3029 Giues] Minsheu (1617, rpt. 1978, Fetter): “or Give, q. feet-iron, à B. Uoet-ñser, a boet , I. pes, & ñser, i ferrum T. Fuss-eisen, à fuss, i. pes, & eisen , i. ferrum, q. pedus ferrum. G. Fers des pieds. Vi. Gives. “

3029 Giues] Minsheu (1617, rpt. 1978, giues): “or fetters. Vi. fetters.”

3029 Giues] Skinner (1668, gives): “Pedices, Compedes. Sunt qui deflectunt à Belg. Ghevangs, Instrumenta captivitatis, sed vox non occurrit. Mallem igitur à Fr. G. Ceps, Lat. Cippi.”

3029 Giues] Theobald (21 Mar. 1729-30, [fol. 62r] [Nichols 2:576]) : <fol. 62r>“Does the King mean here, that, if he had proceeded against Hamlet in a legal manner for the death of Polonius, and confined and fettered him, that the multitude loved him so well, they would have esteemed his fetters an ornament to him? I own, I do not understand this. I have conjectured, ‘Convert his GYBES to graces.’ i.e. they are so doatingly enamoured with him, that even gybes, mocks, fleering, &c. would in him be construed graces.” </fol. 62r>

Ed. note: The 1866 CAM1 edition will record this as a conjecture withdrawn, though I see no actual withdrawal of it. THEO1-2,4 never use it.

3029 Giues] Hanmer (ed. 1744, 6: Glossary): “Shackles.”

3029 Giues] Blair (ed. 1753, Glossary): “To Gyve, to catch, to shackle.”

3029 Giues] Johnson (1755, gyves): “n.s. [gevyn, Welsh] Fetters; chains for the legs. ‘The villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on.’ [1H4 a.s.? (2414)] . ‘And knowing this, should I yet stay, Like such as blow away their lives, And never will redeem a day, Enamour’d of their golden gyves?’ Johnson’s Forrest.. ‘The poor prisoners, ready to take the occasion offered, boldly starting up, break off their chains and gyves.’ Knolles. ‘Do’st thou already single me? I thought Gyves and the mill had tam’d thee.’ Milton’s Agonistes. ‘But Telamon rush’d in, and hap’d to meet A rising root, that held his fasten’d feet; So down he fell, whom sprawling on the ground, His brother from the wooden gyves unbound.’ Dryd. Fables.”

3029-30 Conuert . . . Arm’d]Jennens (ed. 1773): “So the 1st q; the 2d and 3d [Q3, Q5] read so loued armes ; all the rest read so loud a wind ; but the idea of a loud wind reverberating an arrow back to its bow, is so unnatural and impossible that it cannot pass: therefore the reading of the 1st q. [Q2] is to be preferred, Too slightly timber’d for one so loued, and arm’d with the affections and veneration of the people, &c. or that of the 2d and 3d, where the arms or armour are put for the person armed and the love applied to them which is meant of him. In both these readings we have the idea of a suit of armour reverberating an arrow back to its bow, which is not only possible, but just.”

3029 Giues] Hawkins (ms. notes in Steevens, ed. 1773): “fetters.”

3039 Giues] Rann (ed. 1791-):”fetters, shackles.”

3029-30 so . . . Arm’d] Seymour (1805, 2:196) : <p. 196> “My arrows,Too slightly timber’d for so loud a wind]] Here is a false epithet introduced into the folio—a strong wind may be loud, but loudness has no power to resist the force of the arrows; indeed, there is nothign in the preceding words to which ‘wind,’ or ‘so loud a wind’ can at all apply. ‘Loved arm’d,’ the reading of the first quarto, is certainly a strange expression; but, as the speaker is describing Hamlet as being fortified in the people’s affection, perhaps ‘loved-armed’ is the true reading.” </p. 196>

3029 Giues] Todd (1818, gyves): “n.s. [gevyn, Welsh; Dr. Johnson confines this word to the plural number; yet it certainly exists in our language, in the singular.] Fetters; chains for the legs. ‘The villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves on.’ [1H4]’And knowing this, should I yet stay, Like such as blow away their lives, And never will redeem a day, Enamour’d of their golden gyves?’ Johnson’s Forrest.. ‘The poor prisoners, ready to take the occasion offered, boldly starting up, break off their chains and gyves.’ Knolles. ‘Do’st thou already single me? I thought Gyves and the mill had tam’d thee.’ Milton’s Agonistes. ‘But Telamon rush’d in, and hap’d to meet A rising root, that held his fasten’d feet; So down he fell, whom sprawling on the ground, His brother from the wooden gyves unbound.’ Dryd. Fables.”

3029 Giues] Nares (1822; 1906): “ Gyves, or Gives.] Fetters. a word little used, but hardly obsolete, at least in poetry. ‘If you will take upon you to assist him, it shall redeem you from your gyves’ [MM. 4.2 .? (1866)]. ‘Lay chain’d in gives, fast festter’d in his bolts’ Tancred & Gismunda, O. Pl. ii. 213. It occurs very often in [TNK], and is there always gives.”

3029 Giues] Valpy (ed. 1833): “Fetters.”

3029-32 so . . . them] Delius (ed. 1854) : “Die Pfeile des Königs, d.h. ein öffentliches Verfahren gegen Hamlet, hätten, dem stürmischen Winde, d.h. der Volksgunst, gegenüber, aus leichtem Holze geschnitzt, wie sie waren, ihr Ziel nicht erreicht, sondern nur den Schiessenden selbst getroffen.—Die Fol. hat arm’d für aimd der Qs.—Für loud a wind der Fol. haben die Qs. theils loved arm’d, theils loved arms.” [“The arrows of the King , that is, the public proceedings against Hamlet had, as it were, like arrows cut from light wood, not reached their goal against the stormy wind [that is, his popularity]; on the contrary, they had struck the shooter himself. The Fol. has arm’d for aimd of the Qs. For loud a wind of the folio, part of the Qs. have loued arm’d, another part loued arms.”]

3029 Giues] Elze (ed. 1857): "Wir halten ’gyves’ entschieden für eine Verderbniss, denn wir vermögen nicht einzusehen, wie die Liebe des Volkes Hamlet’s Fusschellen in Vorzüge verwandeln kann. Die Herausgg. sind, soviel uns bekannt, mit Stillschweigen darüber hinweggegangen; Francke fasst ’gyves’ ohne alle Gewähr als ’Fehler’. Vielleicht ist zu lesen: Convert his crimes to graces." ["We hold determinedly that ’gyves’ is a corruption for we are not able to comprehend how the people’s love can change Hamlet’s Fussschellen [leg irons] into preference. The editors are, so many known to us, passing over this with great silence; Francke holds ’gyves’ as an error without all guarantee. Perhaps it can read: Convert his crimes to graces."]

3029 Giues] Keightley (ed. 1864 [1866]: Glossary): “shackles.”

3029 Giues] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1864-68, rpt. 1874-78): “‘Turn his fetters into adornments;’ or, figuratively, ‘turn all my attempts to restrain him into so many injuries perpetrated against his innocence and good qualities.’”

3029 graces] Elze (1869, p. 284): <p. 284> “The corruption of this passage [3027-29] does not lie in ‘gyves,’ as Theobaldand others have imagined, but in ‘graces.’ How can ‘gyves,’ a very material object, be converted into abstract ‘graces’? Not even the Knaresborough spring can effect such an illogical conversion. the context, in a word, will not bear an abstract noun in this place, which would entirely spoil the metaphor. I have, therefore, no doubt that we ought to correct—’Convert his gyves to graves, &c.’ According to the Folio, ‘graves’ occurs in another passage of the poet, which, in some respects, bears a surprising similarity to ours, viz., [2H4 4.1.? [1918]]—’Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood, &c.’ In both passages something feeble or despicable is to be turned into ‘graves,’ which not only form part of chivalric armour, but, at the same time, are an emblem of knighthood. The simile of the spring becomes most appropriate if we remember that gyves were originally made of wood. It is is true that in order to render it perfect, graves should be made of stone instead of steel; but so far it may be conceded that omne simile claudicat. ‘Graves’ is, to all appearance, a sophistication of the compositor, who did not know the less frequent word ‘graves.’ Last, not least, this emendation gives the verse a regular flow.” </p. 284>

3029 graces] Hall (1869, p. 318): <p. 318> “Prof. Elze proposes to read graves for ‘graces’: does he mean greaves, i.e. ‘armour for the legs’? I ask this question, not knowing how he will consider it to affect his argument; but if the passage must be altered, I would prefer to read gibes for ‘gyves,’ and let ‘graces’ stand. Hamlet jeers, i.e.gibes, at everybody all through the play, and the common people are supposed to take his defects for graces. A. Hall.” </p. 318>

3029 graces] Stratmann (ed. 1869): "Elze, in the Athenaeum, 1869, I, 284, judiciously purposes to read ’graves’ for ’graces.’"

3029 Giues] Daniel (1870, p. 76): <p. 76>“For Gyves, in last line [3029], read gyres. His gyres, i.e., his ‘wild and ‘whirling’ actions, his mad eccentricities.” </p. 76>

3029 Giues] Moberly (ed. 1870): “Were I to put him in fetters, the bonds would only give him more general favour.”

3029-32 so . . . them]

3029 Giues] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “fetters round the ankles. See [Rom. 2.2.180 (988)]: ‘Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves.’ The king means: Had Hamlet been arrested and put in prison on the charge of killing Polonius, the people would have loved him all the more. Compare [Ant. 2.2.213 (921)]:’And made their bends adorning.’”

3029 Giues.”

3029 Giues] Elze (1876, pp. 24-5): <p. 24>"Die Verderbniss dieser Stelle scheint nicht, wie Theobald u. A. gemeint haben, in ’gyves’, sondern in ’graces’ zu liegen. Wie können die nur zu materiellen ’gyves’ in abstracte ’graces’ verwandelt werden? Das bringt auch die Quelle zu Knaresborough, die doch Holz in Stein verwandelt, nicht fertig. Ein abstractes Nomen an dieser Stelle verdirbt die ganze Metapher und ist logisch unmöglich. Würde ’gyves’ durch ein Abstractum ersetzt ((das in Vorschlag gebrachte ’gibes’ erscheint geradezu unerträglich)), so wâre damit allerdings logische Gleichförmigkeit hergestellt, allein das Gleichniss würde alle sinnliche Anschaulichkeit, Kraft und Fülle verlieren, und die Herbeiziehung der wunder-wirken-den Quelle zur Vergleichung zweier absgtracten Eigenschaften wäre ganz beziehunglos und sicherlich nicht in Shakespeare’s Geist und Stil. Es sollte, wie ich glaube, gelesen werden: </p. 24> <p. 25>Convert his gyves to graves, &c wodurch zugleich der rhythmus des Verses hergestellt würde, ’Graves’, nach gegenwärtiger Schreibung ’ˆgreaves’, findet sich auch 2 K. Henry IV, IV, 1, wo wie hier etwas Niedriges darin verwandelt und dadurch geehrt und erhoben weden soll: Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood &c. Denn wenn es in unserer Stelle wol als unzweifelhaft angenommen werden darf, dass ’gyves’ metonymisch für diejenigen Verbrechen gesetz ist, die damit bestraft zu werden verdienen, so würden dem entsprechend die ’graves’ die Auszeichnung und das Verdienst bedeuten, die mit diesem Waffenstück und Abzeichen des Ritterthums geschmückt zu werden verdienen. Wer erinnert sich dabei nicht der , die Chapman allerdings zu ’well-arm’d Greeks’ abgeblasst hat; doch lässt auch er ((Iliads XVIII, 415)) die ’fair greaves’ zu ihrem Rechte kommen. Das von der Quelle hergenommene Gleichniss erscheint, nur um so reffender, wenn wir erwägen, dass die Fussschellen ursprünglich aus Holz verfertigt worden sein mögen; freilich sollten dann die Beinschienen aus Stein bestehen,a llein soweit kann man unbedenklich zugeben, dass jedes Gleichniss hinkt. Was endlich die Schreibung ’graves’ statt ’greaves’ anlangt, so kann uns dieselbe nicht im mindesten beirren; sie kehrt nicht allein in de angeführten Stelle aus 2 K. Henry IV (FA) wieder, sondern wird auch bestätigt durch die Formen ’thraves statt ’threaves’ (vergl. Hooper zu Chapman’s Iliads X!, 477)) und ’stale’ statt ’steale’ oder ’stele’ (ebenda IV, 173, wozu Nares s. Stele zu vergleichen ist))." <p. 25><p. 24> ["The corruption of this passage appears not to reside, as Theobald and others have supposed, in ’gyves’ but rather in ’graces’. How could the only too material ’gyves’ be transformed into the abstract ’graces.’ That even the spring at Knaresborough, which turns wood to stone, cannot complete. An abstract noun in this place corrupts the entire metaphor and is logically impossible. ’gyves’ would thoroughly compensate for an abstraction (which appears directly untenable in produced conjecture gibes), but that the image would lose all intellectual vividness, power, and fullness, and the drawing of the miraculous spring for the comparison of two abstract qualities might be entirely unconnected and certainly not in Sh’s spirit and style. It should be read, as I believe," </p. 24> <p. 25> Convert his gyves to graves, &c. through which at the same time the rhymes of the verse would be produced. ’Graves,’ according to the actual orthography ’greaves,’ one finds also in 2H4 4.1, where as here something base should be herein transformed and thereby elevated and exalted: Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood &c. Then, if it is taken in our passage as undoubted that gyves serves metonymically for that crime which thereby needs to be punished, so would accordingly the graves mean the distinction and deserts which need to be decorated with these feats of arms and displays of chivalry. Who doesn’t remember thereby the ßcn»mides ’Acaioi , which Chapman certainly diminished in ’well-arm’d Greeks’; though he also allowed ((Iliad 18.415) ’fair greaves’ for its appropriateness. The image from our cited passage appears only tenable if we consider that manacles might be made initially from wood; clearly then the splints consisted of stone, that so far as one absolutely concedes, that each image is imperfect. Finally, with respect to the orthographygraves for ’greaves’ I cannot confuse us in this in the least; it recurs not only in the cited passage from 2H4 (FA), on the contrary, it is also confirmed through the form ’thraves’ instead of ’threaves’ (see Hooper in Chapman’s Iliads X!, 477) and ’stale’ instead of stele’ (aforementioned IV, 173, whereto Nares, see Stele for comparison))].

3029 Giues] Furness (ed. 1877): “This [THEOL conj gybes] was not repeated in Theobald’s ed., but it is adopted by Tschischwitz.”

3029 Giues] Elze (apud Furness, ed. 1877): “Perhaps we should read crimes.”

3029 Giues] Clarke (apud Furness, ed. 1877): “That is, turn all my attempts to restrain him into so many injuries perpetrated against his innocence and good qualities.”

3029 Giues] Clark & Wright (apud Furness, ed. 1877): “Compare, ‘And made their bends adornings.’—[Ant. 2.2.213 (921)].”

3029 Giues] Elze (apud Furness, ed. 1877): “The corruption appears to be here not in ‘gyves,’ but in ‘graces.’ How can corporeal ‘gyves’ be converted into incorporeal, abstract ‘graces’? That is more than even the well at Knaresborough could do. An abstract noun in this connection ruins the whole metaphor, and is illogical. If we substitute some abstract noun for ‘gyves,’ while restoring logical propriety, we deprive the simile of all significant clearness, force, and depth, and to introduce the wonder-working spring in order to compare two abstract qualtiies would be pointless, and assuredly not in accordance with Shakspeare’s genius and style. Read, therefore: graves. Graves, now spelled greaves, is found also in [2H4 4.4.50 (1918)], where, as here, something mean becomes ennobled. For the spelling, compare ‘thraves,’ instead of threaves (Chapman’s Iliad, xi, 477); and ‘stale,’ instead of steale or stele (Ib. iv, 173).”

3029 Giues] Furness ( ed. 1877): “Stratmann praises this emendation of Elze’s as judicious.”

3029 Conuert . . . graces] Neil (ed. 1877, Notes): “that which winds and braces into ornamental forms.”

3029 Conuert . . . graces] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Punishment would invest him with more grace in the people’s eye; his fetters would make him appear the lovelier to them.”

3030 Too . . . Arm’d]

3029 Conuert . . . graces] Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare my Notes, No. XCVII.” [See Elze in v1877 above].

3028 Worke . . . stone] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “‘would convert his fetters—if I imprisoned him—to graces, commending him yet more to their regard.’”

3029 Giues] White (1896, pp. 337-8): <p. 337>“Gyves means, as every one knows, fetters for the ankles that hamper movement; but, nevertheless, Hamlet’s ‘Would, like the spring that turneth wood to stone, Convert his gyves to graces,’ Act5 IV. Sc.7. is made conspicuous among those passages as to which Dr. Schmidt goes near to astounding us by his capacity of inap-</p. 337> <p. 338>prehension. He says, ‘an obscure passage, not yet explained or amended.’ Neither amendment nor explanation is required. Shakespeare never wrote more clearly. The comparison is merely of the great change in both instances; not of gyves to wood and graces to stone.” </p. 338>

3029-31 arrowes . . . bowe againe] Rushton (1897, p. 60): “According to Ascham, weak archers, who use small and hollow shafts with bows of little pith, must, in winter and rough weather, when small boats and little pinks forsake the seas, be content to give place for a time. The rough weather which makes the saucy boat, whose weak untimber’d sides co-rivall’d greatness, flee to the harbour, or became a toast for Neptune, causes the too slightly timber’d arrows to revert to the bow again.”

[Ed note: FNC: Rushton quotes two excerpts from Ascham, on which he grounds this explanation. Location in Toxophilus not supplied. This comment compresses and paraphrases elements of pertinent Ascham excerpts].

3029 Giues] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Daniel would read gyres, wild and whirling actions. Elze would read greaves (? he prints it graves).”

3029 Giues]

3029 Giues] Neilson (ed. 1906, Glossary)

3029 Giues]

3029 Giues]

3029 Conuert his Giues to graces] Wilson (ed. 1934): “regard his fetters (had we put him under arrest) as an honour to him. Cf. 4.3.3-7 [2664-67].”

3029 Conuert his Giues to graces]

3029 Giues] Kittredge (ed. 1939, Glossary):

3029 Conuert his Giues to graces]

3029 Giues] Alexander (ed. 1951, Glossary)

3029 Giues]

3029 Giues] Sisson (ed. 1954, Glossary):

3029 Giues]

3029 Conuert his Giues to graces]

3029 Giues] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “lit. shackles, hence disabilities, deformities. The metaphorical interpretation, which the context suggests, presents no problem. No precise parallel can be cited or expected; but cf. Fletcher, Wife for a Month, I.ii.90, ‘a golden guve, a pleasing wrong’. Difficulties are created by the commentators, who would have Hamlet literally in fetters with the populace regarding these as a mark of honour. Much ingenuity has also been wasted in efforts at emendation. Elizabethan pronunciation alliterated gyves with graces.”

3029 Conuert his Giues to graces] Wilkes (ed. 1984): "make his prisoner’s fetters seem creditable to him."

3029 Giues]

3029 Giues] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “gyves—Giues ((Q2)), Gyves ((F))—has to be taken in a figurative sense to make it at all acceptable. The justification for guilts is threefold. It is graphically plausible. Shakespeare uses guilts, in the plural and meaning ‘crimes’, ‘faults’, in [Lr. 3.2.57 (1711)], ‘Close pent-up guilts’. Guilts corresponds to faults ((l. 19)); and Shakespeare employs the idea of converting faults to graces elsewhere. Sonnets 96 opens thus: ‘Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;|Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;|Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:|Thou mak’st faults graces that to thee resort.’”

3029 Giues]

3029 Giues]

3029 Giues] Andrews (ed. 1993): here used as symbols of Hamlet’s criminality.”

3029 graces] Andrews (ed. 1993): “virtues, signs of love.”

3029 Giues] gyve (dav), sb. Chiefly pl. Now arch. or poet. Forms: pl. 3, 6, 7 gives, (5

gyvys), 5-6 guyv(i)es, (7 gieves), 7-8 guives, 4- gyves. sing. 6 give, 7

guive, 7- gyve. [ME. give, of obscure origin. The alliteration in ME. poetry shows that the word was originally pronounced with initial (g),and from the spelling guive it would appear that this pronunciation continued until the 18th c.;indeed, it is indicated in the pronouncing Dicts. of Sheridan (1780) and Scott (1797). The now prevailing pronunciation with (d) is due to misinterpretation of the graphic form of a word that had become obsolete in oral use. The form points to an OF. *guive (spelt give in French Chron. Lond., 14th c.); Prof. Skeat suggests that this may represent an adoption of some derivative of the Teut. root *wîth- (OHG. wîfan to wind round, LG. wîth, a straw-band). But the absence of any record of the word in continental OF. constitutes a serious objection to this conjecture. Can AF. guive be an adoption of the synonymous ME. and OE. wie, the initial w being represented by gu-, and the unfamiliar Eng. dental spirant represented by v ? If this suggestion be correct, Layamon used both the Eng. and the Fr. form of the word; cf. with quot. c 1205 below the following (line 22833) `Nimeth me thene ilke mon, and doth withthe an his sweore’.]A shackle, esp. for the leg; a fetter. c 1205 LAY. 15538 Giues swithe grete: heo duden an his foten. c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 461/145 A-non-riht this holie Man the Gyues he to-brac. 1306 Pol. Songs (Camden) 221 With feteres ant with gyves ichot he wes to-drowe, From the Tour of Londone. 1377 LANGL. P. Pl. B. XIV. 51 Shal neuere gyues the greue..Prisone ne peyne. c 1420 Chron. Vilod. (Horstm.) 4413 Bot the gyuys duden tho anon alle to~barst. 1494 FABYAN Chron. VI. clxii. 155 The greuous correccyons that he sawe..as in werynge of irons and guyues. 1505 Nottingham Rec. III. 100 Duo paria de guyvies de ferro. 1548 UDALL, etc. Erasm. Par. Acts xvi. 60 All the prisoners gyues and other lyke bonds were loosed. 1566 DRANT Wail. Hierem. K v b, Pressinge downe, with pondrouse gyves, my feete. 1600 FAIRFAX Tasso V. xlii. 83 Hands..Not to be tide in giues and twisted cords. 1631 J. TAYLOR (Water P.) Turn Fort. Wheel (1848) 24 Helpe me..To fire and powder, Manacles and gives. a 1658 CLEVELAND Wks. (1687) 253 The benum’d Captive crampt in his cold Gives. 1704 J. PITTS Acc. Mahometans viii. 115 The Women of Algier..wear great Rings, almost like Guives about their Legs. 1774 J. BRYANT Mythol. II. 105 We may as well suppose, that a felon would forge his own gyves. 1810 SCOTT Lady of L. VI. i, The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail. 1828 TENNYSON Lover’s T. II. 155 Upon his steely gyves. 1829 HOOD Dream Eugene A. xxxvi, Eugene Aram walked between With gyves upon his wrist. 1900 Q. Rev. Jan. 181 You read of a youth brought up in a country where all the world wore a gyve on the right leg.

b. transf. and fig.

1587 M. GROVE Pelops & Hipp. (1878) 93 Though long I wretch doe weare the giue And

carefull clog of heauinesse. 1597 SHAKS. Lover’s Compl. 242 Playing patient sports in

vnconstrain[e]d giues. 1614 BP. HALL Recoll. Treat. 251 Not fettred with the gieves of unjustscruples. 1616 B. JONSON Forest iv. To the world, Such as blow away their liues, And neuer willredeeme a day, Enamor’d of their golden gyues. 1624 FLETCHER Wife for Month I. ii, A golden Give, a pleasing wrong. 1700 DRYDEN Fables, Meleager & Atalanta 150 Telamon..happ’d to meet A rising Root, that held his fastned Feet; So down he fell; whom, sprawling on the Ground, His Brother from the Wooden Gyves unbound. 1844 DISRAELI Coningsby II. i. 60 The gyves and trammels of office.