Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
| 1644 More relatiue then this, the play’s the thing | 2.2.604 |
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1629 Massinger
Massinger
1644 the play’s the thing] Massinger (The Roman Actor, 1629, sig. D2, apud Lucy Toulmin Smith in Ingleby et al. 1932, 1: 340): “This may or may not be an allusion to Hamlet: Massinger may have had in his mind some of the incidents in real life which probably suggested the scene to Shakespere himself, or have resembled the same idea in the old play, A Warning to Fair Women, 1599. See R. Simpson’s School of Shakspere, 1878, 2: 212-16, 311, where some tales of the kind are narrated.” Massinger is quoted:
. . . I once observ’d
In a Tragedie of ours, in which a murther
Was acted to the life, a guiltie hearer
Forc’d by the terror of a wounded conscience
To make discoverie of that, which torture
Could not wring from him. Nor can it appeare
Like an impossibilitie, but that
Your Father looking on a covetous man
Presented on the Stage as in a mirror
May see his owne deformity, and loath it.
1747 warb
warb
1644 More relatiue] Warburton (ed. 1747): “Relative, for convictive.”
1765 john1
john1 = warb +
1644 More relatiue] Johnson (ed. 1765): “Convictive is only the consequential sense.Relative is, nearly related, closely connected.”
1766-70 mwar2
1644 More relatiue] Warner (1766-70): “Relative i.e. giving greater, stronger Conviction.”
1772 sjc
1643-5 Ile haue . . . King] “Horatio” (SJC. No. 1841 (Dec.1-Dec.3, 1772: 4): “Though Shakespeare was not unacquainte with the Effects which a well-acted Play had produced upon the most depraved and cruel Minds, yet I am fully persuaged, that in the composing of this Soliloquy, his Mind had been strongly impressed with a Fact which was then recent and notorious. The Company of Players belonging to the Earl of Sussex, towards the End of the Reign of Elizabeth, as near as we can guess, acted at Lynne Regis in Norfolk, and old Play called the History of Friar Francis, in which a Woman is introduced, who murthers her Husband to enjoy the Company of her Gallant with greater Security: The Ghost of the Husband pursues and terrifies the Adultress. During the Acting of this Scene, a cerain Woman alarmed the Audience with a Shriek and an Outcry of Oh! my Husband! my Husband! I see the Ghost of my Husband threatening me! Upon Examination she confessed that seven Years before, in order to enjoy the Company of a Man she then named she had poisoned her Husband, whose fearful Image she Imagined appeared to her in the Shape of that Ghost. This Woman was immediately apprehended, and upon her voluntary Confession condemned. Heywood, who records this Story, appeals for the Truth of it, so the Records of the Town of Lynne, and to many living Witnesses, Spectators, &c.”
1784 ays
ays
1644 More relatiue] Ayscough (ed. 1784): “Relative, for convictive, according to Warburton. Relative is, nearly related; closely connected, according to Dr. Johnson.”
1784 davies
Davies
Davies (1784, p. 63): "That the representation of murder, before the murderer, will not always produce the desired effect, we have a remarkable instance in the story of Derby and Fisher.
“They were two gentlemen very intimately acquainted. The latter was dependent on the former, who generously supplied him with the means of living as became a man of birth and education. But no benefits are sufficient to bind the base and the ungrateful: after parting, one evening, with Mr. Derby, at his chambers in the temple, with all the usual marks of friendship, Fisher contrived to get into his apartments, with an intent to rob and murder his friend. This he unhappily accomplished. For some time, no suspicion fell on the murderer; he appeared, as usual, in all public places. He was in a side-box at the play of Hamlet; and, when Wilks uttered that part of the soliloquy, whcih spoke of ’guilty creatures sitting at a play,’ a lady turned about, and, looking at him, said,’I wish the villain, who murdered Mr. Derby, were here!’ The lady and Fisher were strangers to each other. It was afterwards known, that this was the man who had killed his friend. The persons, present in the box, declared, that neither the speech from the actor, nor the exclamation from the lady, made the least external impression on the murderer. Fisher soon after escaped to Rome, where he professed himself a Roman Catholic, and gained an asylum. About five and twenty years since, my friend, Mr. Richard Wilson, the landscape-painter, saw Fisher at Rome, and spoke to him. He was then, I think, one of the conoscenti, and a picture-dealer [Davies notes that "Mr. Derby was sone of the secondary in the prothonotory’s office"].
“Since the first acting of this tragedy, the commentators are agreed that the author made many additions to it; more especially, it is thought, respecting the player, whose cause was his own, and which he espoused upon the general topic of defence, that it was not only not malum in se, but really benefical to society, and particularly in the detection of enormous crimes. --Hamlet, we see, puts his salvation upon the trial of his uncle’s guilt in the representation of a play; he places more confidence in the success of this plot than in a vision that had assumed the form of his noble father. But this was not all: a quarrel had arisen between Ben Jonson and the players; the real cause is almost unknown; but it is certain, that the three or four of his pieces, which Ben wrote after is Every Man out of his Humour, were acted by children. One of them, called the Poetaster, was an outrageous satire upon Dekker and several of the actors. I have said so much upon this subject, in a review of Jonson’s pieces, that I shall not here take up much of the reader’s time.--Shakespeare, we see, has discussed the argument, relative to the encouragement of the chilren preferably to the established comedians, with great judgement and temper. And I think I can perceive some lesson of caution, given to Jonson and others, on account of their affected contempt of the players: ’You had better have a bad epitaph, after your death, than their ill report while you live," seems to be of this kind. This rupture, between Jonson and the players, lasted, I believe, from 1599, till the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. It is not impossible but that King James, who loved and patronized theatrical diversions, by the personal encouragement he gave to Shakespeare, might be the means of reconciling the contending parties. We know that Shakespeare assisted Jonson in writing in Sejanus; and Dr. Johnson and Dr. Farmer are of opinion that Ben wrote part of the prologue and epilogue to Henry VIII. The ill fate of Sejanus, at the Globe, did not deter Jonson from giving the same players his Fox and Alchemist. But so capricious was his temper, that, notwithstanding the deserved success of these comedies, he employed children to act his Silent Woman, a piece utterly unfit, I should think, to be represented by any but actors of the most established merit.
“In the speaking of this impassioned soliloquy, Wilks had an ample field to display the warmth of his disposition. The actor’s genuine temper sometimes combines itself so strongly with the feelings appropriated to the character, that the scene receives additional advantage from it. The various passions of the speech he felt with energy and expressed with vehemence; to give force to sentiment, this player would sometimes strike the syllables with too much ardour, and, in the judicious ear, create something like dissonance rather than harmony; but this was not frequent with him.
“In this situation of Hamlet, Barry was pleasingly animated. But here it must be owned, that Garrick rose superior to all competition: his self-explostulations, and upbraidings of cowardice and pusillanimity, were strongly pointed, and blended with marks of contemptuous indignation; the description of his uncle held up, at once, a portrait of horror and derision. When he closed his strong paintings with the epithet, kindless villain! a tear of anguish gave a most pathetic softness to the whole passionate ebullition. One strong feature of Hamelt’s character is filial piety: this Garrick perserved through the part. By restoring a few lines, which preceding Hamlets had omitted, he gave a vigour, as well as connection, to the various memebers of the soliloquy. It is impossible to forget the more than common attention of the audience, which his action and change of voice commanded, when he pronounced--”I have heard, /That guilty creatures sitting at a play and the following lines, to the end of the act."
1785 mason
mason
1644 Mason (1785, p. 383): “If this be the right reading, we must necessarily adopt Johnson’s explanation, though I think the word relative will hardly bear it: But possibly we should read relevant, instead of relative, which would make the sense clear and strong. In the Scotish law, an indictment is said to be relevant, when the charges set forth in it are clearly proved.”
1791- rann
rann
1644 relative] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—full to my purpose, demonstrative, positive.”
1826 sing1
sing1
1644 Singer (ed.1826): “i.e. more near, more immediately connected. The first quarto reads ‘I will have sounder proofs.”
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
hud1
1644 More relatiue] Hudson (ed. 1856): "’More relative’ is more correspondent, more conjunctive with the cause; that is, more certain. The sense is well explained by the reading of the first quarto: ’I will have sounder proofs.’--That Hamlet was not alone in the suspicion here started, appears from Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici: ’I believe that those apparitions and ghosts of departed persons are not the wandering souls of men, but the unquiet walks of devils, prompting and suggesting us unto mischief, blood, and villainy; instilling and stealing into our hearts that the blessed spirits are not at rest in their graves, but wander, solicitous of the affairs of the world. But, that those phantasms appear often, and do frequent cemeteries, charnel-houses, and churches, it is because those are the dormitories of the dead, where the devil, like an insolent champion, beholds with pride the spoils and trophies of his victory in Adam.’ H."
1872 cln1
cln1
1644 relatiue] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “to the purpose. The word is not known to exist elsewhere in this scene." [che ck this: sense?]
1877 clns
clns
1644 relatiue] Neil (ed. 1877): “to the purpose; clearly convincing.”
1881 hud2
hud2
1643 Hudson (ed. 1881): “To abuse is to deceive, or practise upon with illusions.”
1644 Hudson (ed. 1881): “Grounds standing in closer and clearer relation with the matter alleged by the Ghost.”
1899 ard1
ard1
relatiue] Dowden (ed. 1899): “closely related, to the purpose, conclusove; used only here by Shakespeare.”
