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.

1765 john1

john1

1345 this goodly frame the earth] Johnson (ed. 1765): “discussed in JOHN1 Ado, 3.328-9n6. JOHN1 objects to WARB’s emendation there and defines frame so as to fit the line ‘Chid I for That nature’s frame?’ [a line, by the way, that shows JOHN1 using capital for emphasis]. JOHN says, ‘Though frame be not the word which appears to a reader of the present time most proper to exhibit the poet’s sentiment. . . it may easily signify the system of things, or universal scheme, the whole order of beings is comprehended. . . .’ The word is used in Hamlet at TLN 198, 1344, 2180, and 3232. In the latter case, it’s an addition from F1 put into the GD’s mouth. This latter could be an interpolation; Jennens thinks so. In 198, it’s Claudius’s word, on a formal occasion; in 1344, it’s Hamlet’s; in 2180, it’s Guild.’s to Hamlet.”

1843 col1

col1

1344-5 heavily] Collier (ed. 1843): “The folio misprints heavenly for ‘heavily’ of the quartos; and just below it entirely omits ‘firmament,’ though found in every older copy. Farther on, for ‘it appeareth nothing to me, but’ it reads, ‘it appears no other thing to me, than.’ We have of course in these instances adhered to the quartos, and even that of 1637 introduced no changes of the ancient text.”

1861 wh1

wh1

1344 heavily] White (ed. 1861): “‘---it goes so heavily with my disposition’:--The folio hasthe manifest misprint ‘so heavenly.’”

1882 elze

elze

1345 this goodly frame the earth] Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare Paradise Lost, VIII, 15 seq.: —‘When I behold this goodly Frame, this World Of Heav’n and Earth consisting, &c’.”

1934a cam3

cam3

1344-56 Wilson (ed. 1934): “This famous passage prob. owes something to Florio’s Montaigne, ii. ch.12 (pp. 296-7) . G. B. Harrison (Sh. at Work, pp. 277-78) quotes from W. Parry’s Travels of Sir Anthony Shirley (pub. Nov. 1601): ‘those resplendent and crystalline heavens over--canopying the earth.’ But Montaigne seems the more likely source.”

1982 ard2

adr2

1344-9 Jenkins (ed. 1982): "For the thought, devoid of its superb phrasing, cf. Bright, p. 106 : ’The body thus possessed with the . . . darkness of melancholy obscureth the sun and moon, and all the comfortable planets of our natures, in such sort, that if they appear, they appear all dark, and more than half eclipsed of this mist of blackness, rising from that hideous lake’. It is sometimes suggested that the Shakespearean imagery derived from, and could apply to, the playhouse in which the words would be spoken : the actor of Hamlet on the platform stage actually appeared as on a promontory, while ’the heavens’, the roof covering the rear part of the stage, with stars painted on its under-side, made visible the o’erhanging firmament (Coghill, pp. 8-9). But in view of the frequent Elizabethan use of frame, canopy, firmament in descriptions of earth and heaven, it seems unlikely that Shakespeare needed such inspiration. Descriptions of the glory of the heavens in contrast with the insignificance of man are a classical and Renaissance commonplace, of which the oft-cited passage from Montaigne (III. 12) is merely one example (see esp. A. Harmon, PMLA, LVII, 994-6). As often Shakespeare achieves a magnificent result by combining elements, which, taken separately, are almost clichés."