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Line 3458 - 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.”

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Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

3458 Yet haue I {in me something} <something in me> dangerous,	5.1.262

1870 Miles

Miles

3457-8 Miles (1870, p. 77): <p.77>“Just as Hamlet’s exact mental condition was determined by the line of light, ‘That I essentially am not in madness But mad in craft:—’ so in this scene, the essence of his character is revealed by another flash of discriminating genius: [cites 3457-8].”</p.77>

1875 Marshall

Marshall

3454-59 Marshall (1875, pp 98-9): <p. 98> “Maddened as Hamlet is by the sight of Laertes’ grief, he still retains sufficient command of himself to remonstrate with him. Immediately on his leaping into the grave, Laertes seizes him by the throat, exclaiming—’The devil take thy soul!’ Hamlet forbears, at first, to repel violence with violence. There is dignity as well as self-command in his answer—</p. 98> <p. 99>[cites 3455-59].

“He does not forget that Laertes is, after all, her brother; he does not at first struggle with him; he begs him to take his hand off him; for though he is not prone to violence, he has ‘something dangerous’ in him now. It would seem that Laertes, forgetting all but his hatred of Hamlet, would then and there have taken his revenge. The latter is driven to defend himself, and some of the courtiers are obliged to part the two. Hamlet’s blood is now up, and he flings away all concealment; [cites 3464-68] ” </p. 99>

1877 Gervinus

Gervinus

3457-8 For . . . dangerous] Gervinus (1877, p. 561): <p. 561>“In violent passion with Laertes, Hamlet says of himself that he is not ‘splenetive and rash,’ yet he has in him somethig dangerous, which the wisdom of his enemy may fear. This ‘something dangerous’ is his sensitive excitability, which originates in a heated imagination, and which supplies this passive nature with a goad for defence and a weapon for assault, but only at a moment of extreme necessity. For this very imagination is the source also of Hamlet’s faintheartedness, and of his anxious uneasinesa and weakness; it is a psychological circle, only too often verified by human nature. For this one source there springs among whole nations, as Montesquieu has observed—among the old Iberians and Indians for instance—the same mixture of mildness combined with exaggerated energy under provocation; the sensitiveness of their organisation, which causes them to fear death, causes them to fear a thousand things still more than death; the same susceptibility leads them to flee from danger, and to scorn it when compelled to face it. Thus is it with Hamlet. His busy imagination suggests to him a condition with its fearful and remotest results; he seems himself surrounded by dangers and snares, and seeks to obviate them with elaborate preparation.” </p. 561>

1882 elze2

elze2

3458 in me something] Elze (ed. 1882): “See Jahrbuch der Deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, XVI, 238 seq.”

1914 Stewart

Stewart

3456-9 Stewart (1914, p. 222): <p. 222>“Hamlet does not even offer combat when the enraged Laertes grasps him by the throat; he says rather: ‘I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat, For, though I am not splenetive and rash, Yet have I in me something dangerous,Which let thy wiseness fear. Away thy hand.’

“The ‘something’ is desperation, not anger. There is here something of the benign attitude of Romeo toward Paris when he was himself on the point of suicide, ‘Good, gentle youth, tempt not a desperate man.’ All this is very natural and consistent. Hamlet is stung to desperation, and he regards Laertes’ high-sounding sorrow as a mere travesty in the light of his own deeper pain; but yet he has no personal feeling against him.

“It is a theory which persists from one generation to another that Hamlet has continued to love Ophelia and that he is affected by his present love for her at the grave. In this case we could wish not only that Shakespeare had referred to such a state of affairs during all the interim, but that be would give some hint of it here.”</p. 222>

1939 kit2

kit2

3455-59 Kittredge (ed. 1939): “Hamlet’s calmness is not self-possession, but violent self-restraint in the attempt to be calm.”