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Line 1389 - 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. 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.

Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

1389 <fashion, and so be-ratled the common Stages (so they>	2.2.

1729 Roberts

Roberts

1389 common Stages] Roberts (1729, p. 40): “I remark’d before how prophetically Shakespeare spoke of these Children coming to the Common Stages and tho’ perhaps This was not the very Class he alludes to in Hamlet, (for the Custom had been long practis’d) it is plain they came to it within his Life Time: for I am inclin’d to think that they were retain’d in, and attach’d to the publick Theatres, before he wrote his Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, and that he design’d the Walk of the Fairies there, to put them in a more natural View of acting than they commonly were shown in before.”

1765 Heath

Heath

1389 be-ratled] Heath (1765, p. 535): "Mr. Theobald, in his Shakespear restored, p. 66. conjectures, I think with great probability, that the poet wrote, ’common stagers.’"

1791- rann

rann

1389 stages] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—stagers—actors.”

1857 dyce1

dyce1

1389 be-ratled] Dyce (ed. 1857): "‘so berattle, &c.’ So the second folio.—The first has ‘so beratled,’ &c.—From ‘Do they grow rusty?’ to ‘Hercules and his load too’ is not in the quartos, 1604, &c.; but, as Mr. Collier observes, there are traces of this part of the scene in the quarto, 1603.”

1869 romdahl

romdahl

1389 be-ratled] Romdahl (1869, p. 25): “Berattle = decry, an augmentative of rattle, seems to be one of the many words used by Sh. which have never gained recognition in the language.”

1872 hud2

hud2

1389 be-ratled] Hudson (ed. 1872): “To berattle is to berate or squib. The sense of what follows is, that pop-guns outface pistols.”

1881 hud3

hud3 = hud2 minus pop-gun note + Crosby note

1389 be-ratled] Hudson (ed. 1881): “To berattle is to berate, to squib. Here, again, I quote from Mr. Crosby: ‘It is no wonder the regular profession suffer, when children thus ‘carry it away,’ and are all ‘the fashion’; berating the adult performers, and getting ‘most tyrannically clapp’d for it’; so much so, that the well-deserving writers for the ‘common stages,’ grown—up men ‘wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose—quills,’ (applied to the penny—a—liners for the boys,) and dare scarce come to the play—house any more.’”

1885 macd

macd

1389 be-ratled] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “I presume it should be the present tense, beratle—except the are of the preceding member be understood: ‘and so beratled are the common stages.’ If the present, them the children ‘so abuse the grown players,’ –in the pieces they acted, particularly in the new arguments written for them—whence the reference to goose-quills..

1890 irv

irv

1388 common Stages] Symons (in Irving & Marshall ed. 1890): “Staunton quotes J. Stephens, Essayes and Characters, 1615, p. 301: ‘I prefix an epithete of common, to distinguish the base and artlesse appendants of our Citty companies, which often times start away into rusticall wanderers, and then (like Proteus) start backe again into the Citty number.’

1899 ard1

ard1

1389 common Stages] Dowden (ed. 1899): “the public, as distinguished from the private, theatres.”

1934a cam3

cam3

1389 common Stages] Wilson (ed. 1934): “ i.e. the public playhouses. The Children of the Chapel played at the Blackfriars, a ‘private’ playhouse.”