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Line 1627-8 - 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.

1627-8 And fall a cursing like a very drabbe; \| a {stallyon,} <Scullion?> fie vppont, foh.

1733 theo1

theo1

1628 stallyon] Theobald (ed. 1733): “But why a Stallion ? The two old Folio’s have it, a Scullion : but that too is wrong. I am persuaded, Shakespeare wrote as I have reform’d the Text, a Cullion, i.e. a stupid, heartless, faint-hearted, white-liver’d Fellow; one good for nothing, but cursing and talking big. So, in King Lear; ‘I’ll make a Sop o’th’ Moonshine of you; you whorson, cullionly, Barbermonger, draw.’ 2 Henry VI. ‘Away, bas Cullions! -- Suffolk, let ‘em go.’ The Word is of Italian Extraction, from Coglione ; which, in its metaphorical Signification, (as La Crusca defines it) dicesi ancor Coglione per ingiuria in Senso di balordo, - is said by way of Reproach to a stupid, good for nothing, Blockhead.”

1752 dodd

dodd

1627 Dodd (1752, p. 236): “The foregoing word, drab, seems to countenance scullion: like a drab, a scullion, the very meanest and lowest of the vulgar. Mr. Theobald proposed, and the Oxford editor has adopted, cullion, i. e. a mean-spirited, white-liver’d fellow, a bully, a stupid cuddon. Ital. Coglione.”

1765 heath

heath

Heath (1765, p. 536): “I am persuaded Mr. Theobald hath restored the genuine reading, a cullion, from the Italian, coglione, a worthless poor-spirited fellow.” [Marginal ms note:] “used in Lambard’s Perambulation of Kent p. 401”

1778 v1778

v1778

1628 stallyon] Steevens (ed. 1778): “Thus the folio. The quartos read, a stallion.”

1791- rann

rann

1628 A scullion!] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—A cullion!—a mean-spirited fellow.—A stallion!—meaning his uncle.”

1826 sing1

sing1

1627-8 Singer (ed. 1826): “It seems extraordinairy that Mason and Steevens could ever conceive that there was any allusion here to the nautical phrase, ‘about ship.’ About brains’ is nothing more than ‘to work my brains.’ The common phrase, to go about a thing, is not yet obsolete. Falstaff humours the equivocal use of the word in The Merry Wives of Windsor : — ’No quips now, Pistol; indeed I am in the waist too yards about ; but I am now about no waste ; I am about thrift.’[1.3.41-3. (335-7)]. Steevens quotation from Heywood’s Iron Age should have taught him better: — ‘My brain about again! for thou hast found New projects to work on.’”

-1845 mhun1

mhun1

1628 fie vppont, foh.] Hunter (-1845, f. 243v-244r): <f. 243v>“Whatever may be thought of the appositeness of the remarks of Hamlet in this speech or of the state of mind in which he appears in it, the meaning is clear till we arrive at the first of the above lines. ‘About my brain!’ appears to me to be equivalent to About it my brains! That is, Let me devise the means of revenging my father’s death.— The whole of the mending passage though the meaning is clear, the propriety of it is not so evident. The suggestion that </f. 243v><f. 244r>it might be an evil spirit which was sporting with him to his destruction should have preceeded the plan of trying the King’s conscience by the play. But why speak of this as a new suggestion, when it is plain from his having asked the player if they would perform The Murder of Gonzago, & study some dozen or sixteen lines. That he meant to introduce into it that he planned this design some time before. This is to be explained only as the idea of the parts— having intended to give an air of great inconsistency to the character of Hamlet, which indeed solves all difficulties of this kind. But the difficulty is a little reduced by leaving out the particule Humph— This is here a uno indication of consideration ushering in a new resolve— But it is wanting at once in the earlier quarto & in the folio. Without it, we might refaid Hamlet as only reflecting on what he had determined, not conceiving any thing anew.”</f. 244r>

1856b sing2

sing2=sing1

1872 cln1

cln1

1627 a-cursing] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): "For participates of this form see Abbott, 24."

1882 elze

ezle

1628 stallyon] Elze (ed. 1882): “The same variety of reading occurs in The Birth of Merlin (ed. Delius, p. 20), where Kirkman’s Quarto reads stallion instead of scullion. Compare Delius’ Introduction to The Birth of Merlin, p. XVII.”

1628 fie vppont] Elze (ed. 1882): “After this exclamation QB and FA add foh, which has given rise to a faulty division of the lines, whereas in the arrangement given in the text the three exclamations fill a regular line. According to Dr Schmidt, Shakespeare-Lexicon s. Foh, there is only one more passage in Shakespeare where this interjection occurs in connection with fie upon, viz. Othello, V, 1, 123, and in this passage foh has been omitted in the Ff and the later Qq, indeed it is only contained in QA (1622), where the lines run thus: — ‘Bian. I am no Strumpet; but of life as honest, As you that thus abuse me. Emil. As I! foh! fie upon thee!

“By the way, it may be remarked that only after the omission of foh these two hemistichs can be joined into a regular blankverse. The present line in Hamlet resembles the passage in Othello in so far, as here too a word has been struck out in the Ff, only the editor’s pen has lighted by mistake on the wrong word, viz. hum instead of foh. In QA the respective lines are wanting.”

1982 ard2

ard2

1627 scullion] Jenkins (ed. 1982): "Q2 stallyon (= male whore) is accepted by Dover Wilson and (= whore) by Parrott-Craig, but the ’whore’ and ’drab’ of the context, which they take to authenticate this, would assist the misreading of sc as st, which is one of the easiest to make in the secretary hand. What looks like the same error, stallion for scullion, is found in the Birth of Merlin, II. i. 140. Some confirmation comes from Q1 scalion, which points to pronunciation. The Q2 copy may have spelt scallyon, as it presumably did sallied at I. ii. 129 and sallies at II. i. 40. The spelling scallion-fac’d occurs in the Beaumont-Fletcher Folio Love’s Cure (II. i. 74)."