fellow.”
1970 pel2
pel2 = pel1
846-7 trupenny] Farnham (ed. 1970): “honest old fellow”
1980 Frye, Northrop
Frye
846-60 truepenny . . . fellow . . . olde Mole . . . Pioner] Frye (1980, p. 86): “The Ghost’s credentials are very doubtful, by all Elizabethan tests for such things, and although Hamlet is in a state close to hysteria when he calls the Ghost ’old mole,’ ’this fellow in the cellarage,’ and the like, it is till unlikely that he would use such phrases if he had firmly identified the Ghost with his father at that point.”
1980 pen2
pen2: standard
846-7 trupenny] Spencer (ed. 1980): “honest fellow.”
1982 ard2
ard2: analogues
846-7 trupenny] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “honest fellow. Truepenny is the name of a trust servant in Ralph Roister Doister and other plays. A supercilious scholar calls a countryman ’old truepenny’ in 2 Return from Parnassus (line 654). The mocking familiarity with which Hamlet now addresses the Ghost continues the levity in front of his companions which began at 803.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4: standard gloss + in magenta underlined
846-7 trupenny] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "trusty fellow – not elsewhere in Shakespeare."
1992 fol2
fol2: standard
846-7 trupenny] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “honest fellow”
1995 OED
OED = Forby without attribution
846-7 tru “ truepenny (trupn). arch. A trusty person, an honest fellow (compared to a coin of genuine metal); as adj. true, genuine. colloq. ”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: analogue
846-7 trupenny] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “honest fellow; Tom Truepenny is the name of a character in Nicholas Udall’s play Ralph Roister Doister (c. 1553).”
