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Line 2670 - Commentary Note (CN) More Information

Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary
For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.
2670 Deliberate pause, diseases desperat growne,4.3.9
1854 del2
del2
2670 Deliberate pause] Delius (ed. 1854): “die Plötzliche Wegsendung Hamlet’s muss, um das Volk nicht stutzig zu machen, erscheinen wie die Ausführung eines lange überlegten Plans.” [In order not to startle the people, Hamlet’s sudden banishment must seem like the carrying out of a long considered plan.]
1857 fieb
fieb
2670 Deliberate pause] Fiebig (ed. 1857): “Deliberate pause, considered long since, appointed long ago or beforehand.”
1870 rug1
rug1: Oth. //
2670 Deliberate pause] Moberly (ed. 1870): “A matter of deliberate arrangement, like Othello’s— ‘I’ve made my way thro’ more impediments / Than twenty times your stop’ [5.2.263-4 (3563-4)].”
1871 Rushton
Rushton: Lyly analogue
2670-1 diseases . . . relieu’d] Rushton (1871, pp. 11-12): <p. 11> “Now if thy cunning be answerable to thy good will, practise some pleasant conceipt vpon thy poore patient: one dram of Ouids art, some of Tibullus </p.11><p.12> drugs, one of Propertius pilles, which may cause me either to purge my new disease, or recouer my hoped desire. But I feare me wher so straunge a sicknesse is to be recured of so vnskilfull a Phisition, that either thou wilt be too bold to practise, or body too weake to purge. But seeing a desperate disease is to be committted to a desperate Doctor, I wil follow thy counsel, and become thy cure, desiring thee to be as wise in ministring thy Phisick, as I have bene willing to putte my lyfe into thy handes.” </p.12>
Rushton provides passages from Lyly’s Euphues, which he takes to be “the origin of many of the famous passages in [Shakespeare’s] works.” The passage from Lyly, which includes matching element in Rushton’s italics, as well as additional comment, if provided, is transcribed in note. IRV evaluates this analogue.
1872 del4
del4 = del2
1873 rug2
rug2 = rug1
1877 v1877
v1877 = Rushton minus “Now if . . . hoped desire. . . . desiring . . . handes.”
2670-1 diseases . . . relieu’d] Furness (ed. 1877): “Rushton (Shakespeare’s Euphuism, p. 11): “But I feare me wher so straunge a sicknesse is to be recured of so vnskilfull a Phisition, that either thou wilt be too bold to practise, or body too weake to purge. But seeing a desperate disease is to be committted to a desperate Doctor, I wil follow thy counsel, and become thy cure.”—[Euphues, p. 67, ed. Arber.]”
1877 neil
neil ≈ Rushton (Lyly analogue) without attribution
1878 rlf1
rlf1: rug1 + magenta underlined
2670 Deliberate pause] Rolfe (ed. 1878): ““A matter of deliberate arrangement” (M.). Cf. [3.3.42 (2318)] above.”
rlf1 ≈ Rushton (Lyly analogue)
2670 diseases desperat . . . at all] Rolfe (ed. 1878): “Rushton quotes Lyly, Euphues: ‘But I feare me wher so straunge a sicknesse is to be recured of so vnskilfull a Phisition, that either thou wilt be to bold to practise, or my body too weake to purge. But seeing a desperate disease is to be committed to a desperate Doctor, I wil follow thy counsel, and become thy cure.’”
1881 hud3
hud3: xref.
2670 Deliberate pause] Hudson (ed. 1881): “‘To keep all things quiet and in order, this sudden act must seem a thing that we have paused and deliberated upon.’ See page 194, note 11 [2.2.81 (1107)].”
1885 mull
mull
2670 Deliberate pause] Mull (ed. 1885): “arrangement.”
1889 Barnett
Barnett
2670 Deliberate pause] Barnett (1889, p. 54): “a stopping of his course, deliberately resolved on. Pause comes through Lat. pausa, a stop, from Gr. GREEK HERE, I cause to stop, Cf. [3.1.65-7 (1720-2)] — ‘What dreams . . . give us pause’.”
1890 irv2
irv2: Rushton + magenta underlined
2670-1 diseases . . . relieu’d] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “Rushton (Shakespeare’s Euphuism, p. 11) quotes a passage from Lyly’s Euphues (p. 67, ed. Arber) which contains a phrase not unsimilar to the one in the text (‘a desperate disease is to be committed to a desperate doctor’). The juxtaposition of words is so obvious that it is a little rash to suppose that Shakespeare had this passage in mind, or owed his thought to it.”
1903 rlf3
rlf3 = rlf1
1904 ver
ver: standard + + magenta underlined
2670-1 Verity (ed. 1904): “Editors compare Lyly’s Euphues: “But I feare me wher so straunge a sicknesse is to be recured of so vnskillfull a Phisition, that either thou wilt be too bold to practise, or my body too weak to purge. But seeing a desperate disease is to be committed to a desperate Doctor, I will follow thy counsel, and become thy cure”—p. 67, ed. Arber. (F.) The expression was probably proverbial. Cunliffe quotes a similar sentiment in Seneca’s Agamemnon, 153-155.”
1931 crg1
crg1
2670 Deliberate pause] Craig (ed. 1931): “considered action.”
1934 cam3
cam3
2670 Deliberate pause] Wilson (ed. 1934): “The delay in calling Ham. to account for Pol.’s murder must seem the result of policy, not panic.”
1937 pen1
pen1
2670 Deliberate pause] Harrison (ed. 1937): “a plan thought out.”
1939 kit2
kit2 ≈ pen1
2670 Deliberate pause] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “the outcome of careful thought.”
1939 kit2
kit2: Nashe analogue
2670-2 diseases . . . all] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Proverbial. Cf. Nashe, Christs Teares over Ierusalem, 1593 (ed. McKerrrow, II, 20): ‘To desperate diseases must desperate Medicines be applyde.’”
1942 n&h
n&h
2670 pause] Neilson & Hill (ed. 1942): “i.e. planning.”
1947 cln2
cln2
2670 Deliberate pause ] Rylands (ed. 1947): “a politic or considered delay (in calling Hamlet to account).”
1947 yal2
yal2
2670 Deliberate pause] Cross & Brooke (ed. 1947): “judicially considered.”
1957 pel1
pel1 ≈ kit2
2670 Deliberate pause] Farnham (ed. 1957): “something done with much deliberation.”
1980 pen2
pen2 ≈ pel1
2670 Deliberate pause] Spencer (ed. 1980): “the result of deliberately and unhurriedly considering the matter.”
pen2
2670-72 diseases desperat growne . . . at all] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(a proverbial idiom, which occurs in the form ‘A desperate disease must have a desperate cure’).”
1982 ard2
ard2: Cheke, Lyly, Nashe (cited in kit2) anals.; Tilley
2670-1 Diseases . . . reliev’d] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “A common proverb: cf. Cheke, Hurt of Sedition, 1549, f4v, ‘Desperate sicknesses . . . must have desperate remedies.’; Euphues, Lyly, i.213-14; Nashe, ii.20; Chapman, All Fools, 5.1.51; Tilley D 357.”
ard2
2670 Deliberate pause] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “A pause, a break in activity, comes to be thought of as (a period of) consideration. Hamlet’s removal, though sudden, must seem the result of careful deliberation.”
1984 chal
chal ≈ pen1
2670 Deliberate pause] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “i.e. to come from careful consideration.”
1987 oxf4
oxf4: Tilley; Cor. //
2670-72 diseases . . . all] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “A version of the common saying ‘A desperate disease must have a desperate cure’ (Tilley D357), this idea is frequent in Shakespeare and is expressed with particular force in Cor. [3.1.154-5 (1853-4)], “To jump a body with a dangerous physic / That’s sure of death without it’.”
1984 chal
chal ≈ pel1
2670 Deliberate pause] Wilkes (ed. 1984): “i.e. to come from careful consideration.”
1988 bev2
bev2
2670 Deliberate pause] Bevington (ed. 1988): “carefully considered action.”
1993 dent
dent: xrefs.
2670 Deliberate pause] Andrews (ed. 1993): “The result of a dispassionate weighing of all the alternatives. The King is saying that a reaction that must be ‘sudden’ must seem to be ‘deliberate’ (unhurried, reflective). In fact the King’s plans for Hamlet have been devised with some deliberation: Claudius told Polonius of his scheme to send Hamlet to England immediately after the two of them eavesdropped on the conversation between Hamlet and Ophelia [3.1.165-70 (1821-27)]. Claudius is trying to avoid any ‘Censure of his Seeming’ [3.2.88 (1940)] by those who think he has failed to ‘use all gently’, with a ‘Temperance’ that may give his actions ‘Smoothness’ [3.2.5, 8 (1853. 1856)]. Pause recalls [2.2.474-492, 550-588 (1515-32, 1590-1628)], [3.1.82-87 (1737-42)], [3.2.186-213 (2054-81)].”
dent
2670 desperat growne] Andrews (ed. 1993): “At the critical stage (where the patient is desperate, at the point where life is in the balance). Compare the imagery in [4.1.19-23 (2606-10)].”
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2
2670 Deliberate pause] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “usually glossed ’i.e. the result of careful deliberation’, but possibly ’a deliberate suspension of judgement’. It is now the King (and soon his ally Laertes) who must wait for the right moment to act.”

ard3q2: Tilley
2670-1 diseases. . . relieved] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “proverbial: ’A desperate disease must have a desperate cure’ (Tilley, D357).”
2670