Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2024 King. Full thirtie times hath Phebus cart gone round | 3.2.155 |
|---|
1710 Gildon
Gildon
2024-96 Gildon (1710, pp. 403-4): <p. 403> “The Queen’s Protests in the Play that’s introduc’d (2084-9), and the King’s Discourse </p. 403> <p. 404> with her is worth reading for the Lines and the Reflections. [5: pp. 2417-18.]” </p. 404>
1736 [Stubbs]
[Stubbs] apud Williamson, p. 7
2024-96 [Stubbs] (1736): “The scene represented by the Players is in wretched verse. Thus we may, without incurring the denomination of an ill-natured critic, venture to pronounce: that is almost every place where Shakespeare has attempted rhyme, either in the body of his plays, or at the ends of Acts or Scenes, he falls far short of the beauty and force of his blank verse. One would think they were written by two different persons. I believe we may justly take notice that rhyme never arrived at its true beauty; never came to its perfection, in England until long since Shakespeare’s time.”
1765- mDavies
mDavies
2024 Full thirtie times] [Davies] (ms. notes in Johnson, ed. 1765, opp. 8:222): “ ‘Full thirty times,’ &c., It is but justice due to the memory of one of our Historical Painters, to observe that in the disposition of the characters & personages of the Play it self and the Actors of the Murder of Gonzago before the King, that Mr Hayman in his pictures for Hanmers Sh. pointed out the only proper & exact method of disposing the several personages in the Play itself and that wch. was represented before the King & Queen—who were seated on one side with ye Courtiers, Opposite to Hamlet Horatio & Ophelia—the scenes were exhibited in ye mediale space—The King rises on seeing ye murderer pour ye poison into ye ear of Gonzaga.”
Transcribed by BWK; strike through is Davies’.
1774 capn
capn: Spenser analogue
2024 cart] Capell (1774, 1:13): “The mock dignity of this passage is much injur’d by changing “cart” into—car; a change the moderns have made in it, without any authority, or any notice: Spencer mounts the sun in a cart, and so do many of the poets preceding him, and antiquity had made the word great; but common usage having something debas’d it, it was the fitter for Sh’s use in this place.”
1778 v1778
v1778: Chaucer
2024 cart] Steevens (ed. 1778): “A chariot was anciently so called. Thus Chaucer in the Knight’s Tale, late edit. ver. 2024: ‘The carter overriden with his cart.’ STEEVENS.”
1784 ays1
ays1=v1778 minus Chaucer
2024 cart] Ayscouth (ed. 1784): “A chariot was anciently so called.”
1803 v1803
v1803=v1785 + Comical Historie of Alphonsus S&A.
2024 Full thirtie times] Todd (apud ed. 1803): “This speech of the Player King appears to me as a burlesque of the following passage in The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, by R.G. 1599: ‘Thrise ten times Phoebus with his golden beames Hath compassed the circle of the skie,Thrise ten times Ceres hath her workemen hir’d. And fild her barnes with frutefall crops of corne, Since first in priesthood I did lead my life.’ TODD.”
cald1 includes this parallel later. See 2026.
1818-19 mclr2
mclr2
2024-96 Coleridge (ms. notes 1819 in Ayscough, ed. 1807; rpt. Coleridge, 1998, 12.4:853): “As in the first interview with the Players by epic verse, so here by rhyme.”
1819 cald1
cald1 ≈ v1803 (Alphonsus S&A)
2024 Full thirtie times] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Mr. Todd refers to the Comical Historie of Alphonsus, by R.G. 1599: ‘Thrise ten times Phoebus with his golden beames Hath compassed the circle of the skie Thrise ten times Ceres hath her workemen hir’d, And fild her barnes with frutefull crops of corne, Since first in priesthood I did lead my life.”
cald1 ≈ v1778 (Chaucer ref./Tyrwhitt trans.) + King James analogue; TN //
2024 cart] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Car. ‘A cart or a charret. Currus. Plaustrum.’ Whittintoni Lucubrationes, 4to, 1527. Mr. Steevens cites Ch. Knight’s Tale, Tyrwhitt, v. 2024. ‘The blissful Phoebus bricht, The lamp of joy, the heavens gemme of licht, The golden cairt, and the ethereal King.’ K. James Reules and Cautelis of Scottis Poesie, 1584. See ‘Carr.’ [TN 2.5.64 (1079)] Fabian; and Tyrwhitt’s Chauc. v. 2024.”
1821 v1821
v1821: contra v1778 (Chaucer analogue)
2024 cart] Boswell (apud ed. 1821): “Mr. Steevens’s quotation from Chaucer will not prove what he produces it for. Our old poet has introduced circumstances much more lowly than that of a carter overridden by his cart; for instance: ‘The coke yscalled for all his long ladell.’ BOSWELL.”
1826 sing1
sing1 ≈ v1821 minus Boswell contra Steevens
2024 cart] Singer (ed. 1826): “Cart, car, or chariot, were used indiscriminately for any carriage formerly. Mr. Todd has adduced the following passage from the Comical History of Alphonsus, by R.G. 1599, which, he thinks, Sh. meant to burlesque: [verbatim quotation as in v1821 follows]”
Attribution here is an exception: normally notes are provided without attribution, but when they are, the source is identified in comment narrative.
1832 cald2
cald2 ≈ cald1 (abbreviated)
2024 cart] Caldecott (ed. 1832): “In the Comicall Historie of Alphonsus 1639 Todd points out a similar idea and the same computation of time.”
Both Todd (apud ed. 1803) and Singer (ed. 1826) date Comical Historie by R[obert] G[reene] 1599.
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
hud1: Coleridge
2024 cart] Hudson (ed. 1851-6): “Cart, car, and chariot were used indiscriminately.—‘The style,’ says Coleridge ‘of the interlude here is distinguished from the real dialogue by rhyme, as in the first interview with the players by epic verse.’ H. “
1857 fieb
fieb: standard
2024 cart] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “Was formerly used for car, chariot, and seems to have been constantly applied to that of Phœbus.”
1860 stau
stau: standard
2024 cart] Staunton (ed. 1860): “Car, or chariot.”
1865 hal
hal ≈ cald1, v1803 (Todd ref. to Hist. of Alphons. S&A)
2024 cart] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “Cart, a car, not necessarily a burlesque form of the word,—’A cart or a charriet. Currus, Plaustrum.’ Wittintoni Lucubrationes, 4to. 1527. Steevens cites Ch. Knight’s Tale, Tyrwhitt, v. 2024.—‘The blissful Phœbus bricht. The Lamp of joy, the heavens gemme of licht, The golden cairt, and the ethereal King.’ K. James’s Reules and Cautelles of Scottis Poesie, 1584.—Caldecott.
“This speech of the Player King appears to me as a burlesque of the following passage in the Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, by R.G. 1599.—‘Thrise ten times Phœbus with his golden beames Hath compassed the circle of the skie, Thrise ten times Ceres hath her workemen hir’d, And fild her barnes with the frutefull crops of corne, Since first in priesthood I did lead my life.’—Todd.”
1872 cln1
cln1 ≈ v1778 for Chaucer analogue +
2024 cart] Clark and Wright (ed. 1872): “An archaism purposely affected to suit the fustian of the speech.”
1874 Anon
Anon
2024-96 Anonymous (New Shakespeare Society’s Transactions 1874, p. 314): Cites “the inner play in Hamlet” as an instance in which “the different rhyming treatment was clearly adopted deliberately beforehand, in order to differentiate this part of the work from the rest; it did not grow up in the author’s mind spontaneously, while the actual writing was going on, as an emphatic rhyme in the middle or even at the end of a scene did: it was a preconceived limitation, not an unforeseen development.”
Transcribed by ECR.
1878 rlf1
rlf1 ≈ v1821 without attribution
2024 cart] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “Chariot; but obsolete in that sense in the time of S. Wr. quotes Chaucer, C.T. 2043: "The statue of Mars upon a carte stood."”
1883 wh2
wh2
2024 Full thirtie times] White (ed. 1883): “This play within the play is written with great skill in the style of Sh’s predecessors, and was doubtless the cause of some of the sneers at him. Some editors have actually searched it for the twelve or sixteen lines that Hamlet speaks of introducing! There could be no vainer quest. Hamlet’s declaration, it should not need to be said, is merely to prepare us for his finding a play exactly suited to his purposes, and this S. wrote as a bloc.”
1885 macd
macd
2024-29 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Here Hamlet gives the time his father and mother had been married, and Sh. points at Hamlet’s age. The Poet takes pains to show his hero’s years.”
1889 Barnett
Barnett
2024 cart] Barnett (1889, p. 47): “to suit the inflated style of the speech; cart being for chariot.”
1890 irv2
irv2 ≈ v1778, v1821 + magenta underlined
2024 cart] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “For the archaism, cart for chariot, compare Chaucer, Knightes Tale, l. 1183: ‘the statue of Mars upon a carte stood:’ where carte, occurring as it does in the tremendous description of the temple of Mars armypotente, unquestionably means a chariot, though in line 1164 above—‘The cartere over-ryden with his carte—’ I think it is equally evident that carte means the same as it does now, and that Boswell is right in rebuking Steevens for his citation of it.”
1899 ard1
ard1 ≈ capn (Spenser analogue); v1803 (Greene analogue)
2024 cart] Dowden (ed. 1899): “chariot. Spenser, Faerie Queene, v. viii, 34: ‘On every side of his embatteld cart.’ These lines resemble lines beginning ‘Thrice ten times Phœbus,’ near the opening of Act 4. of Greene’s Alphonsus.”
1903 p&c
p&c ≈ hal + magenta underlined
2024 Phebus cart] Porter & clarke (ed. 1903): “Calling the sun the chariot of Apollo or Phæbus Cart, the sea Neptunes salt Wash, and the earth Tellus Orbed ground, is in accord with the elaborate use of Greek mythology in Elizabethan plays and romances. Halliwell supposes it a burlesque of ‘Thrice ten times Phœbus with his Golden beames Hathe compassed the circle of the skie, Thrise ten times Ceres hatj,’ etc., in the ‘Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, By R[obert] G[reene]’ (1599).”
1913 tut2
tut2: unidentified analogue modeled on Seneca
2024 full thirty times, etc] Goggin (ed. 1913): “This interlude is written in imitation of the earlier Elizabethan tragedy, which was modeled on Seneca (see note on 2.2.384). Noteworthy are the rhyme, the rhetorical and stilted diction, and the excessive moralising in the Senecan manner.”
1929 trav
trav
2024 Full]
Travers (ed. 1929): “fully. –
Phoebus, and presently
Neptune, Tellus, and
Hymen, mark off the style for the play as intended for no ignorant ears.”
1934b rid1
rid1: standard
2024 Phebus] Ridley (ed. 1934): “the Sun-god.”
1934 cam3
cam3
2024-29 Full thirtie times ] Wilson (ed. 1934): “The repeated insistence upon ‘thirty’ years of married life agrees with Ham.’s age given [5.1.143-57 (3334-3347)] (note).”
1937 pen1
pen1
2024-29 Full thirtie times . . . sacred bands] Harrison (ed. 1937): “A parody of bombastic dramatic diction. The player-king is merely saying, ‘My dear, we have been married thirty years’.”
1939 kit2
kit2
2024-2130 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “The same necessity to make the style of the ‘play within the play’ distinct from the style of the play itself exists in the case of ‘The Mousetrap’ as in the case of the Pyrrhus declamation (see ii, 2, 472, note). Here the difference is marked by the use of rhyme and by the elaborately sententious manner.”
kit2: Alphonsus analogues, Selimus analogue
2024-29 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Cf. Greene, Alphonsus, iv, I, 1152-1156 (ed. Collins, I, 113): ‘Thrise ten times Phœbus with his golden beames Hath compassed the circle of the skie, Thrise ten times Ceres hath her workemen hir’d, And fild her barnes with frutefull crops of Corne, Since first in Priesthood I did lead my life;’ and also iv, 2, (I, 116): ‘Thrise Hesperus with pompe and peerelesse pride Hath heau’d his head forth of the Easterne seas, Thrise Cynthia, with Poœbus borrowed beames, Hath shewn her bewtie throgh the darkish clowdes, Since that I, wretched Duke, haue tasted ought, Or drunke a drop of any kinde of drinke;’ Selimus, Emperour of the Turkes, ll. 37. ff (Malone Society ed., p. 1): ‘Twice fifteene times hath faire Latonaes sonne Walked about the world with his great light: Since I began, would I had nere begunne, To sway this scepter.’ ”
kit2: standard
2024 Phebus cart] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “the chariot of the sun.”
1958 mun
mun: Brandl (Comicall Historie analogue)
2024-28 Full . . . Since] Munro (ed. 1958): “Brandl, 149, remarks that the speech of the Player King seems to parody a message in The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus. Brandl probably refers to ll. 1394-1397: (Malone Socy. Reprint, ed. Greg, sig. F4; Greene, i 116).”
Comicall Historie anal. is traceable to v1803.
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ kit2 for Phebus cart
2024 Phebus cart] Evans (ed. 1974): “the sun-god’s chariot.”
1982 ard2
ard2=kit2 for Phebus cart
1987 oxf4
oxf4
2024-53 Full thirtie . . . in bed] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “ Like the passage about Pyrrhus in 2.2, The Murder of Gonzago is sharply differentiated from the play proper by its style. But, whereas the manner in the first case is epic in its elevation, that in the second, at least up to line 173, is an exercise in the writing of fustian. The drumming couplets, mostly self-contained, the long-drawn-out sententious commonplaces, the repetition of ideas, the laboured periphrases, the references to classical mythology, and above all, the numerous inversions of normal sentence structure combine with one another to create a most telling criticism of dramatic writing as it was about the time when Sh. left Stratford for England.”
oxf4: mnd //
2024 Phoebus’ cart] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “Apollo’s chariot, the sun. Sh. had already made fun of this antiquated periphrasis by including it as ‘Phibbus’ car’ in the tyrant’s rant he gives to Bottom (MND [1.2.34-36 (299)]).
1988 bev2
bev2=evns1 + magenta underlined
2024 Phebus cart] Bevington (ed. 1988): “the sun god’s chariot, making its yearly cycle.”
1992 fol2
fol2=bev2 +
2024 Phebus cart] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “(The language of this play-within-the-play is set apart from that surrounding it by complicated word order and noticeably poetic language.)”
2024
