Line 2410 - 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.
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Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
| 2410 As kill a King, and marry with his brother. | 3.4.29 |
|---|
1819 Jackson
Jackson: xrefs.
2410-1 As kill . . . .
king] J
ackson (1819, pp. 353-4 ): <p.353> “Had the Queen been, in any manner, accessory to the King’s death, the Ghost would scarcely express that tenderness for her safety which a subsequent part of this scene exhibits: ‘But, look! amazement . . . Hamlet’ [3.4.112-5 (2492-5)]. Had Shakespeare intended to attach greater culpability to the Queen than her incestuous marriage, this anxiety for her peace would not have been introduced; but, as the art of the usurper overcame female imbecility </p.353><p.354> her crime is considered venial, and the Ghost’s resentment for her misconduct becomes disarmed . . . . See also Hamlet’s speech after this, and the Queen’s reply [3.4.30-39 (2412-22)]. But, indeed, the
dumb show, which precedes the interlude, is sufficient in itself to denote both the Author’s intention and Hamlet’s conviction of the Queen’s innocence.” </p.354>
See 729, 2411, and 2464-7.
1819 cald1
cald1
2410 As kill a king] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Hamlet might have thrown out this as he employed the play against the king, to ‘catch the conscience’ of his mother; but neither in this severe attack upon her, or any where else, though he might harbour some suspicion, does he bring any direct charge of the murder of his father against his mother. Want of decency, of feeling, and the capacity of appreciating or weighing comparative merit, are his points; or, at most, conjugal infidelity. Neither in the exhibition of the mock tragedy, in which, purposely perhaps, the question is raised, whether a woman ever married a second husband who had not murdered her first, does she appear to have any way ‘blenched’ at the suggestion; and the old Hystory, from which some of the incidents of the play are just shown to have been taken, as Mr. Malone points out, expressly negatives this imputation: ‘I know well, my sonne, that I have done thee great wrong in marrying with Fengon, the cruel tyrant and murtherer of thy father, and my loyal spouse; but when thou shalt consider the small meanes of resistance, and the treason of the palace, with the little cause of confidence we are to expect, or hope for, of the courtiers, all wrought to his will; as also the power he made ready if I shold have refused to like him; thou wouldst rather excuse, that accuse mee of lasciviousness or inconstancy, much less offer me that wrong to suspect that ever thy mother Geruth once consented to the death and murther of her husband; swearing to have resisted the tyrant although it had beene with the losse of my blood, yea and my life, I would surely have saved the life of my lord and husband.’ sig. D4.”
This is an abbreviated version of MALSI, see 2411.
1826 sing1
sing1
2410-11 Singer (ed. 1826): “There is an idle and verbose controversy between Steevens and Malone, whether the poet meant to represent the Queen as guilty or innocent of being accessory to the murder of her husband. Surely there can be no doubt upon the matter. The Queen shows no emotion at the mock play when it is said—‘In second husband let me be accurst, None wed the second but who kill’d the first’—and now manifests the surprise of conscious innocence upon the subject. It should also be observed that Hamlet never directly accuses her of any guilty participation in that crime. I am happy to find my opinion, so expressed in December, 1823, confirmed by the newly discovered quarto of 1603; in which the Queen in a future speech is made to say—‘But, as I have a soul, I swear by heaven, I never knew of this most horrid murder.’”
1848 Strachey
Strachey
2410-11 Strachey (1848, p. 77): “I can . . . find no reason for thinking that Hamlet suspected [the Queen] of being an accessory to the murder, except what may be inferred from his saying—[quotes 3.4.28-29 (2409-10)]—but this would be sufficiently met by the evident surprise of the Queen’s reply—’As kill a king?’—even if the jingle of Hamlet’s words did not mark it for a retort in which a little sacrifice of sense would be made to sound. . . . Hamlet’s whole conduct in the scene before us would be preposterous, if he had any doubt of that innocence:—for how could he reprove the guilt of the second marriage, and pass over that of the murder, if the Queen had been partaker in this?”
1854 del2
del2
2410 Delius (ed. 1854): “Die epigrammatische Fassung dieser Verse wird durch den hinzutretenden Reim gehoben.” [The epigrammatic form of these lines is relieved by the concluding rhyme.]
1869 tsch
tsch: Johnson (Dict.)
2410 marry with] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “diese Constr. ergiebt sich aus der intrasitiven Bedeutung von to marry: to enter into the conjugal state with a p. S. Sam. Johnson s. v. marry verb lat. maritus.” [this construction results from the intransitive meaning of to marry: to enter into the conjugal state with a person." See Sam. Johnson s. v. marry verb Latin maritus.]
1882 Bowman
Bowman
2410-11 As kill a King . . . As kill a King] Bowman (1882 in Thom 1883, p. 109): “Her very discomfort works to her advantage; for what denial that she could make were half so convincing as the involuntary questioning in her exclamation [quotes 2411] in response to Hamlet’s bitter sarcasm. We cannot concur with those who consider this the startled outcry of conscious guilt.”
1885 macd
macd
2410 As kill a King] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “This is the sole reference in the interview to the murder. I take it for tentative, and that Hamlet is satisfied by his mother’s utterance, carriage, and expression, that she is innocent of any knowledge of that crime. Neither does he allude to the adultery: there is enough in what she cannot deny, and that only which can be remedied needs to be taken up; while to break with the king would open the door of repentance for all that had preceded.”
1903 p&c
p&c: xref.
2410 kill a King] Porter & clarke (ed. 1903): “This exclamation, without denial in the later texts of any share in the murder, heightens the situation and the queen’s characterization. As played by Mary Hall, in the Marlowe-Sothern performances of ‘Hamlet,’ this cry had the form of Hamlet’s O my Propheticke soule: mine Uncle? [1.5.41 (728)]. It insinuated that, without actually sharing in the foul play, she had suspected it, and now had her suspicions verified and her influence upon the murder through her infidelity to the king brought home to her. Therefore she does not deny the murder. She feels both guilty and not guilty. Shakespeare seems to have made the strongest dramatic use possible of these words of Hamblet from the ‘harangue’ he addresses to his mother in the ‘Hystorie’: ‘Neither with your honour nor without suspicion of consent to the death of your husband could you ever have agreed to have married with his cruell enemie.’ As already noticed (Sources, p. 154-5), Hamblet’s second wife, Hermetrude, enters into a treaty with his enemy before her husband’s death and afterward marries him: ‘Wiglere intyced by conquest of Scovie and Sianlandie, also that Hermetrude had secret intelligence with him & had promised him marriage so he would take her out of the handes’ of the king.”
1904 ver
ver
2410-11 Verity (ed. 1904): “The only direct hint that the Queen was privy to her husband’s fate. Probably Hamlet is unjust in his taunt. Claudius knew the Queen too well to tell her. She is no Lady Macbeth.”
1939 kit2
kit2: xref.; Marlowe analogue; Histoire, The Hystorie
2410 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “A plain accusation that the Queen was an accomplice in the murder of her husband. Her astonishment convinces Hamlet of her innocence; and he makes no further allusion to such complicity, even when she asks ‘What have I done?’ in [3.4.39 (2421)]. There are resemblances between this scene and that in which Edward III accuses his mother of murdering her husbnd in Marlowe’s Edward II (ed. Dyce, ii, 288,289). In Bellforest and the prose Hystorie the Queen declares her innocence in emphatic terms, adds that her second marriage was the effect of fear, and joins Hamlet in his plans for revenge. Cf. the First Quarto: ‘Queene. But as I haue a soule, I sweare by heauen, I neuer knew of this most horride murder. . . . Ham. And mother, but assist me in reuenge, And in his death your infamy shall die. Queene. Hamlet, I vow by that maiesty, That Knowes our thoughts, and lookes into our hearts, I will conceale, consent, and doe my best, What strategem soe’re thou shalt deuise.’”
1953 Joseph
Joseph: contra "some commentators"
2410-11 Joseph (1953, p. 94): “Some commentatos have seen Gertrude guilty of murder, but the text does not bear them out: only once is the possibility even mentioned, and her startled response to [quotes 2410] is so sincerely horrified that Hamlet does not make the accusation again, although he does everything to open her eyes to her crimes as he conceives them.”
1985 cam4
cam4
2410-12 As kill a King . . . . word] Edwards (ed. 1985): “It is extraordinary that neither of them takes up this all-important matter again. Gertrude does not press for an explanation; Hamlet does not question further the queen’s involvement. It is clear that this silence was thought to be a fault in the theatre. In Q1, Hamlet reiterates the fact that his father was murdered (‘damnably murdered’), and the queen says ‘I never knew of this most horride murder’.”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2
2410 As kill] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “as to kill.”
2410