3352 man . . . years]Thirlby (ms. notes in Warburton, ed. 1747) : “v.v. 4-10 v.v. 35— 247.15. Perhaps he was made older than he wd[would] have been made to fit his age to his actors corpulency if not age also [3756]: ‘He’s fat & scant of breath’”

mTBY4=gives note for continuation of this line 3352, “man and boy, thirty years”: Thirlby seems troubled that Hamlet is 30 years old and accounts for it by attributing the age to the mimetic needs of the actor playing the role.

3351 I . . . heere] Collier (ed. 1843) : “The folio misreads, ‘I have been sixteen here:’ the quartos, 1604, &c., ‘sexton.’ The quarto, 1603, has no part of the 1 Clown’s answer, nor of some preceding questions and replies, though this scene on the whole is not given so imperfectly as some other parts of the tragedy.”

3351 I . . . heere]

3352 thirty] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868): “This, taken in connection with the clown’s previous words, ‘I came to’t that day,’ &c, and ‘the very day that young Hamlet was born,’ shows that the poet intended distinctly to specify the prince’s age at the period of the play. Blackstone has a strange note—one of those notes carping at Shakespeare’s ‘forgetfulness,’ ‘discrepancies,’ ‘omissions,’ &c. &c. &c. which it was at one time the fashion to write—wherein he says,’ [cites Blackstone; see n. 3338, MALS]. Rather, the commentator ‘forgot,’ or did not know, that ‘going to schol’ was a term used for attending college, or being an academic student. See Note 55, Act I [295]. That Shakespeare intended Hamlet to a man of thirty, his mature reflections upon life, the world, and humanity give strong inferential testimony, besides the direct testimony afforded by the dramatist’s own care in stating his hero’s age here; that he also intended him to be graceful, handsome, possessed of the actions of a still young man, we are sure, from the expressions used by laertes when first speaking of the prince to Ophelia, and by herself when she speaks of ‘that unmatched form and feature of blown youth.’ The very epithet, ‘blown youth,’ appears to us advisedly used by the author to precisely designate a young man in his matured prime of life; what, in poetical language, and a loving maiden’s language, would be figuratively imaged by a rose or spring flower fully ‘blown.’ It appears to us that, in judging of Shakespeare’s times even contrary effects—is not sufficiently taken into consideration by those who estimate him by ordinary standards. His story, his development of character, demanded that the hero of this play should be, so to say, both youthful and mature; both personally young and mentally experienced; and Shakespeare has, with his wonted felicity of conveying blended impressions, contrived to present this dual combination in the individuality of Hamlet.”

3352 thirty] See n. 3338-39

3352 thirty] Malleson (New Shakespeare Society’sTransactions 1874, pp. 494):

“We know how early, in olden time, young men of rank were put to arms; how early, if they went to a University, they left it, for training in Camp and Court. Hamlet, at a University, could hardly have past 20; and with this age, the plain mention of his ‘youth of primy nature’ [469], and ‘nature crescent,...not alone in thews and bulk’ [474-5], ‘Lord Hamlet...he is young’ [489-90], etc. by Polonius and Laertes, agrees.

“With this, too, agrees the King’s reproach to Hamlet for his ‘intent in going back to school at Wittemberg’ [295-6] and Hamlet’s own revolt-of-nature at his mother’s quick re-marriage to his uncle. Had he been much past 21, and had more experiences of then women, he’d have taken his mother’s quick re-marriage to his unle. Had he been much past 21, and had more experience of then women, he’d have taken his mother’s changeableness more coolly. I look on it as certain, that when Shakspere began the play he conceivd Hamlet as quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflection, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, etc., were wanted, Shakspere necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formd man; and, by the time that he got to the Gravediggers’ scene, told us the Prince was 30 — the right age for him then: but not his age to Laertes and Plonius when they warnd Ophelia against his blood that burnd, his youthful fancy for her — ‘a toy in blood’ — etc. The two parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlet’s state. What matter? Who wants ‘em made consistent by the modification of either part? The ‘thirty’ is not in the first Quarto: yet no one wants to go back to that.”

I pasted in this note from Eric from his 1999 trip to the BL, but I think the transcription is not attributed properly. Below is the verbatim from a xerox Nick distributed of this New Shak. Society set of papers. I believe that note is Furnivall’s, not Malleson’s, as is the attribution here.

3351-2 Clow. Why . . . yeeres]Furnivall (in Malleson & Seeley, 1874, p. 495): <p. 495>“We know how early, in olden time, young men of rank were put to arms; how early, if they went to a University, they left it, for training in Camp and court. Hamlet, at a University, could hardly have passt 20; and with this age, the plain mention of his ‘youth of primy nature’ [469], and ‘nature crescent, . . not alone in thews and bulk’ [474-75], ‘Lord Hamlet . . he is young’ [589-90], &c., by Polonius and Laertes, agrees.

“With this, too, agreees the King’s reproach to Hamlet for his ‘intent in going back to school at Wittemberg;’ and Hamlet’s own revolt-of-nature at his mother’s quick re-marriage to his uncle. Had he been much past 21, and had more experience of then women, he’d have taken his mother’s changeableness more coolly. I look on it as certain, that when Shakspere began the play he conceived Hamlet as quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflection, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, &c., were wanted. Shakspere necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formed man; and, by the time that he got to the Gravediggers’ scene, told us the Prince was 30—the right age for him then: but not his age to Laerts and Polonius when they warnd Ophelia against his blood that burnd, his youthful fancy for her—’a toy in blood’—&c. The two parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlet’s state. What matter? Who wants ‘em made consistent by the modification of either part? The ‘thirty’ is not int he first Quarto: yet no one wants to go back to that.” </p. 495>

3351-2, 3362 Fleay (1877-, pp. 92-3): <p. 92> “It will said ‘Hamlet a youth indeed! Why he is past 30 years old. The gravedigger expressly tells us so and Shakespeare who always is accurate in these little points and who has been so unjustly sneered by Jonson for making Bohemia a seaport well knew that Danish princes went to school or college up to that age.’ Yet I doubt if any one can keep the thought from his mind that Hamlet’s age is that of youth (say about 23 or so): from the early talk with his university companions to the Queen’s wiping his face with her napkin, all through his love affair and his eager rivalry writh [sic] Laertes this impression of youth is strong upon us. We may reason it away, but it returns. It is at any rate worth while to look into the evidence.

“The only ground for making Hamlet 30 years old is the statement of the gravedigger. But this varies in the editions. In the 1603 Quarto [Q1] he says that Hamlet slew Fortinras and Yorick was buried a dozen year since. In the Folio the dates are 30 and 23 years. But the exact words are these; our last king Hamlet oercame Fortinbras . . . . young Hamlet was borne . . . . I have bin sixteene here man and boy thirty yeares. . . . . This scul has lain in the earth three and twenty yeares.

“Now I have pointed out before how in an exactly parallel case errors have crept in from the printer misunderstanding the marginal corrections of his copy; and I believe the text here has been vitiated in a similar way. It is not likely that the printer should print sixteene </p. 92> <p. 93> for sexton without any reason at all: but if the passage stood thus in his uncorrected copy

read three º I have ben sexton heere man and boy thirty

and twenty for º years . . . . This scul has lain in the earth thirty

thirty. sixteene. º years

and corrections were put in the margin as I have placed them it is easy to see how the ductus literarum might induce a printer to alter sexton instead of thrity into sixteene and then insert the three and twenty in place of the wrong thirty . . . .

“But in the 1599 version we read ‘here’s a scull hath been here this dozen year’ another confirmation of my reading. For the original Yorick was undoubtedly Tarleton the hesty to the Queen’s Company of players. It was Tarleton that was a fellow of infinite mirth, that carried his fellow actor Burbadge on his back a hundred times that poured flagons of Rhenish on clowns heds for a joke, mad rogue as he was. Tarleton died in 1588. In 15991) he has been dead 11« years, in round numbers a dozen; in 1604 exactly sixteen, years. All the allusions agree (if my reading be adopted) with the present texts; the Editions of 1603 and 1604 are otherwise irreconciliably at variance. But the Hamlet of 23 years in 1588 is clearly too closely in correspondence with the Shakespeare of 24 (he was born in 1564) for us not to notice how well this agrees with the views of those critics who have so ably advocated the opinion that Hamlet is in some sense the most adequate personal representation of his creator that we possess.”

<n>“1) N.B. 1599 extended to what is now called 25 march 1600.”</n> </p. 93>

3351-2 Clow. Why . . . yeeres] Furness (ed. 1877): “The words of the Grave-digger are so explicit that the age of Ham. has been generally accepted as that of thirty years, and none the less generally has it been felt that this age does not accord, as Blackstone says [see n. 3338], with the impression of his youth which Ham. in the earlier scenes gives us. Halliwell [see Text. Notes] attempts to avoid the difficulty by the aid of Q1, but this aid will hardly bear analysis. In [CLN 1987] of Q1 the Clown says ‘heres a scull hath bin here this dozen yeare;’ the conversation for sixteen lines then turns upon Ham., and his being sent to England. At the end of it Ham. says, ‘whose scull was this?’ It is by no means certain that the former skull is here referred to; the Clown may have just turned up another. It does not follow, therefore, of necessity that it was Yorick’s skull that had lain in the ground a dozen years, and Q1 fails us here at the most important point. Grant White , at the beginning of his story of Hamlet the Younger, says that the Prince was twenty years old when the tragedy opens, and at the close his essay, probably overlooking this statement, says that Ham. was thirty years of age in the Fifth Act. No one would impute so shrew a scholar as Grant White the supposition that the action of the tragedy lasted ten years. Eduard and Otto Devrient, in their ed. of Sh., contend, and with much force, for Hamlet’s extreme youth [see Appendix, Vol. II], and modify their text accordingly. Furnivall (New Sh. Soc. Trans, Part ii, 1874, p. 494), speaking of the ‘startling inconsistencies’ in regard to Hamlet’s age, says: ‘We know how early, in olden time, young men of rank were sent to arms; how early, if they went to a University, they left it for training in Camp and Court. Ham., at a University, could hardly have passt 20; and with this age the plain mention of youth [in 1.3.7 (469); 1.3.11-12(474-75); and 1.3.123-4 (589-90)] agrees. With this, too, agrees the King’s reproach to Ham. for his intent in going back to Wittenberg; and Hamlet’s own revolt-of-nature at his mother’s quick marraige to his uncle. Had he been much past 21, and had he had more experience of then women, he’d have taken his mother’s changeableness more coolly. I look on it as certain, that when Sh. began the play he conceivd Ham. as quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflection, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, &c., were wanted, Sh. necessarily and naturally made Ham. a formd man; and, by the time that he got to the Grave-diggers’ scene, told us the Prince was 30,—the right age for him then; but not his age when Laer. and Pol. warnd Oph. against his blood that burnd, his youthful fancy for her,—’a toy in blood’—&c. The two parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlets state. What matter? Who want’em made consistent by the modification of either part? The “thirty” is not in Q1; yet who wants to go back to that.’ Minto (The Examiner, 6 Mar. 1875) contends that aprt from the Grave-digger’s speech and the thirty years of the wedded life of the Player King and the Player Queen (and he is at a loss to understand how these passages came into the play), ‘the natural construction is that Ham. and his associates were youths of seventeen, fresh from the University. That was the usual sage in Shakespeare’s time at which young nobles set out on their travels, and there is no reason to suppose that he thought of altering the University age in his play, and no hint that Ham. was so very much older than his companions.’ . . . ‘A proper conception of Hamlet’s age is essential to the understanding of the play. He is a youth called home from the University by his father’s death; a youth of the age of Romeo, of of young Pricne Hal at the time of his father’s accession.’ . . . . ‘Hamlet’s action is not the weak and petulant action of an emasculated man of thirty, but the daring, wilful, defiant action of a high-spirited sensitive youth, rudely sumoned from the gay pursuits of youth, and confronted suddenly with monstrous treachery, with crime that blurs the modesty and grace of nature, that makes the very sunlight fire, and loads the sweet air of heaven with pestilence.’ Marshall (p. 181) thinks that Sh. intended Ham. to be nearer twenty than thirty; the general features of his character are those of youth, and the frequent allusions throughout the play to his being very young forbid the belief that he was really thirty years old. The Grave-digger may mean that ‘he began to serve his apprenticeship thirty years before; but he may not have come to the trade of grave-maker till some years later; so that it does not necessarily follow that the day when King Hamlet overcame Fortinbras was thirty years previously.’ . . . ‘The most material objection against Hamlet’s being more than between twenty and twenty-three years of age is that if he were older his mother could scarcely have been the object of such passion as that of Claudius.’

“Minto afterwards (in The Academy, 18 December, 1875) expressed his views at greater length. Against the weighty authority of the Grave-digger is to be placed Laer., whose advice to Oph. in simple prose means that she was not to trust Ham., because he was at an age of changeful fancies and fleeting attachments. Who would speak of the love of a man of thirty as ‘a violet in the youth of primy nature’? The very idea is a profanation of words, which carry such fragrance with them when applied to the first love of budding youth. Again, the University age of young noblemen at that time was from seventeen to nienteen, and Laer. had just left the University; Ham. wanted to go back to it, and Hor. is under suspicion of playing ‘truant.’ The play is full of allusions to the youth of the personages coeval with Ham. Fort. is ‘Young Fortinbras,’ Laer. is ‘Young Laertes,’—the epithet in both cases being repeated. The King speaks of skill with the rapier as a ‘very riband in the cap of youth.’ Hamlet’s envy of Laertes’s fame with the rapier has an almost boyish air. Making Ham. thirty also adds some improbability to the succession of Claudius to his murdered brother; if at that age Ham. had tamely submitted to such a usurpation, and desired to go back to school in Wittenberg, he would have been too contemptible a character to be fitted for any dramatist’s hero. Prof. Dowden having pronounced, in a notice of Werder’s Hamlet (The Academy, 4 Dec. 1875), that theory incredible which ‘makes Ham., the utterer of the saddest and most thoughtful soliloquies to be found in Sh., a boy of seventeen.’ Minto replies that we are apt to underrate the precocity of boys of seventeen. ‘I venture to say that sad and thoughtful questionings of the mysteries of life are more common among boys under twenty than among men of thirty.’ ‘Not only is it possible for sad thoughts to come to a youth of seventeen, but it is as such an age, when the character is not deeply founded, that the shattering of first ideals is most overwhelming. The terrible circumstances that overthrew Hamlet’s noble mind gave a stimulus to the development of his thoughtfulness apart from an increase of years. The fresher and brighter our conception of the gay boy-world out of which he was summoned, the deeper becomes the monstrous tint of the horrible ambition, murder, and incest, which appalled his vision and paralyzed the clear working of his mind when he was first called upon to play a man’s part in the battle of life. Too much has been said of the philosophic temperament of Ham.; impulse and passion wre more in his nature than philosophy; his philosophy was not a serene growth, a natural development of a mind predisposed to thought; it was wrung out of him by circumstances terrible enough to make the most obtuse mind pause and reflect.’ Prof. Dowden (The Academy, 25 Dec. 1875) urged the following consideration in condemnation of the theory that Ham. was a youth of seventeen: ‘The poet’s youngest heroines (children of the South) are aged fourteen (Juliet, Marina) and fifteen (Miranda). The age of Perdita is sixteen. Sh. loved these earliest years of budding womanhood. What is the corresponding periof of early manhood that charms the poet’s imagination? At what age does Sh. conceive that boyhood is blooming into adult strength and beauty? I answer, from twenty-one to twenty-five. The stolen sons of Cymbeline, boys just ready to be men, are aged twenty-three and twenty-two; Florizel looks about twenty-one [WT 5.1.126 (1502)]; Troilus, a beardless youth (two or three hairs upon his chin), is older: ‘he ne’er saw three-and-twenty.’ I am not aware that we can determine Romeo’s age. Prince Hal at the time of his father’s accession was some twelve years old, but Sh. represents him as considerably older. When the battle of Shrewsbury took place (Henry being in fact sixteen years old), Sh., I believe, intends his age to be ‘twenty-two or thereabouts’ [1H4 3.3.212 (2198-99)]. When Henry V ascended the throne, his age was tenty-six, and there is no reason to suppose that Sh., who had up to that point made him older than the Prince Henry of history, now represented him as younger. The Bishop of Ely says: ‘My thrice puissant liege Is in the very May-morn of his youth.’ Test the theory of Hamlet’s extreme youth by the other plays. Are we to imagine the utterer of the soliloquy, ‘To be or not to be,’ as five or six years the junior of the boys of old Belarius, and that at a periof of life when each added year counts for much? Is Florizel,—one of Shakespeare’s ideals of youthful grace,—four years older than Ham.? Did Ham. begin his observations on society (5.1.150 [3338]) at fourteen? Were his schoolfell0ows,—dispatched on a critical mission to England,—also youths of seventeen? Can it be proved that any chief male personage in Shakespeare’s plays is aged seventeen, or eighteen, or even nineteen? The dating of the Player-King’s marriage is important in this discussion. His thirty years’ wife (representing Gertrude) is not too old to win a second husband’s love; therefore Gertrude, although the ‘hey-day of her blood’ is ‘tame,’ is not necessarily too old; we may imagine her forty-seven. But I am not gratly concerned to maintain the Player-King’s and the Grave-digger’s dates, except for the sake of resisting rash tampering with Shakespeare’s text. I can aimagine Ham. as a man in the ‘Maymorn of his youth’ at twenty-six or twenty-five. I am much concerned, however, to oppose such a misreading of the play as would not only render the conception of Ham. incoherent, but would pervert our view of an entire group of lovely characters,—the Florizels and Polydores and Ferdinands of Sh. And I would note that Sh. found it possible to think of thirty as a youthfula ge. The Grave-digger himself speaks of ‘young Hamlet.’ In [Ado ] we read (of fashions in clothes): ‘How giddily a’ turns about all the hot bloods between fourteen and five-and-thirty.’ In the Son. Sh. names forty (not thirty) as the age when time has marred the face. In the Elegy on Burbadge [sic], that great actor is praised for his equal success in the part of ‘young Hamlet’ and of ‘old Hieronymo.’ If Burbadge represented Ham. as thrity years of age, still, in spite of the thirty years, Burbadge’s Ham. passed for young. I will, however, yield something, and if any critic will efficiently knock upon the mazzard that ‘absolute’ knave, the Clown, I accept as satisfactory the age assigned by Marshall,—twenty-five.’

“In The Academy, 11 March, 1876, J. W. Hales cites the following quotation from a well-known book as noteworthy with regard to Hamlet’s age: ‘For fashion sake some [Danes] will put their children to schoole, but they set them not to it till they are fourteene years old; so that you shall see a great boy with a beard learne his A BC, and sit weeping under the rod when he is thirty years old.’—Nash’s Pierce Penniless’s Supplication to the Devil, ed. Collier, for the Sh. soc. p. 27. ‘So, after all,’ adds Hales, ‘there is perhaps less inconsistency inthe play than has been supposed. I do not mean that there is none.’”

3351-2, 3362 Hudson (ed. 1881): “These statements [3351-2, 3362], taken together with a preceding speech, infer Hamlet’s age to be thirty years; which cannot well be reconciled with what Laertes and Polonius say of him in [1.3.? (469, 474-75, 489-90)]. Mr. Halliwell substitutes dozen for three-and-twenty, and quotes from the first quarto, ‘Here’s a skull hath bin here this dozen yeare.’ But,. as Mr. Furness observes, it is by no means certain that the Clown refers to the same skull there as here: he may have just turned up another. I cannot help suspecting that the Poet wrote ‘20 years,’ and ‘3 & 10 yeares,’ and that the 2 and 1 got corrupted into 3 and 2. It would be not unlike the Clown’s manner, to put three-and-ten for thirteen. This, of course, would make Hamlet twenty years old; which is just about the age wanted.”

3352 man and boy] Elze (ed. 1882): “‘A common Warwickshire expression, says Mr Wise (Shakespeare, his Birthplace and its Neighbourhood, 1861, p. 111), to denote great length of time, is to say, ‘I have been employed here, man and boy, so many years;; so in the grave-digging scene in Hamlet, the sexton says of himself, ‘I have been sexton here, &c’.”

3351 Clow. Why . . . Denmarke] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Hamlet has asked on what ground or provocation, that is, from what cause, Hamlet lost his wits; the sexton chooses to take the word ground materially.”

3351-52 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “The Poet makes him say how long he had been sexton—but how naturally and informally—by a stupid joke!—in order a second time, and more certainly, to tell us Hamlet’s age: he must have held it a point necessary to the understanding of Hamlet.

“Note Hamlet’s question immediately following [3352]. It looks as if he had first said to himself: ‘Yes—I have been thirty years above ground!’ and then said to the sexton, ‘How long will a man lie i’th’ earth ere he rot?’ We might enquire even too curiously as to the connecting links.”

3352 thirty yeeres] Barnett (1889, p. 72): cites this line as an anachronism with [1.2.113 (295)] which indicates that Hamlet is “a student at the University.”

3351-2 Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “This passage has roused a lively discussion on the subject of Hamlet’s age. The Clown’s statement is very explicit. In [3331] Hamlet says: ‘How long hast thou been a grave-maker?’ to which he replies with considerable detail, that he ‘came to’t’ ‘the very day that young Hamlet was born.’ The passage seems to be introduced for the special purpose of giving us a precise idea as to Hamlet’s age, yet, all the same, it is difficult to imagine the Hamlet of the early part of the play a man thirty. A long discussion of the subject will be found in Furness, vol. I, pp. 391-394; Marshall, in his Study of Hamlet, devotes pp. 181, 182 to the question. He comes to the conclusion that Hamlet is really intended to be nearer twenty than thirty, but that Shakespeare ‘added these details, which tend to prove Hamlet to have been thirty years old, for much the same reason as he inserted the line—’He’s fat and scant of breath—’ namely, in order to render Hamlet’s age and personal appearance more in accordance with those of the great actor, Burbage, who personated him.’ Probably Dr. Furnivall is right in boldly asserting that Shakespeare is really inconsistent with himself (New Sh. Soc. Trans. 1874, p. 494): ‘We know how early, in olden time, young men of rank were put to arms; how early, if they went to a University, they left it for training in Camp and Court. Hamlet, at a University, could hardly have passt 20; and with this age, the plain mention of his ‘youth of primy nature’ [1.3.7 (468-69)] and ‘nature crescent, . . not . . alone in thews and bulk’ [1.3.11-12 (474-75)], ‘Lord Hamlet . . he is young’ [1.3.123-4 (489-90)], &c, by Polonius and Laertes, agrees. With this, too, agrees the King’s reproach to Hamlet for his ‘intent in going back to school at Wittenberg’ . . I look on it as certain, that when Shakspere began the play he conceived Hamlet as quite a young man. But as the play grew, as greater weight of reflection, of insight into character, of knowledge of life, &c, were wanted, Shakspere necessarily and naturally made Hamlet a formd man; and, by the time that he got to the Gravediggers’ scene, told us the Prince was 20—the right age for him then: but not his age to Laertes & Polonius when they warnd Ophelia against his blood that burnd, his youthful fancy for her—’a toy in blood’—&c. The two parts of the play are inconsistent on this main point in Hamlet’s state.”

3352 thirty yeeres] Dowden (ed. 1899): “In Q1 Hamlet’s age is not fixed, and he seems younger throughout. Perhaps in recasting the play Shakespeare felt that Hamlet’s weight of thought implied an age beyond that of very early manhood, and failed to harmonise the earlier and later presentations of his hero. His Troilus is under twenty-three; Cymbeline’s sons are twenty-three and twenty-two; Hamlet is surely older than these youths.”

3352 thirty yeeres]

3351 Sexten] Wilson(1934, 1:50) suggests that the F1 sixeteene is a printer’s error for the Qq Sexten.

3352 thirty yeeres]

3352 thirty yeeres]

3352 thirty yeeres]

3352 thirty yeeres]