Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2278 Out of his {browes} <Lunacies>. | 3.3.7 |
|---|
1733 theo1
theo1: WT, Wiv. //s
2278 browes] Theobald (ed. 1733): “Lunes] The old Quarto’s read, —Out of his Brows. This was from the Ignorance of the first Editors; as is this unnecessary Alexandrine, which we owe to the Players. The Poet, I am persuaded, wrote, ‘—as doth hourly grow Out of his Lunes.’ i.e. his Madness, Frenzy. So our Poet, before, in his WT [2.2.28 (856)] ‘These dangerous, unsafe Lunes i’th’King! —beshrew ‘em, He must be told of it, &c.’ The Reader, he if pleases, may turn to my 10th Remark on that Play. Perhaps, too, in the Wiv. [4.2.21 (1918)], where all the Editions read; ‘Why, Woman, your Husband is in his old Lines again.’ We ought to correct; ‘—in his old Lunes again.’ i.e. in his old Fits of Madness, Frenzy.”
1740 theo2
theo2 = theo1 minus “The Reader . . . Frenzy.”
1747-53 mtby4
mtby4
2278 browes] Thirlby (1747-53): “T ex conj. Lunes al [alteri legunt] brows.”
Transcribed by BWK, who adds: “From other examples in Thirlby, he sometimes says ‘ex conj. mea’; the form ‘ex conj.’ may be a shortened form. He may be saying that in one of //s for lunes (WT, Wiv.) Theobald found a conj. by Thirlby?”
1765 Heath
Heath: theo1
2278 browes] Heath (1765, p. 541): “Mr Theobald hath in my opinion sufficiently proved that the more authentick reading is, ‘Out of his lunes.’”
1765 john1
john1, john2 = theo2 minus WT //+
2278 browes] Johnson (ed. 1765): “I take Brows to be, properly read, Frows, which, I think, is a provincial word, for perverse humours; which being, I suppose, not understood, was changed to Lunacies. But of this I am not confident.”
1773 v1773
v1773 = john1; ≈ theo1 (Wiv. //)
2278 browes] Steevens (ed. 1773): “I would receive THEOBALD’s emendation, because Shakespeare uses the word lunes in the same sense in Wiv. [1918]. From the redundancy of the measure nothing can be inferred. Steevens.”
Steevens restores Wiv. // from theo1, acknowledging THEOBALD; otherwise, commentary in john1 is adopted verbatim (including compressed version of note in theo2.
1774 capn
capn
2278 browes] Capell (1774, 1:1: glossary, lunes): “(H. 77, 22; Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)]; Tro.. [2.3.130 (1335)]; and WT. [2.2.28 (856)]) mad Fits, Lunacies.
1778 v1778
v1778 = Greene analogue; contra v1773
2278 browes] Steevens (ed. 1778): “Since this part of my note was written, I have met with an instance in support of Dr. Johnson’s conjecture: ‘—were you but as favourable as you are frowsish—’ Tully’s Love, by Greene, 1616. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare designed a metaphor from horned cattle, whose powers of being dangerous, encrease with the growth of their brows. Steevens.”
1784 ays1
ays1
2278 browes] Ayscouth (ed. 1784): lunes] “i. e. his madness, frenzy.”
1785 Mason
Mason: john1; contra theo
2278 browes] Mason (1785, p. 389): lunes] “If out of his lunacies be, as Johnson informs us, the reading of the folio, why should the word lunacies be changed for lunes, on the authority of Theobald only?”
1787 ANN
ANN: v1773 (wt, Wiv. //s)
2278 browes] H
enley (
apud Editor, 1787, 6:115-6): <p.115> “The two readings of
brows and
lunes—when taken </p.115><p.116> in connection with the passages referred to by Mr. Steevens in
WT, and
Wiv.,—plainly figure forth the image under which the King apprehended danger from Hamlet:—viz. that a bull, which, in his frenzy, might not only gore, but push him from his throne,—’The hazard that hourly grows out of his
brows’ (according to the quartos) corresponds to ‘
the shoots from the rough pash,’ [that is
the tufted protuberance
on the head of a bull, from whence his horns spring,] alluded to in
WT [2.2.28 (856)]; whilst the imputation of impending danger to ‘
his lunes’ (according to the other reading) answers as obviously to the jealous fury of the husband that thinks he has detected the infidelity of his wife. Thus, in
Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)]: ‘Why, woman, your husband is in his old
lunes—he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s daughters, and so buffets himself on the
forehead, crying peer out! peer out! that any
madness, I ever yet beheld, seem’d but tameness, civility, and patience, to this distemper he is now in.’
Henley.”
1790 mal
v1790 ≈ malsi, v1785
2276-8 The termes . . . browes] Malone (ed. 1790): “Shakspeare probably had here the following passage in The Hystory of Hamblet, bl. let. in his thoughts: ‘Fengon could not content himselfe, but still his mind gave him that the foole [Hamlet] would play him some tricke of legerdemaine. And in that conceit seeking to be rid of him, determined to find the meanes to doe it, by the aid of a stranger, making the king of England minister of his massacrous resolution, to whom he purposed to send him.’ Malone.”
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal minus “From . . . .be inferred”)
2278 browes] Steevens (ed. 1793): “I would receive Theobald’s emendation, because Shakespeare uses the word lunes in the same sense in Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)] and WT [2.2.28 (856)]. From the redundancy of the measure nothing can be inferred. Steevens.”
v1793 = mal minus opening clause (“Since . . . written”), ANN (Henley note)
2278 browes] Steevens (ed. 1793): “Since this part of my note was written, I have met with an instance in support of Dr. Johnson’s conjecture: ‘—were you but as favourable as you are frowsish—’ Tully’s Love, by Greene, 1616. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare designed a metaphor from horned cattle, whose powers of being dangerous, encrease with the growth of their brows. Steevens.”
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793 + magenta underlined
2278 browes] Steevens (ed. 1803): “I have met with an instance in support of Dr. Johnson’s conjecture: ‘—were you but as favourable as you are frowsish—’ Tully’s Love, by Greene, 1616. “Froes is also used by Chapman, in his version of the sixth Iliad, for furious women: ‘—ungodly fears He put the froes in, seiz’d their god—.’ Perhaps, however, Shakespeare designed a metaphor from horned cattle, whose powers of being dangerous, encrease with the growth of their brows. Steevens.”
1815 Becket
Becket ≈ v1778 ( “horned cattle” metaphor)
2278 browes] Becket (1815, 1: 56): “‘Brows’ may be used for head. The meaning will be, the projects in which he is continually engaged: and such, it may be remembered was the case with Hamlet. As for Mr. S.’s metaphor from horned cattle, it is —if any thing in the semblance of a pun may for once be admitted—enough to drive a person horn mad. This proverbial saying, and which has been supposed to have originated with the cuckold’d horns, is wholly derived from the horns of the moon. In means, really, actually mad; furious, by reason of the planet’s influence, and to distinguish it from the term mad, when merely applicable to folly, or an extravagant humor. Horn mad, is evidently the vulgar expression for lunatic; for at the time that the moon is crescent or horned, as the astronomer calls it, the intellect, if any way unsound, will be affected in a more particular degree than when she is in her wane.”
1819 CALD1
cald1
2278 browes] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “The king had proposed this scheme immediately after Hamlet’s interview with Ophelia, at the close of the last scene. Instead of lunacies, the quartos read brows: i.e. springs out of, or shows itself in, the lowering and threatening aspect he wears.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813 +
2278 browes] Boswell (ed. 1821): “I have ventured to restore the reading of the first folio, which affords a meaning about which no one can hesitate, and which the King has employed before: ‘Grating so harshly all his days of quiet With turbulent and dangerous lunacy.’ instead of lunes, which Mr.Theobald has introduced merely with a view to avoid an Alexandrine. As Mr. Steevens justly observed in his edition of 1778, ‘from the redundancy of the measure nothing can be inferred:’ and we have already had a multitude of lines equally long in this very play. The word brows in the quarto, which was probably changed for one more obviously to be understood, need not to have been amended, as Johnson proposed: The brow seems to have been considered by Shakspeare as the great seat of expressions, from which either our virtue or ‘the head and front of our offending’ might be discovered: ‘—Takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love.’ So again: ‘—Brands the harlot Even here between the chaste unsmsirched brow Of my true mother.’ Boswell.”
Note interpolated in v1803, after Tully’s Love analogue and before “Perhaps . . . brows,” is preserved in v1803 position.
1822 Nares
Nares: Wiv., WT //s; han, theo1
2278 browes] Nares (1822, glossary, lunes): “Lunacy, frenzy. French. Thought to be peculiar to Shakespeare. He has it, according to the modern editors, in Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)]: ‘Why, woman, your husband is in his old lunes again.’ iv.2. But here the quarto, 1630 and 1632, read lines: the older quartos, vaine. In the WT: ‘These dangerous unsafe lunes o’ the king! beshrew them—He must be told on’t and he shall. [2.2.28 (856)]. There it is authorized by the old editions. In Tro. we have, ‘—Yea, watch His pettish lunes, his ebbs, his flows, as if The passage and whole carriage of this action Rode on his tide.’ [2.3.130 (1335)]. In this place again it is Hanmer’s emendation from lunes; but certainly very probable. Lastly it is in Hamlet [cited with lunes]. This is also an emendation of a modern editor, namely Theobald. The old quartos read brows, the folio lunacies; so that, in fact, out of four passages, only one presents us with this word on the authority of the old editions; and yet, in all the places, the reading is certainly probable, and better than those for which it is substituted. Could we find any other authority for the word, it would greatly increase the probability.”
1857 fieb
fieb ≈ Nares (Wiv. //)
2278 browes] Fiebig (ed. 1857): [lunes]“The folio reads, against the metre, —‘Out of his lunacies,’ The old quartos—‘Out of his brows.’ The emendation, ‘out of his lunes,’ i.e. madness, frenzy is corresponding to a passage in Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)]: ‘Why woman, your husband is in his old lunes—he so takes on yonder with my husband; so rails against all married mankind; so curses all Eve’s daughters, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying peer out! peer out! that any madness, I ever yet beheld, seemed but tameness, civility, and patience to this distemper he is now in’—a passage which, for the sake of the word forehead, has also been employed in support of the reading of the old quartos—out of his brows, by which the poet is supposed to have designed a metaphor from horned cattle, whose powers of being dangerous increase with the growth of their brows. This image under which the king apprehended danger from Hamlet, would be that of a bull, which, in his frenzy, might not only gore, but push him from his throne.”
1866 ktlyn
ktlyn: standard
2278 browes] Keightley (ed. 1866, glossary): “lunes] lunacy, frenzy.”
1869 tsch
tsch
2278 browes] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “Das sinnliche brows der Qs. empfielt sich deshalb, weil der argwöhnische König sicher nicht wirklichen Wahnsinn, lunacies, bei Hamlet voraussetzt.” [The physical brows of the Quartos is to be recommended because the suspicious king surely doesn’t assume actual insanity, lunacies. in Hamlet’s case.]
1872 del4
del4: theo
2277 browes] Delius (ed. 1872): “Dieses browes hielt Theobald für verdruckt aus lunes; ein Anonymus vermuthet braves darin.” [This browes Theobald thinks is a misprinting of lunes; an anonymous critic suspects that it should be braves.]
1877 v1877
v1877 = theo, john, v1778, Henley, Elze
2278 browes]
Furness (ed. 1877): lunacies] “
Theobald: This unnecessary Alexandrine we owe to the players. Sh. wrote
lunes, i.e. madness, frenzy. See
WT [2.2.28 (856)];
Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)..
Johnson: I take
browes of the Qq to be, properly read,
frows, which, I think, is a provincial word for
persverse humours, which being not understood was changed to ‘lunacies.’ But of this I am not confident.
Steevens suggested that perhaps Sh. designed a metaphor from horned cattle, whose powers of being dangerous increase with the
growth of their brows!
Henley improved on this, and maintained that the image under which the King apprehends danger from Ham. is that of a
bull! ‘which, in his frenzy, might not only gore, but push him from his throne.’
Elze: It is not improbable that Sh. wrote either
frowns or
brains.”
1882 elze
elze
2278 browes] Elze (ed. 1882): “The line, as it stands in F1, is not an Alexandrine, as lunacies is to be pronounced as a trisyllabic feminine ending.”
1887 Mackay
Mackay ≈ Nares + magenta underlined
2278 browes] Mackay (1887, glossary, lunes): “‘This word,’ says Nares, ‘is thought to be peculiar to Shakspeare.’ He renders it by lunacy and frenzy, and asserts it to be French, which it is not. ‘Why, woman! your husband is in his old lunes again.’ Wiv. [4.2.21 (1917)]. ‘These dangerous unsaft lunes o’the king! beshrew me He must be told on’t; and he shall.’ WT [2.2.28 (856)]. ‘Yea! watch his pettish lunes.’ Tro. [2.3.130 (1335)].
“Various commentators have proposed insted of lunes to read ‘lines,’ or ‘vaine,’ or ‘brows,’ or ‘lunacies.’ In the Keltic luainèas (quasi lunes), signifies caprices, fits of ill-temper, fickleness; whence the adjective luainèach—restless, changeable, fickle, inconstant, doing things by fits and starts. The interpretation suits all the four instances above quoted. Probably the origin of the Keltic word is from Luna, the moon, which was long, and is still supposed to have a malign influence on the mnd. Luathan (pronounced lua-an) means, in Keltic, the swift planet; hence the Luna of the Romans.”
1890 irv2
irv2 ≈ theo1 (including WT //)
2278 browes] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “lunacies] So Ff.; Qq. have the evident misprint browes, a misprint, however, which may stand, as Theobald supposed, for lunes. See, on that word, note 65 to WT [2.2.28 (856)].”
1899 ard1
ard1: OED
2278 browes] Dowden (ed. 1899): “lunacies] The Q brows may be right. The word brow is used in the sense of fronting aspect, countenance, and also in that of confidence, effrontery; see A New English Dictionary [OED}, brow, 5 c and d. The choice of the word may have been determined by the fixed gaze of Hamlet upon the King during the play-scene. It seems strange that blows (in the sense of injuries, not uncommon in Shakespeare) has not been suggested as an emendation of brows.”
1904 ver
ver ≈ elze
2278 browes] Verity (ed. 1904): Lunacies] “The line is not a proper Alexandrine, nor is there any need for the change lunes = ‘madness, frenzy.’ This is an instance of two central extra syllables, one slightly slurred; made easier by the division between the two speakers. The Quarto has brows, which some interpret as ‘threatening looks’.”
1934 Wilson
Wilson
2278 browes] Wilson (1934, rpt. 1963, 2:324): <2:324> “The F1 word is clearly a makeshift on the part of Scribe P baffled by Shakespeare’s penmanship, and it is clearly an editor’s duty to set it aside, like any other emendation, and go back to ‘browes,’ which, though nonsense, at least gives us what the Q2 compositor, far too much engrossed in the letters of his copy to be bothering about the sense of what he read, thought he saw before him as he set up his type. Having got so far, we arrive at the guessing-point. My own guess, for what it is worth, is ‘brawles,’ which would make ‘browes’ a combined a:o and l:e error, that is to say nothing at all out of the way. An examination of the words ‘rule’ at l. 100 and ‘gospell’ at l. 88 of the ‘Shakespearian’ Addition to Sir Thomas Moore will show how ‘l’ might be misread as ‘c’ or ‘d,’ and there are several examples of the misprint in other Shakespearian texts, while a:o confusion has been illustrated above2 and will be considered again below. ‘Brawles,’ too, is a far more pregnant word than the colourless ‘lunacies’ since, as I hope to show elsewhere, it defines with some exactitude the character of Hamlet’s conduct in the play-scene, as it appeared to the court and as Claudius was only too willing to have it interpreted.” </2:324>
[<2:324> “2Vide 1:110-111.” </2:324>]
1934 cam3
cam3: MSH
2278 browes] Wilson (ed. 1934): brawls] “Q2 ‘browes,’ F1 ‘Lunacies.’ I emend Q2 rather than adopt the makeshift reading of F1. MSH.pp. 9-11, 169, 324. Cf. ‘turbulent and dangerous lunacy’ [3.1.4 (1651)].”
1934 rid
rid: Wilson
2278 browes] Ridley (ed. 1934): “braves] The F emendation, apart from graphical difficulties, is awkward metrically. D. Wilson suggests brawls or braves, I prefer the second.”
2278 browes] Ridley (ed. 1934): “braves] wild behaviour.”
1936 cam3b
cam3b: contra cam3; OED
2278 browes] Wilson (ed. 1936): “In the 2nd ed. I suggested ‘braves’ as a likely emendation for the Q2 ‘browes.’ The sense, ‘impudent or defiant threats,’ would suit the context well, and it would be easier than ‘brawls’ graphically. But it is safer to retain ‘brows’ in view of OED. which cites late 17th century examples of ‘brow’ in the figurative sense of ‘an unabashed brow, effrontery.’”
1938 parc
parc
2278 browes Parrott and Craig (ed. 1938): braves] “bravadoes, insolent speech and behavior, an emendation of the Quarto browes.”
1947 yal2
yal2: Yale Rev., parc
2278 browes] Cross & Brooke (ed. 1947): “defiances; cf. n.”
<n.> “The Quarto reading is ‘browes’, for which the Folio substitutes (apparently in desperation) ‘Lunacies’. The word here accepted is an ancient anonymous conjecture, independently reviewed in Yale Review (March, 1935, p. 620) and in the Parrott-Craig ed. (1938).” </n.>
1957 pel1
pel1
2278 browes] Farnham (ed. 1957): “brows effronteries (apparently with an implication of knitted brows).”
1958 mun
mun
2278 browes] Munro (ed. 1958): lunes] “In Hamlet F’s expansion into lunacies confirms the sense. Parrott-Craig give references to the use of braves meaning bravadoes, insolent speeches.”
1974 evns1
evns1
2278 his browes] Evans (ed. 1974): “the madness visible in his face (?).”
1980 pen2
pen2
2278 browes] Spencer (ed. 1980): “This Q2 reading is difficult. Perhaps the King is thinking of the intensely attentive face, with knitted brows, watching him during the play scene; and so the meaning is something like ‘bold opposition’. The compiler of the F text found the word unreasonable, and substituted ‘Lunacies’, regardless of metre, perhaps an echo of turbulent and dangerous lunacy [3.1.4 (1651)]. Emendations proposed include ‘blows’, ‘brains’, ‘braves’, ‘brawls’, ‘frowns’, and ‘lunes’.”
1982 ard2
ard2: F.P. Wilson, Kermode, Dowden (OED), parc, sis, Dover Wilson; KJ. Troil, Shr., 1H6 //s; Woodstock analogues
2278 browes] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “What grows out of the brows is generated in the head, i.e. plots, contrivances. ln. F Lunacies, along with dangerous in the line before, cannot derive from an autograph which produced Q2. Both words, adding nothing to what is already in the context, are apparently stopgaps supplied, consciously or not, by a recollection of dangerous lunacy in 1651. The correct reading, then requires either the acceptance or the emendation of Q2. Brows has been thought meaningless, but I see no great difficulty about a metaphor which makes Claudius see danger springing out of Hamlet’s head. What he fears are Hamlet’s plots, schemes, contrivances. F. P. Wilson, remarking on the Elizabethan fondness for indicating states of mind by their physical signs, suggests that brows stands for what Claudius sees as the ‘threatening aspect’ of Hamlet (Shakespeare and the New Bibliography, ed. Gardner, 1970, p. 103). Cf. KJ [5.1.49 (2217)], ‘Threaten the threat’ner, and outface the brow Of bragging horror’, and the verb browbeat, Kermode (Riverside), perhaps influenced by F, suggests ‘the madness visible in his face(?)’. Dowden, citing OED (brow 5 c and d), preferred a different metonymy whereby the brow, the ‘fronting aspect’, signified effrontery. But the OED instances are all singular as well as later and hardly justify those recent editions which gloss brows as ‘effronteries’. It is as well to recognize that the context (doth. . .grow out of) equate the hazard not with the brows themselves but with their product.
“Among emendations proposed, the likeliest is braves, acts or speeches of insolent defiance, strongly supported by Parrott-Craig and Sisson (‘graphically most plausible, and apt in sense’, NR). Cf. Anon., Woodstock, l. 567, ‘Shall we brook these braves, disgraced and threatened thus’, and l. 2828; Heywood, 1Edw4, (to a defiant rebel) ‘Leave off these idle braves’ (Works, 1874, i.54); and in Shakespeare (Tro. [4.4.137 (2532)]; Shr. [3.1.15 (1310)]; 1H6 [3.1.124 (1340)]. Other conjectures include lunes (Theobald,), fits of lunacy, as in WT [2.2.28 (856)], and brains. Dover Wilson originally read brawls (cf. MSH, p. 324) but then retracted in favour of braves and finally decided it was ‘safer to retain’ brows.”
1984 chal
chal: Wilson, F.P.
2278 browes] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “brows ‘threatening aspect’ (F.P. Wilson).”
1985 cam4
cam4: OED
2278 Out of his browes] Edwards (ed. 1985): “So Q2; see collation. This curious expression seems to have been too much for the playhouse scribe. ‘brows’ means ‘effrontery’ (which derives from Latin frons=brow). Though ‘effontery’ is not recorded in the language of Shakespeare’s day in OED, ‘effronted’ (= bare-faced, shameless) does exist.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4
2278 browes] Hibbard (ed. 1987): lunacies] “This F reading, replacing the troublesome browes of Q2, looks very like a bit of authorial revision. It is true that it produces a line with an extra foot, but such lines are not uncommon in Hamlet.”
1988 bev2
bev2
2278 browes] Bevington (ed. 1988): “i.e., effronteries, threatening frowns, or contrivances.”
1993 dent
dent: xrefs.
2278 his browes] Andrews (ed. 1993): “Shakespeare frequently treats threatening brows (here symbolic of a brooding mind) as symbols of imminent danger. Compare [1.2.4 (182)], [2.1.86 (986)].”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: RS //; Hibbard, Edwards, Jenkins, Seary, Theobald, Malone
2278 Out . . . brows] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “i.e. out of his mental disorder or threatening looks, the brow being seen as revealing one’s state of mind, as at RS 4.1.331: ’I see your brows are full of discontent’ (see also 3.4.40-2 and n.) F’s ’Lunacies’ for brows is printed by Hibbard, while Edwards defends brows, which he glosses as ’effrontery’; Jenkins (LN) rejects both ’Lunacies’ here and ’dangerous’ in 6 as ’stopgaps supplied, consciously or not, by a recollection of dangerous lunacy in 3.1.4’. (Seary, 164, endorses Theobald’s emendation to ’lunes’, adopted by Malone.).”
ard3q2
2278 ourselves provide] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “prepare or equip ourselves.”
ard3q2: 2838-47 xref
2278-96 We . . . groan] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “In performance, the King sometimes displays impatience (or even, appropriately, embarrassment) during these speeches which attest to an Elizabethan ideal of kingship. See also Messenger’s rhetoric at 4.5.99-108 [2838-47].”
2278