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Line 1949-50 - 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.

1949-50 Of the Camelions dish, I eate \| the ayre,

1950 Promiscram’d, you cannot feede Capons so.	3.2.95

1766-70 mwar2

1949-1950 I...Promiscram’d] Warner (1766-70): “i.e. I am so cramm’d with promises, that, like a Camelion, I have no Room to eat any thing but Air.”

1870 abbott

1949-50 Abbott (§177): “Of is sometimes used to separate an object from the direct action of a verb: (a) when the verb is used partitively, as ‘eat of,’ ‘taste of,’’ &c. ; (b)when the verb is of French origin, used with ‘de,’ as ‘doubt,’ ‘despair,’ ‘accuse,’ ‘repent,’ ‘arrest,’ ‘appeal,’ ‘accept,’ ‘allow;’ (c)when the verb is not always or often used as a transitive verb, as ‘hope’ or like,’ especially in the case of verbs once used impersonally. (a) ‘King.. How fares our cousin Hamlet? Hamlet. Excellent, i’faith: of the chameleon’s dish.’”

1872 elze

elze

1950 Elze (ed. 1882): “Hamlet alludes to his uncle’s promise to consider him ‘the most immediate’ to his throne, his ‘chiefest courtier’, cousin, son, and heir. Compare § 134: You haue the voyce of the King himselfe for your succession in Denmarke.”

1885 macd

macd

1950 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “The king asks Hamlet how he fares—that is, how he gets on; Hamlet pretends to think he has asked him about his diet. His talk has at once become wild; ere the king enters he has donned his cloak of madness. Her he confesses to ambition—will favour any notion concerning himself rather than give ground for suspecting the real state of his mind and feeling.

“In the 1st Q. ‘the Camelions dish’ almost appears to mean the play, not the king’s promises.”

1950 Promiscram’d, you cannot feede Capons] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “In some places they push food down the throats of the poultry they want to fatten, which is technically, I believe, called cramming them.”

1899 ard1

1949-50 Dowden (ed. 1899): “So Rowlands, Lett. Humours Blood, 1600: ‘Can men feede like camelions on the ayer?’ In Browne’s Vulgar Errors the matter is discussed.”

1934a cam3

cam3

1949 -50 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Ham.’s first ‘idle’ speech is an elaborate quibble. He catches up ‘fare’ by the wrong end, to harp on the note of thwarted ambition (already sounded in the K.’s ears with ‘I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious,’ [(1779-80)], by referring to the promise of the succession. For ‘chameleon’ cf. Two Gent. [(2.1.172. (563)] ‘Though the chameleon, love, can feed on the air,’ and 2 Hen. IV, 1.3.28 [(528)] ‘Eating the air on promise of supply.’ ‘Air’ is a pun on ‘heir’ and ‘promise—crammed’ leads on to ‘capon’; ‘capon—crammed’ (i.e. stuffed like a capon) being a common expression for ‘over—fed’ (cf. mod. slang ‘fed up’). In ‘capons’ Ham. hints that the K. is plying him with empty promises in perparation for having him quietly removed from his path, since the word means young cocks stuffed for killing. It also stands for a type of stupidity. ‘Even capons,’ he says in effect, ‘are not so stupid as to grow fat on air.’”