Line 1473-4 - 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 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
| 1473-4 bee not crackt | within the ring: maisters you are all welcome, | |
|---|
1765 john1
1473 voyce . . . crackt] johnson (ed. 1765): “That is, crack’d too much for use. This is said to a young player, who acted the parts of women.”
1773 v1773
v1773 = john1 +
1473-4 crackt within the ring] Steevens (ed. 1773): “I find the same phrase in The Captain, by B[eaumont]. and Fletcher ‘Come to be married to my lady’s womanAfter she’s crack’d in the ring.’ Again, in Ben Jonson’s Magnetic Lady: ‘Light gold, and crack’d within the ring.”
1774 gent
gent
1428-94 Well... whose] Gentleman (1770, p. 21): “When Polonius enters to tell him of the comedians, the Prince again assumes his stile of equivocating repartee, and indeed is pleasingly witty with the verbose old statesman; his welcome to the Players is well adapted to the mode of behaviour he has put on but his hint to the lady of her voice ‘like a piece of uncurrent gold being cracked in the ring;’ not commendably delicate: requiring a taste of their quality, and making a mistake in the first line of that passage he points out respecting Pyrrhus, very pleasing and natural circumstances, though of most minute kind.” </p. 21>
1774-79? capn
capn
1473 voyce . . . crackt]
Capell (1779-83 [1774] 1:133-4): <p. 133> “To <p. 134>understand a preceding sentence, l. 21, it should be remember’d– that female characters were always acted by
boys.”
1778 v1778
v1778 = v1773 +
1473-4 crackt within the ring] Steevens (ed. 1778): “Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: ‘--not a penny the worse For a little use, whole within the ring.’ Again, in Decker’s Honest Whore, 1635: ‘You will not let my oaths be cracked in the ring, will you?’”
1784 ays
ays
1473-1474 crackt...ring] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “That is, crack’d too much for use.”
1790 mal
mal = v1773 +
1473-4 crackt within the ring] T.C. (apud. MALONE, ed 1790): “The following passage in Lyly’s Woman in the Moon, 1597, as well as that in Fletcher’s Captain, might lead us to suppose that this phrase sometimes conveyed a wanton allusion: ‘Well, if she were twenty grains lighter, refuse her, provided always she be not clipt within the ring.”
1791- rann
rann
1474 within the ring.] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—too much for use.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = v1785, mal
1793- steevens
1473-4 crackt within the ring] STEEVENS (ms. notes in ed. v1793 [Bod. Mal. C.193], p. 193): “Again in Your Five Gallants; 1608: Here’s Mistresse Rose-noble has lost her maidenhead, crackt in the ring.”
1473-74 crack’d within the ring] Steevens (ms. notes, ed. 1793):“Again in Your Five Gallants; 1608: ‘Here’s Mistresse Rose-noble has lost her maidenhead, crackt in the ring.’”
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793 + STEEVENS (ms. notes in v1793 [Bod. Mal. C.193], p. 193
1805 Seymour
Seymour
1473 voyce . . . crackt] seymour (1805, p. 170): “There is here, I believe, a wanton reference to puberty, and the change in the tone of the voice which at the period takes place with young men. It is well known that the female characters on the stage were, in our author’s time, represented by boys.”
1807 Douce
Douce
1473 voyce . . . crackt]
douce (1807; rpt. 1839, pp. 459-60): <p. 459> “It is to be observed, that there was a ring or circle on the coin, within which the sovereign’s head was placed; if the crack extended from the edge beyond this ring, the coin was rendered unfit for currency. Such pieces were hoarded by the usurers of the time, and lent out as lawful money. Of this we are informed by Roger Fenton in his
Treatise of usury, 1611, 4to, p.23. ‘A poore man desireth a goldsmith to lend him such a summe, but he is not able to pay him interest. If such as I can spare (saith the goldsmith) will pleasure you, you shall have it for three or foure moneths. Now, hee hath a number of light, clipt,
crackt peeces (for such he useth to take in change with consideration for their defects:) this summe of money is repaid by the poore man at the time appointed in good and lawfull money. This is usurie.’ And again, ‘It is a common custome of his [the usurer’s] to buy up
crackt angels at nine shillings the piece. Now sir, if a gentleman (on good assurance) request him money, Good sir (saith hee, with a counterfait sigh) I would be glad to please your worship, but my good mony is abroad, and that I have, I dare not put in your hands. The gentleman think-</p. 459><p. 460> ing his conscience, where it is subtilty, and being beside that in some necessity, ventures on the
crackt angels, some of which cannot flie, for soldering, and paies double interest to the miser under the cloake of honesty,’--Lodge’s
Wit’s miserie, 1596, 4to, p. 28. So much for the cracked gold. The cracking of
the human voice proceeded from some alteration in the larynx, which is here compared to a ring. As metaphors are sometimes double, the present may be of that kind. A piece of cracked metal is spoiled for the
ringing of it; so the human voice, when cracked, amy be said to lose the clearness of its
tone. All Mr. Steevens’s quotations, except the last, are obscene, and none of them apply to Hamlet’s simile.”</p. 460>
1819 cald1
cald1≈douce +
1473 voyce . . . crackt] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “The image immediately presented to us, and for a full explanantion of which we are indepted to Douce, is from the then state of part of our coinage: but another sense is also meant to be conveyed. It imports ‘a voice broken in consequence of licentious indulgence:’ and has the same allusion as the instances quoted from the Woman in the Moone, 1597, and by Steevens in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Captain, B. Jonson’s Magnetic Lady, and Your Five Gallants, 1608, &c.”
1832- Anon.
Anon.
1474 within the ring] Anonymous [possibly Thomas Carlyle ](ms. notes, ed. 1832): “That is cracked by advancing manhood/ lads performed the parts of women at that time/ in the ring of its tones or notes. Eccart, Rev 79. 331”
1843 col1
col1
1473-4 collier (ed. 1843): “The allusion is to the voice of the boy, (who usually performed female parts, and is addressed by Hamlet as ‘your ladyship,’) which, by advance towards maturity and manhood, became cracked, or ‘cracked within the ring.’ The phrase ‘cracked within the ring,’ is frequently met with metaphorically applied, and it refers to money, which, when so much injured as to be cracked within the ring upon the face of the coin, was not current.”
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
hud1
1473 voyce . . . crackt] Hudson (ed. 1856): "The old gold coin was thin and liable to crack. There was a ring or circle on it, within which the sovereign’s hand, & c., was placed; if in the crack extended beyond this ring, it was rendered uncurrent: it was therefore a simile applied to any other debased or injured object. There is some humour in applying it to a cracked voice."
1859 stau
stau = Douce +
1473-4 crackt within the ring] Stauton (ed. 1859): “Hamlet, it must be remembered, is addressing the youth who personated the female characters, and simply expresses a hope that his voice has not grown too manly to pass current for a woman’s; there is not the slightest ground for suspecting any covert allusion. ‘It is to be observed,’ says Douce, ‘that there was a ring or circle on the coin, within which the sovereign’s head was placed; if the crack extended from the edge beyond this ring, the coin was rendered unfit for currency. Such pieces were hoarded by the usurers of the time, and lent out as lawful money. Of this we are informed be Roger Fenton in his ’Treatise of Usury,’ 1611, 4to. p. 23. ’A poore man desireth a goldsmith . . . Lodge’s Wit’s Miserie, 1596, 4to. p. 28.”
1861 wh1
wh1
1473-4 crackt within the ring] white (ed. 1861): “The thin coins of past centuries were liable to be cracked; and if the crack extended beyond the second ring, within which was the hideous effigies of the monarch under whom the coin was struck, it became uncurrent.”
1877 clns
clns
1473 crackt] Neil (ed. 1877): “Cracked — broken, altered by age, as boy’s voices do. Coins when cracked beyond the ring which encircled the royal effigies were declared uncurrent.”
1882 elze
elze
1473-4 crackt within the ring] Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare B. Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, II, 1: He values me at a crack’d threefarthings. Dekker, The Honest Whore, Part I, III, 1 (Middleton, ed. Dyce, III, 55): I ha’ sworn I’ll ha’ it, and I hope you will not let my oaths be crack’d in the ring, will you? Middleton, Your Five Gallants, II, 3 (Works, ed. Dyce, II, 253): —
‘Here’s mistress rose-noble Has lost her maidenhead, crack’d in the ring; She’s good enough for gamesters, and to pass From man to man.’ Ram-Alley (Dodsley, ed. Hazlitt, X, 378): — ‘She’s current metal, not a penny the worse For a little use: whole within the ring’.”
1885 macd
macd
1473-4 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—because then it would be unfit for a woman-part. A piece of gold so worn that it had a crack reaching within the inner circles was no longer current. 1st Q. ‘in the ring:’—was the pun intended.”
1899 ard1
ard1
1473-74 Dowden (ed. 1899): “coins cracked within the circle which surrounded the sovereign’s head were unfir for currnecy. Usurers, Lodge tells us in Wits Miserie, 1596, bought up ‘crackt angels’ at nine shillings a piece. Is there a play on ‘ring’ --a voice that rings clear and true? In Beaumont’s Remedy of Love (xi. 477, Dyce) we find the same expression: ‘If her voice be bad, crack’d in the ring.’”