HW Home	Previous CN	View CN	View TNM	View TNI	Next CN

Line 2261 - 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 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

2261 Contagion to this world: now could I drinke hote blood,	3.2.390

1885 macd

macd

2261-63 now . . . looke on] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “The assurance of his uncle’s guilt, gained through the effect of the play upon him, and the corroboration of his mother’s guilt by this partial confirmation of the Ghost’s assertion, have once more stirred in Hamlet the fierceness of vengeance. But here afresh comes out the balanced nature of the man—say rather, the supremacy in him of reason and will. His dear soul, having once become mistress of his choice, remains mistress for ever. He could drink hot blood, he could do bitter business, but he will carry himself as a son, and the son of his father, ought to carry himself towards a guilty mother—mother although guilty.”

1891 dtn

dtn

2261 Contagion] Deighton (ed. 1981): “infectious vapors.”

1913 tut2

tut2

2261 Contagion] Goggin (ed. 1913): “’poison that infects the blood.’”

1929 trav

trav: xrefs.

2261 drinke hote blood] Travers (ed. 1929): “a confession that, however qualified by the repetition of “now,” “relishes” (to use Hamlet’s own phrase in [3.1.117 (1773)] both of Saxo’s Amleth and, very likely, of the pre-Shakespearean, Elizabethan, Hamlet. Cp. the necessity for [3.2.393-9 (2264-70)]; also e. g. [3.3.89 (2364)] n. 1.”

1939 kit2

kit2: JC, 2H6 //s

2261 Contagion] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Two ideas combine in this poetic figure, In the night, evil spirits and malign influences were supposed to have more power than by day; and at the same time the night air was regarded as charged with actual contagion. Cf. JC [2.1.265 (906)]: ‘the vile contagion of the night’; 2H6 [4.1.3-7 (2172-5): ‘And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades That drag the tragic melancholy night, Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings Cleep [i.e., surround] dead men’s graves, and from their misty jaws Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.’”

1953 Joseph

Joseph

2261-3 now could I . . . looke on] Joseph (1953, p. 117): Hamlet’s “soliloquy gives assurance of his will to do the deed, in terms of such savage relish that modern sensibility is appalled [quotes 2261-3].”

1987 oxf4

oxf4: Jonson analogue

2261 drinke hote blood] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “The drinking of blood was supposed to be an incitement to homicide. See Jonson’s Catiline 1.4, where Catiline kills a slave, mixes his blood with wine, and says as he drinks it, ‘Be firm, my hand, not shed a drop, but pour / Fierceness into me with it, and fell thirst / Of more and more, till Rome be left as bloodless / As ever her fears made her, or the sword’ (Jonson, v. 450) .”

1988 bev2

bev2

2261 now could I] Bevington (ed. 1988): “i.e., now I might be tempted to.”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: 2124-30 xref; E3 //; Edwards

2261 drink hot blood] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Witches were supposed to do this; it seems in the spirit of Lucianus’ ’Thought black’ speech at 248-53 [2124-30]. See also E3, where the Prince offers ’the blood of captive kings’ as a ’restorative’ to the wounded Audley (4.7.31-2). Edwards argues (52) that Hamlet is disgusted by the thought rather than relishing it.”