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.

1733- mtby3

mtby3: warb

2342 Thirlby (1733-): “v Mr T’s note IV.187, 8. Warb. can but. v. tho’ it signifies little or rather nothing. Somnirin Dæd—Cæran.”

1747 warb

warb: pope, [han]

2342 cannot] Warburton (ed. 1747): “This nonsense even exceeds the last. Shakespear wrote, ‘Yet what can it, when one CAN BUT repent?’ i.e. what can repentance do without restitution? a natural and reasonable thought; and which the transcribers might have seen was the result of his preceding reflexions.‘—Forgive me my foul murther! That cannot be, since I am still possest Of those effects, for which I did the murther, My Crown, my own Ambition, and my Queen. May one be pardon’d and retain the’effect?’

“Besides, the poet could never have made his speaker say, he could not repent, when this whole speech is one thorough act of the discipline of contrition. And what was wanting was the matter of restitution: this, the speaker could not resolve upon; which makes him break out,’Oh limed soule, that struggling to get free Art more engaged!—’

“For it is natural, while the restitution of what one highly values is projected, that the fondness for it should strike the imagination with double force. Because the man, in that situation, figures to himself his condition when deprived of those advantages, which having an unpleasing view, he holds what he is possessed of more closely than ever. Hence, the last quoted exclamation receives all its force and beauty, which on any other interpretation is mean and senseless. But the Oxford Editor [[Hanmer]], without troubling himself with any thing of this, reads, ‘Try what repentance can. What can it not? Yet what can aught, when one cannot repent.’ Which comes to the same nonsense of the common reading, only a little more round about. For when I am bid to try one thing, and I am told that nothing will do; is not that one thing included in the negative? But, if so, it comes at last to this, that, even repentance will not do when one cannot repent.”

1765 john1

john1, john2; contra warb

2342 cannot] Johnson (ed. 1765): “The sense of the received reading is, I think, so plain, that I am afraid lest it should be obscured by any attempt at illustration. What can repentance do for a man that cannot be penitent, for a man who has only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part, resolution of amendment.”

1773 v1773

v1773 ≈ john1 minus “The sense . . .illustration.”

2342 cannot] Johnson (apud ed. 1773): “What can repentance do for a man that cannot be penitent, for a man who has only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part, resolution of amendment. Johnson.”

1773 mstv1

mstv1 = warb + magenta underlined

2342 cannot] Steevens (ms. notes in Steevens, ed. 1773): “Dr. Warburton reads, ‘when one can but repent?’ i.e. what can repentance do without restitution? This whole speech is one thorough act of the discipline of contrition: what was wanting was the matter of restitution. This, the speaker does not resolve upon: for it is natural, whilst the restitution of what one highly values is projected, that the fondness for it sh[oul]d strike the imagination with double force. which makes him break out, Oh limed soul &c.”

1778 v1778

v1778 = v1773

1784 ays1

ays1=v1773 minus 2H6 //

1785 v1785

v1785 = v1778

1790 mal

mal = v1785

1791- rann

rann

2342 cannot repent] Rann (ed. 1791-): “can be grieved only, without resolving to amend.”

1793 v1793

v1793 = v1785

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1793

1813 v1813

v1813 = v1803

1819 cald1

cald1

2342 what . . . repent] Caldecott (1819): “What can that course, though it can do all, if I cannot pursue it?”

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

1857 fieb

fieb=john

2342 repent] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “What can repentance do for a man that cannot be penitent, for a man who has only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part, resolution of amendment? J.”

1877 v1877

v1877 ≈ warb, john, Walker (Versification)

2342 cannot] Furness (ed. 1877): “Warburton: This nonsense even exceeds the last. Sh. wrote, ‘when one can but repent,’ i.e. what can repentance do without restitution? Johnson: What can repentance do for a man that cannot be penitent, for a man who has only part of penitence, distress of conscience, without the other part, resolution of amendment? Walker (Vers. 159): Write cannot, with the accent on the last syllable.”

1885 macd

macd

2342 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Even hatred of crime committed is not repentance; repentance is the turning away from wrong doing: ‘Cease to do evil; learn to do well.’”

1891 dtn

dtn

2342 Deighton (ed. 1891): “yet of what avail is repentance when it consists in sorrow only without amendment of life?”

1939 kit2

kit2

2342 what can it] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “i.e., even it.”

1982 ard2

ard2 ≈ evns1 + magenta underlined

2342 limed soul . . . engag’d] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “The practice of catching birds with birdlime, a sticky substance smeared on twigs, affords a frequent metaphor in Shakespeare. The idea here was proverbial. Cf. Thos. Wilson, Discourse upon Usury, ‘Like as a bird, being taken with lime twigs, the more she struggleth to get out, the more she is limed and entangled fast’ (ed. Tawney, p.227); and other instances in Tilley B 380. Battenhouse (Shakespn. Trag., pp. 377-8) shows its recurrence in Augustine’s Confessions to describe the death-like state of the soul which entanglement in worldly pleasures keeps from God. engag’d, entangled.”