Line 1779-81 - 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
| 1779-80 very proude, reuengefull, ambitious, with more offences at my beck, | |
|---|
| 1781-2 then I haue thoughts to put them in, imagination to giue them shape, | |
|---|
1747 warb
1781-2 Warburton (ed. 1747): “What is the meaning of thoughts to put them in? A word is dropt out. We should read, ‘------ thoughts to put them in NAME.’ This was the progress. The offences are first conceived and named, then projected to be put in act, then executed.”
1747-60 mbrowne
1781-2 Browne (c.1760): “Warb. reads, thoughts to put them in name he says the progress is, the offences are first conceived and named, then projected to be put in act, then executed—the word named seems to be thrown into this description for no other reason but to support his reading, for I take the real progress to be of Conception, of Projection and of Execution; as to the naming it, I do not apprehend that to be any part of the conception, or to have anything to do with it; and if the Conception, means the giving a thing a place in our thoughts I do not see that the Text wants amendment.— [. . .] out description of [. . .] and Heart to conceive and Head to contrive and a Hand to Execute—”
1765 heath
1781-2 Heath (1765)"The word, name, is an idle and very unnecessary interpolation of Mr. Warburton’s. The sense of the common reading is evident; I am at all times ready to break out into more offences, than I have thoughts to concieve, imagination to project, or time to act. But Mr. Warburton insists on it, that ’a word hath been dropped here,’ which he hath happily supplied. For this he tells us is ’the progress. The offences are first concieved and named, then projected, then executed.’ But I see no business the naming hath to do in this progress. I believe it seldom happens, when a man is suddenly prompted to some evil action, that he thinks it necessary in the first place to stop and consider of a name for it, before he turns his thoughts to the means of carrying it into execution."
1765 john1
1781-2 Johnson (ed. 1765): “That is, always ready to come about me. . .To put a thing into thought, is to think on it.”
1773 v1773
v1773 = warb + john1
1773 jen
jen=warb+
1781 them...in]
Jennens (ed. 1773): “In answer to this, see
Heath’s Revisal, p. 537.
“But a few words will explain this matter; 1st, than I have thoughts to put them in, here the offences are put into the thoughts, or conceived; 2dly, imagination to give them shape, that is, the contrivance how, or in what manner they shall be perpetrated; lastly, time to act them in, which needs no explanation.”
1791- rann
rann
1780 with more offences at my beck,] Rann (ed. 1791-): “and beset with more offences than I have thoughts to conceive.”
1813 gifford
1781 shape] Gifford (ed. Massinger’s Works, vol. 2, p. 382): “Shape is a theatrical word, and, in the language of the property-man, means, as has been already observed, the whole of the dress.”
1826 sing1
1781 Singer (ed. 1826): “To put ‘a thing into thought ‘ is ‘to think on it.’”
1853 coln
1780 beck]
Collier (1853, pp. 424-425): <p. 424> “Hamlet, in old and modern editions, tells Ophelia, ‘I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with more offences at my beck, than I have thoughts to put them in.’ Steevens says that ‘more offences at my beck’ means ‘always ready to come about me:’ this may be so, but a manuscript-correction supplies a much more natural word and easy interpretation,
viz. that Hamlet is loaded with offences— </p. 424><p. 425> ‘with more offences at my
back, than I have thoughts to put them in.’” </p. 425>
1853 singer
1780 beck] Singer (1853, p. 264): “To change ‘beck’ for back would be an undoubtedly injurious change. The very context ‘than I have thoughts to put them in’ indicates that ‘more offences at my beck’ must bear the construction Steevens gives to it ‘always ready to come about me’.”
1858 col3
1779-80 Collier (ed. 1858): “All the old editions have ‘beck,’ which we retain; but the corr. fo. 1632, alters ‘beck’ to back, and one word may easily have been mistaken for the other.”
1860 walker
beck] Walker (1860, p. 266): “Back.”
beck] Lettsom (apud Walker, 1860, p. 266): “So the Old Corrector, not meaning, I suppose, that Hamlet is loaded with offences; that would require ‘on my back!’ but that he is the leader and disposer of a whole host of offences.—Ed.”
1866a dyce2
1779-80 Dyce (ed. 1886): “‘That is always ready to come about me.’ Steevens.---- Here Mr. Collier’s Ms. Corrector, and Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 266) would substitute ‘back’ for ‘beck.’”
1881 hud2
1779-80 Hudson (ed. 1881): “That is, ‘ready to come about me on a signal of permission.’”
1882 elze
1779 reuengefull] Elze (ed. 1882): “It is, indeed, the height of self-derision in Hamlet to accuse himself of revengefulness — he who meets a tragic fate merely through his utter inability to revenge his murdered father.”
1780 at my beck] Elze (ed. 1882): “Walker, Crit. Exam., III, 266, would substitute back for beck. Compare, however, Sonnet LVIII: at your beck. B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, IV, 1: I would wish... that all the court were subiect to my absolute becke. Id., The Sad Shepherd, III, 2: At your beck, madam. Timon, a Play, ed. Dyce (for the Shakespeare Society, 1842) p. 13: at my beck and nodd. Heywood, Love’s Mistress, III, 2 (The Old English Drama, 1825, II, 41): at thy beck. Summer’s Last Will and Testament (Dodsley, ed. Hazlitt, VIII, 32): all things at beck. Ibid., (Dodsley, ed. Hazlitt, VIII, 88): at her beck.”
1899 ard1
1779-80 Dowden (ed. 1899): “Hamlet brings general accusations against manhood and womanhood; but hese particular vices are ironically named as those of which he had been suspected or calumniously accused: very proud, he who honours the poor Haratio, and hails the actor as a friend, yet he is suspected of treating Ophelia lightly, as an inferior who may be basely used; revengeful, he who groans under the duty of vengeance, yet who is doubtless suspected of revenge by the King; ambitious, he who would go back to Wittenburg, and could be contented in a nutshell, yet whose disappointed ambition has been a subject for the probing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”
1934a cam3
1779-80 Wilson (ed. 1934): “No three adjectives less appropriate to Ham. could be found; but they will please Uncle Claudius and lead on to [(2110-2)].”
1779-83 Wilson (ed. 1934): “This sounds very terrible, but considered carefully it amounts to nothing.”
1779 1780