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.”

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printed 1616 Beaumont and Fletcher

Beaumont and Fletcher

1714 to die to sleepe] Beaumont (d. 1611) and Fletcher (d. 1625) (The Scornful Ladie (written unknown date, 2.1; sig. C4) apud Ingleby et al. 1932, 1: 229): Sir Roger. ’Have patience Sir, untill our fellowe Nicholas bee deceast, that is a sleepe; for so the word is taken; to sleepe to die, to die to sleepe: a very Figure Sir.’ Welford. ’Cannot you cast another for the Gentlewoman?’ Sir Roger. ’Not till the man bee in his bed, his grave; his grave, his bed; the very same againe Sir. Our Comick Poet gives the reason sweetly; . . . he is full of loopeholes.’ Lucy Toulmin Smith comments: “Hamlet’s Soliloquy (3.1) seems to have given rise to some merriment here, not dreamt of perhaps by ’our Comick Poet.’ ”

1839 knt1

1714 Knight (ed. 1839): “This passage was sometimes printed thus:--- ‘To die ;--- to sleep ;--- | No more?’ It is so given in Ayscough’s edition. Surely the doubt whether death and sleep are identical comes too early, the passage being so pointed; for the reasoning proceeds to asssume that death and sleep are the same, and, believing them at be the same, ‘’t is a consummation | Devoutly to be wish’d,’[(3.1.62-3. 1717-8)]. Now comes the doubt--- ‘perchance to dream,’ [3.1.64. (1719)]. The ‘no more’ is nothing more--- the ‘rien de plus’ of the French translators of Hamlet. TRAGEDIES.--- VOL. I. K.”

1857 “index” [w. brotherhead]

1714-1715 them, ... more,] INDEX (Amer. N. & Q. 1 [1857]: 64-65): <p. 64> “In Hamlet’s soliloquy of ‘To be, or not to be,’ in most of the editions, from the first folio, to the last issued, there is a note of interrogation at ‘opposing end them,’ whereas the sense of the language requires the closing effect of an ascriptive cadence; and the sign of interrogation to be used at the questionary phrase of ‘No more?’ In the accurate editions of Capell, and Johnson, Steevens and Reed, this grammatical resolution of the text is adopted, and gives a much greater clearness and simplicity to the train of thought embodied, than the text of other editions affords.

The explanatory comment of Dr. Johnson, on this celebrated philosophical revery, </p. 64><p. 65> is a masterpiece of analysis, and ought to have prevented future editors from disturbing the clear stream of ideas, by restoring the old, vague, and indefinite mode of punctuation in this particular.” </p. 65>

1714-1715 them, ... more,] INDEX (Amer. N. & Q. 1 [1857]: 137): <p. 137> “In replication to the reply of W. D. to my remarks on the punctuation of ‘No more,’ in Hamlet’s soliloquy, I must premise, that I do not suppose, as he assumes, Hamlet to ask so inapt a question as, ‘Whether people sleep no more by dying.’ So strange a misconception, induces me to present my real acceptation of the meaning of the text as given in Capell’s, and in Johnson’s editions.

The elliptical phrase ‘No more,’ with the note of interrogation following, I regard in the light of a question by Hamlet, as to whether ‘to die’ is really no more than ‘to sleep;’ a sense very different from that assigned to me by W. D. I admit that, ‘No more,’ as pointed in other editions than those I refer to, bears the sense of an affirmation on the part of Hamlet of his belief that death is no more than sleep; and that nearly all actors and oratorical readers make a full cadence on the phrase as closing in that sense. But so positive a severing of the preceding and succeeding thoughts, seems to me, to break the main link in the chain of ideas. Whereas, by resolving ‘No more’ into a secondary question, (naturally arising out of the principal one,) with its sequent conditionalities and dependent corollary, ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished,’ and then making a full cadence, we can attain an unity, or integrality in the train of reflections, which no actor or oratorical reader, I ever heard could effect in its delivery, according to the ordinary mode of punctuation.

I must, however, concede that the sense of the text is generally received as being ‘good as it is,’ and that the vague printing, though it may dim the radiance of the poet’s light, cannot totally obscure it; though veiled in clouds and mists we can still discern the beautiful outline and majestic proportions of the spiritual statue of the melancholy ‘Prince of Philosophers.’

Index.” </p. 137>

1862 bailey

1714 opposing] Bailey (1862, p. 35): “it would be exceedingly weak to talk of ending the troubles by opposition when what the speaker meant has just been so strongly indicated to be suicide. Beside, in the received reading of the passage, taking arms against, which implies attacking, must be considered at the best as but poorly followed up by opposing.

Another reading, effected by a very trifling alteration, suggested itself,— the substitution of ‘deposing,’ for ‘opposing.’ ‘Or to take arms against the seat of troubles, And by deposing end them.’”

1715-16 Bailey (1862, pp. 42-44): <p. 42> “The second passage to which I have to draw the reader’s attention is in the same soliloquy, and is indeed in immediate succession to the lines already considered: ‘To die— to sleep— No more;— and, by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,— ‘tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.’

Here it will be seen as soon as it is pointed out that the phrase ‘to say’ expresses a circumstance quite foreign to the train of thought.

As the sentence stands the construction is ‘to sleep and to say we end by a sleep the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, is a consummation devoutly to be wished;’ when surely it is not the saying but the ending which is to be desired. Even if we admit the latter part of the sentence, ‘‘tis a consummation,’ &c. to be an abrupt change in construction, the objection remains: to say has nothing to do where it is placed. By simply expunging say we every one will be sensible how greatly the passage is improved, and that the introduction of saying is a sheer impertinence which could not have proceeded from the clear head of our great dramatist.

The elimination of the two words, nevertheless, although it would be quite sufficient to rid the </p. 42><p. 43> sentence of an unsightly patch loosely put on by accident or mistake, would leave the metre defective.

Hence there can be no doubt that the couple of little monosyllables in question have usurped the place of a more appropriate verbal combination, to which they must in all likelihood have borne some resemblance in sound or in written character in order to be allowed to appear there.

We have then to look for a word or expression which will strengthen, or at least not weaken the sense, complete the metre, be so far similar in sound or form as to have possibly suggested the erroneous reading we find, and be consonant with Shakespeare’s phraseology on other occasions.

Such a word we have, I think, in the adverb straightway, inserted in the place of ‘say we,’ as follows:— To die— to sleep— No more; and by a sleep to straightway end The heart-ache,’ &c. &c.

To end instantaneously is more impressive in such a connexion than simply to end, and the word straightway not only expresses this but fills up the metre, while it has the further requisite of being frequent in our author’s pages.

The similarity in sound between say we and straightway is certainly not remarkable, but there is sufficient for the foundation of a mistake; and on the supposition that the soliloquy was written </p. 43><p. 44> out from short-hand notes the word straightway might have been abbreviated into s w, by any writer who thought he could trust his memory, and afterwards the two letters might have been erroneously taken to stand for say we. This explanation cannot of course pretend to accuracy of detail, but is, I believe, substantially correct.

The reasons assigned taken together suffice to raise a reasonable presumption in favour of the proposed alteration in the received reading.

Let us now try the united effect of the suggested emendations in the opening of the soliloquy:

Here a plain meaning is plainly and fully and strongly expressed. All obscurity and incoherence have vanished.” </p. 44>

1877 clns

clns

1714 to die to sleepe] Neil (ed. 1877): “To die, to sleep. It may be worth while to note, as Theobald has done, that Beaumont and Fletcher in the Scornful Lady, published 1616, refer to these words in this play, ‘Have patience till our fellow Nicholas is deceased, that is, asleep; for so the word is taken. To sleep, to die; to die, to sleep, a very figure, sir.’ — II, I, 43-46.”

1885 macd

macd

1714 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “To print this so as I would have it read, I would complete this line from here with point, and commence the next with points. At the other breaks of the soliloquy, as indicated below, I would do the same—thus: And by opposing end them... | ...To die—to sleep,”

1889-90 mtaylor

mtaylor

1714-9 And by opposing . . . rub] C.W. Couldock (apud J. Taylor, ms. notes in PB 82, HTC, Shattuck 108): “The punctuation in any Edition cannot be relied upon as being Shakespeare’s, and I have always made the following alterations. ‘And by opposing end them.—To die,—to sleep;—No more?—And by a sleep to say we end The heartaches, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is eheir to,—tis a consumationDevoutly to be wished:—To die,—to sleep;—To sleep?—perchance to dream!—Aye there’s the rub,&c.’ C.W. Cauldock.”