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

Line 2413 - 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.

2413 Thou wretched, rash, intruding foole farwell,	3.4.31

1770 Gentleman

Gentleman

2413-5 Thou . . . danger] gentleman (1770, 1: 24-5): <p.24> “In that excellent scene of the closet where the Prince so beautifully and so powerfully remonstrates to his mother upon her guilty and shameful situation; there appears an incident which rather casts another shade upon our hero’s character; that is the death of Polonius: It happens evidently through a mistake, supposing him the King: Yet when the </p.24><p.25> mistake is discovered, he has not common humanity enough to regret taking the life of an innocent inoffensive old man, nay the Father of a Lady too for whom he professes a regard; but the following line seems to hold the matter light [quotes modernized version of 2414, F1, with “betters”].”

1777 anon (SJC)

Anon (SJC)

2413-5 Thou . . . danger] Anonymous (St. James’s Chronicle,Dec. 31, 1776-Jan. 2, 1777: 4): “Hamlet at last kills [Polonius], but by mistake, and instead of expressing much Regret for it, calls him ‘Calf, &c.’” This is the only Circumstance which seems likely to mislead. But Hamlet was still to appear mad. And Shakespeare seems to us to have sometimes forgot himself, and to have written as if Hamlet were actually mad.”

1843 Macdonell

Macdonell

2413-5 Thou . . . danger] Macdonell (1843, p. 40): “Polonius . . . falls unregretted; his mean servility brought upon him his own ruin, and whatever sagacity he possessed, by long experience of the world, the unworthiness of soul which is exhibited even to the last action of his life, warrants no other consideration, than that which Hamlet bestows on him, [quotes passage].”

1846 Ulrici

Ulrici: contra Schlegel; xref.

2413-5 Thou . . . danger] Ulrici (1846, pp. 215-6): <p.215> “Still less does Hamlet’s character exhibit, as Schlegel thinks, a malignant pleasure in inflicting pain. His own words, after killing Polonius—[quotes this passage] And again—[quotes “for this same lord . . .gaue him,” [3.4.172-77 (2548-53)]; “I must be cruell. . . remains behind.” [3.4.178 (2554-5)] </p.215><p.216> These words breathe rather compassion and sorrow for a rash deed than exultation, and if he does not express a very deep regret for the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern—those false and good-for-nothing tools of his worthless uncle—yet, in all this, there is noting of malignity.” </p.216>

1848 Strachey

Strachey: xref.

2413-5 Strachey (1848, p. 74): “that Hamlet should now suddenly stab him whom he supposes to be the King, is quite natural, if we consider the reaction in his mind which would follow from his late refusal of an opportunity of doing the deed, and the sudden spur to his quick temper, given by the discovery that the King (as he imagines) has placed himself as a spy upon his most confidential moments with his mother. Nor must we take his ‘wild and hurling words,’ when he finds that it is Polonius whom he has killed, for the expression of his real sentiments on the occasion. We learn, by and bye, that he not only grieves for, and, in his words, ‘repents’ the deed [3.4.172-3 (2548-9)], but that the Queen leaves him weeping over it. He affects an indifference that he does not feel, and tries to blunt his grief and remorse, and to hide them from others, by a boisterous manner.”

1863 Hackett

Hackett

2413-5 Hackett (1863, p. 196): “When [Hamlet] discovers that the person he has killed was not the king, but Polonius, instead of compunction and remorse, he begins by a cruel joke upon the body, and finishes by an apologetic burst of indignation at the wretched, rash, intruding, fool, who had hidden himself behind the arras to overhear the interview with his mother.”

1875 Marshall

Marshall

2413-5 Marshall (1875, p. 49): “Hamlet now lifts up the arras and discovers Polonius. He is too much engrossed by the great work which he has in hand—the awakening of his mother’s conscience to a full sense of her guilt—all the powers of his mind are too intent upon his purpose to allow of his expressing his sorrow at the fatal mistake which he has made. And I must here remind you of what I have said before, that Hamlet’s whole nature is so absorbed by the indignation which he feels at his father’s murder, that he regards all persons who in any way countenance the murderer, king though he be, and ignorant as they may be of his guilt, as participators in his crime.”

1881 Oxon

Oxon: Kellogg, Ray

2413-5 Oxon (1881, p. 12-13): <p.12> “[Hamlet’s] sarcasm v. Polonius, whom he jeers in the most uncalled for way, are characteristic of lunatics, who often make a dead set against one of whom they have a dislike.—Kellogg. </p.12>

<p.13> “Apart from this, Ray considers that no sane man would have thus satirised the father of the woman he loved.”

Oxon

2413-5 Thou . . . danger] Oxon (1881, p. 25): “The language [Hamlet] uses to the poor old man’s corpse is repulsively brutal.”

1889 Tomlinson

Tomlinson ≈ Ulrici (contra Schlegel)

2413-5 Thou . . . danger] Tomlinson (1889, p. 7): “Nor can he be said to exhibit the malignant pleasure in the death and suffering of others that [Schlegel] imputes to him. No pleasure is expressed in his utterance over the body of Polonius. Nor in the further remark ‘for this same lord I do repent’ [3.4.173 (2549-50)].”

1953 Joseph

Joseph

2413-6 Joseph (1953, p. 122): This “is all the regret the Prince can spare on the ’guts’ [2579] which he ’lugs’ (another term which smacks of baseness) into the next room; and callous irony speaks in the lines [2580-3, "Indeed, this counsellor . . . an end with you"].”

2007 ShSt

Stegner: 2550-3, 2579, 2685-90 xref

2413-4 Stegner (2007, p. 120-21): “After mistakenly killing Polonius, Hamlet initially calls him a ’wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell. / I took thee for thy better’ and treats his death as completely justifiable (3.4.31-32). But Hamlet then takes responsibility for the killing, ’I do repent,’ only to abandon this position and again attempt to exculpate himself by imputing responsibility to his role as a revenger: ’but heaven hath pleas’d it so / To punish me with this and this with me, / That I must be their scourge and minister’ (3.4.175-77).60 By further shifting from assuming of culpability (cf. 3.4.178-79) to mistreating Polonius’s corpse (cf. 3.4.214) to jocularly referring to Polonius’s spiritual fate (cf. 4.3.19-25), Hamlet manifests his ongoing conflict of conscience.”