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Line 2558 - 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.

2558 Let the {blowt} <blunt> King temp’t you againe to bed,	3.4.182

1723 pope1

pope1: Skinner

2558 blowt] Pope (ed. 1723): “In the old edition it is, Let the blote King—the word signifies fond, or puff’d up, or full-blooded, rubore suffusus, Skinner.”

1728 pope2

pope2 = pope1

1747 warb

warb

2558 blowt] Warburton (ed. 1747): “The old quarto reads, ‘Let the bloat King’—i.e. bloated. Which is better, as more expressive of the speaker’s contempt.”

1754 Grey

Grey

2558 blowt] Grey (1754, p. 299) ““Blunt King.” Folios 1623, and 1632.”

1755 Johnson Dict.

Johnson Dict.

2558 bloat ] Johnson (1755): “to swell or make turgid with wind.”

1780 malsi

malsi

2558 blowt] [Blackston]e (ed. 1780, p.359): “This again hints at his intemperance. He had drank himself into a dropsy. E.”

1785 v1785

v1785: malsi +

2558 blowt] Henderson (apud ed. 1785): “The folio reads—blunt king. Henderson.”

1790 mal

mal = v1785 +

2558 blowt] Malone (ed. 1790): “i.e. the swollen king. Bloat is the reading of the quarto, 1604. The folio reads—the blunt king. Malone.”

1791- rann

rann

2558 blowt] Rann (ed. 1791-): “bloated, dropsical.”

1793 v1793

v1793 = mal

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1793

1813 v1813

v1813 = v1803

1819 cald1

cald1

2558 blowt] Caldecott (ed. 1819): “Surfeit-swoln. Blunt, the reading of the folios, may be interpreted ‘rude, coarse:” but as pointing at the king’s intemperance, which Hamlet was at all times fond of bringing into notice, the adoption of the reading of the text from the quarto is probably no more than the correction of a misprint.”

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813

1822 Nares

Nares

2558 blowt] Nares (1822, glossary: bloat, or blote): “To dry by smoke. Latterly most applied to herrings. Blotan, Saxon, meant to sacrifice or slaughter, whence November was, at one period, called Blot Monath, or slaughtering month . . . . To bloat, now means to swell up, and comes probably from blow (Johnson); and to this we must perhaps refer the ‘bloat king’ in Ham. 3.4. It is singular enough that two opposite senses should thus have belonged to one word. Smoke-dried, and therefore shrunk; or puffed and swelled.”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

1854 del2

del2

2558 blowt] Delius (ed. 1854): “bloat für bloated = aufgedunsen.” [bloat for bloated means swollen up.]

1857 fieb

fieb: john

2558 blowt] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “To bloat means to swell up, and comes probably, as Johnson supposes, from blow; to this we must refer this word bloat, puffed, and swollen, which again hints at the king’s intemperance. He had already drunk himself into a dropsy.”

1860 Walker

Walker: Jonson analogue

2558 blowt] Walker (1860, 3:267-8): <p.267> “Bloat is the past participle, i.q., bloated; compare waft, </p.267><p.268> fret, rot, &c., noticed in Art. exx., Jonson, Masque of Augurs, not far from the beginning,—‘why you stink like so many bloat-herrings newly taken out of the chimney.’” </p.268>

1869 tsch

tsch

2558 blowt] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “In bloat, gebläht, dessen Orthographie die Erklärer verwirrt hat, erkennt man mit Leichtigkeit das Part. Perf. eines zu blävan, Ne. blow, gehörenden schwachen Verbs, vielleicht blâcjan, so dass blowed soviel wie efflatus, turgidus, ist, was mit dem Verb bloat, räuchern, ags. blôtan, ahd. pluozan, immolare, gar nichts gemein hat. cf. ahd. plâen, nhd. blachen, part. blâte.” [In bloat, inflated, whose orthographie has confused interpreters, one easily recognizes the perfect participle of a blävan, New English blow, of associated weak verbs perhaps blâcjan,æ so that blowed is in effect efflatus, turgidus, that has nothing in common with the verb bloat, fumigate, Old High German pluozan, immolare. Cf. Old High German plâen, New High German blachen, part. blâte.]

1870 Abbott

Abbott

2558 blowt] Abbott (1870, §342): “Some verbs ending in –te, -t, and –d, on account of their already resembling participles in their terminations, do not [take d or ed in past constructions]. The same rule, naturally dictated by euphony is found in E.E. ‘If the root of a verb end in –d or –t doubled or preceded by another consonant, the –de or –te of the past tense, and –d or –t of the past participle, are omitted.’ Thus – Bloat(ed). – ‘Let the bloat king tempt you.’”

1872 del4

del4 = del2

1872 cln1

cln1: Abbott

2558 blowt] Clark and Wright (ed. 1872): “bloated. The participial termination -ed is often dropped from words which end in a dental. See [3.1.155 1811)], and Abbott, § 342.”

1877 v1877

v1877 = malsi (Blackstone); xref.

2558 blowt] Furness (ed. 1877): “Blackstone: This again hints at his intemperance. He had already drunk himself into a dropsy. (See [1.2.20 (198)]).”

1878 rlf1

rlf1 ≈ cln1, v1877 (xref.), Abbott

2558 blowt] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “Bloated. See on [1.2.20 (198)] above, or Abbott 342.”

1881 hud3

hud3

2558 blowt] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Bloat for bloated. Many preterites were formed so.”

1887 Mackay

Mackay: Nares + magenta underlined

2558 blowt] Mackay (1887, glossary, bloat): “The phrase ‘bloat king,’ applied by Hamlet to his father’s murderer and usurper of his throne, has hitherto been explained by bloated, or swollen up by pride or intemperance. [quotes 3.4.181-4 (2558-61)].

“Bloated, in the modern sense of it, would suit the sense of the passage but bloat used as an adjective suggests further inquiry, as it is peculiar to Shakespeare. To bloat is to dry a fish in the smoke (whence bloater), examples of which are quoted by Nares from Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson; but this is evidently not the sense in which the word is employed by Hamlet, in which, if it bears the interpretation commonly conceded, it means to swell out. Without contesting the accuracy of the derivation, it may be interesting, in considering the fact that Shakespeare stands alone in the use of bloat as an adjective, to ask whether the word may not possibly come from a wholly different and hitherto unsuspected source. In an earlier part of the same scene, Hamlet, in his passionate reproaches to his mother, says of the king,—[quotes 3.4.96-8 (2475-7)].

“In Gaelic, bloid signifies a fragment, a shred, a bit , a small portion. It this be the true solution of the phrase, of a vice-king, or viceroy, not wholly a king, a king only in possession and not by right, it would convey a stronger animadversion upon the king than the epithet ‘bloated’ applied to his personal appearance. In Irish Gaelic of the present day, blodh signifies a fragment, and blodhach, broken to pieces, smashed, pulverized.”

1891 dtn

dtn

2558 blowt] Deighton (ed. 1891): “bloated by excess, especially in drinking.”

1903 rlf3

rlf3 = rlf1 minus Abbott

1931 crg1

crg1 = cln1 minus gram. explan.

2558 blowt] Craig (ed. 1931): “bloated.”

1934 rid1

rid1 = crg1

2558 blowt] Ridley (ed. 1934): “bloated.”

1939 kit2

kit2 ≈ dtn; xref.

2558 blowt] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “bloated with drinking. See n. [1.4.12 (616)].”

1957 pel1

pel1 = rid + magenta underlined

2558 blowt] Farnham (ed. 1957): “bloated with sense of gratification.”

1982 ard2

ard2 ≈ rlf1 (for Abbott) without attribution

2558 blowt] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “(so spelt now through confusion with bloat describing a soft-cured herring, though blowt was formerly a different word) flabby, bloated. Abbott (342) does not seem justified in regarding it as a form of the past pple. (since the adj. Antedates the verb).”

1987 oxf4

oxf4: warb, Onions

2558 blowt] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “bloated, flabby. ‘The proper form is blowt (Qq), for which Warburton substituted bloat”. “Blowty” in the same sense is used in Lincolnshire’ (Onions).”

1988 bev2

bev2 = rid

1993 dent

dent: xref.

2558 blowt] Andrews (ed. 1993): “Bloated; ’broad blown’ [3.3.81 (2357)].”

1998 OED

OED

2558 blowt] OED (Sept. 14, 1998): “bloat] bloat (blt), a.2 Forms: 4 bloute, 6-7 blowt(e, 7- bloat. [Apparently distinct at first (as an Eng. word) from the PREC., since the earlier form of that was blote, but of this blout; though of parallel origin, and, since the 17th c., identified in form, and often associated in meaning. ME. blout, blowt, was the regular adopted form of ON. blautr- soft (as a baby’s limbs, a bed, silk; see Vigf.); cf. Sw. blöt `soft, yielding, pulpous, pulpy’. The later form bloat does not answer phonetically to blout, blowt, yet its modern use is largely owing to the `blowt king’ of Hamlet having been printed `bloat’ by editors since Warburton, 1747; G. Daniel had also spelt the word in this way c 1640-50. Possibly BLOAT a.1 in `bloat herrings’ (found as early as 1602) was in the 17th c. a much better known word than this, and being, rightly or wrongly, identified with it, influenced its form. It is to be noted that BLOAT v., and its derivatives BLOATED, BLOATING, are all of earlier use as applied to the herring, than in senses connected with this word. Sense 2 is a natural enough extension of 1; but it may have been influenced by association with blow, blown; the mutual influence of this and the PREC. since 1600, cannot be settled without more definite knowledge of the exact notion at first attached to `bloat herring’.] 1. Blowte, bloute: ? Soft, soft-bodied, flabby, pulpy; passing into `puffy, puffed, swollen’. Obs.

“c 1300 Havelok 1910 He leyden on..[blows]..He maden here backes al so bloute Als he[re] wombes, and made hem rowte Als he weren kradel-barnes. 1602 SHAKS. Ham. III. iv. 182 Let the blowt king tempt you againe to bed. [So all the Quartos, exc. Q 1, where wanting; the Folios read blunt.] 1603 H. CROSSE Vertues Commw. (1878) 145 The body I say is subiect to so much pestilence. the face blowte, puft vp, and stuft with the flockes of strong beere.”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2 ≈ CRG1

2558 bloat] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “bloated or fat.”

2009 Kliman

Kliman

2558-61 Kliman (2009): Is the behavior that Hamlet describes something he has witnessed and that we in the audience also witness? Is this passage, in other words, a stage direction, as it were, and is the king meant to behave in this overt, sexual way when and where Hamlet can see him? Or is this Hamlet’s sick imagination? The elegant Claire Bloom as Gertrude (BBC 1980) certainly never acts this way, nor Olivier’s Gertrude (1948), nor Kozintsev’s (1964), though her Claudius is indeed sexually powerful. Ingmar Bergman’s stage production (1986) and Richardson’s stage and film productions (1969) are among the few that display rampant, public sexuality.