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Line 1773-4 - 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. 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.

1773-4 {euocutat} <innocculate> our old stock, but we shall relish of it, I loued you not.

1773 jen

1773 euocutat] Jennens (ed. 1773): “The 1st q. reads euocutat; the 2d, euacuat; the 3d, evacuate; the 1st f. innoculate; the 2d and 3d, inoculate; the 4th, inocualte; R. and P. innoculate; all the rest, inoculate. S. neglects giving the reading of the 3d quarto 1637 (which he has) which seems to be the true one, viz. evacuate.”

1778 v1778

1773 euocutat] Steevens (ed. 1778): “This is the reading of the first folio. The first quarto reads enocutate; the second, euacuat; and the third, evacuate.”

1783 ritson

1773 euocutat] Ritson (1783, p. 201): “Innocculate is the reading of the folios. The first quarto, according to mr. Steevens, reads euocutat; the second, euacuat; and the third euacuate. So that evacuate appears to be the true reading. The word adopted renders the passage absolute nonsense.”

1784 davies

1773 Davies (1784, p.79): "’Notwithstanding all our endeavours to the contrary, the sin of our first parents will be predominant.’"

1791- rann

rann

1773 Rann (ed. 1791-): “—refine, improve it is to sucha degree, but the original depravity will still predominate—evacuate.”

1805 seymour

1773 Seymour (1805, p. 176): “As the speaker is now acting the madman, the inference which Mr. Steevens draws from this declaration, in his lone note at the end of the play, is unfounded, and will constitute no part of that brutality with which the critic, rather too harchly, I believe, has branded the conduct of Hamlet, in this scene: had the prince been talking in his sane and sober mood, and told Ophelia that he no longer loved her, he would justly incur censure for so unkind and cruel a speech; but if to the language of madness, whether real or factitious, a meaning must be ascribed, it should rather be the reverse of that which the words themselves express; and Hamlet’s telling the lady, at this time, that he no longer loved her, may be regarded as a token by which she was to perceive that his passion for her continued.”

1843 col1

1773-4 Collier (ed.1843): “The word seems to have puzzled the compositor of the quarto, 1604, who prints it euocutate, which in the quarto, 1637, became evacuate. The folio gives the true word.”

1877 clns

clns

1774 relish of it] Neil (ed. 1877): “For it we should perhaps read vice, or understand that opposite to virtue is meant by it.”

1881 hud2

1773-4 Hudson (ed. 1881): “‘Cannot so penetrate and purify our nature, but that we shall still have a strong taste of our native badness.’”

1884 gould

1774 stock, but] Gould (1884, p. 39): “The comma should be taken out and ‘but’ changed to ‘that’. It is a figure taken from grafting. In Winter’s Tale, Act 4, sc. 3, we have: ‘We marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bub of nobler race.’ The point is that Hamlet, the old stock, cannot be made to partake of the flavour of the bud of nobler race, virtue.”

1885 macd

macd

1772-3 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “ ‘inoculate’-bud, in the horticultural use.”

1773-4 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “trunk or stem of the family tree.”

1773-4 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Emphasis on relish—‘keep something of the old flavour of the stock.’”

1773-4 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “He tries her now with denying his love—perhaps moved in part by a feeling, taught by his mother’s of how imperfect it was.”

1899 ard1

1773 euocutat our old stock] Dowden (ed. 1899): “used in the botanical sense, to graft by the insertion of a bud; virtue cannot so graft love in our old evil stock but that we shall have a flavour of this evil stock. So Bishop Hall: ‘ I had Palatine vine, late inoculated with a precious bud of our royal stem.’”

1774 I loved you not] DOWDEN (ed. 1899): “it was not true love, for the taint of evil was in it; so your father has told you, and you have acted in accordance with his orders.”

1934a cam3

1773-4 Wilson (ed. 1934): “i.e. a son of Gertrude is ‘rank and gross in nature’ and so incapable of anything but lust. Cf. ‘this too too sullied flesh’ [313].”