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Line 3509, etc. - 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).

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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.

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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.

3509 Ther’s a diuinity that shapes our ends,	5.2.10

3510 Rough hew them how we will. 3510

1752 Dodd

Dodd :

3509-10 Ther’s . . . will] Dodd (1752, p. 257) ; <p. 257> “This is noble sentiment and worthy of Shakespear : in the Maid’s Tragedy , there is the same thought, but very meanly exprest; ‘But they that are above Have ends in every thing. Act 5.” </p. 257>

1755 John

John

3510 Rough hew] Johnson (1755, To Roughhew): “ v.a. [rough and hew] To give to any thing the first appearance of form. [cites Hamlet] ‘The whole world, without art and dress, Would be but one great wilderness, And mankind but a savage herd, For all that nature has conferr’d: This does but roughhew and design, Leaves art to polish and refine.’ Hudibras, p. iii.”

1780 mals

mals :

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Steevens (apud Malone, 1780, p. 362) : <p. 362> “Dr. Farmer informs me, that these words are merely technical. A wool-man, butcher, and dealer in skewers , lately observed to him that his nephew ( an idle lad) could only assist him in making them; ‘—he could rough-hew them, but I was obliged to shape their ends .’ Whoever recollects the profession of Shakspeare’s father, will admit that his son might be no stranger to such a term. I have seen packages of wooll pinn’d up with skewers.. STEEVENS” </362>

[Ed: MALS gives a note here that will make its way into MALONE in 1790 and the v1785 variorum: <I:362>]

1785 v1785

v1785 = mals

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

1787 ann

ann = v1785

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

1790 mal

mal = v1785

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

-1790 mWesley

mWesley

3510 Wesley (typescript of ms. notes in ed. 1785): “This is ingenious [Steevens’s conclusion], but I believe Shakspeare’s thought was of Architecture.”

1793 v1793

v1793 = mal

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

1803 v1803

v1803 = v1793

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

1807 Pye

Pye = v1803 +

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Pye (1807, p. 327) : <p. 327> “That such a suggestion could be made by one man of sense and adopted by another, can be only credible to those who are conversant with the commentators on Shakespear.”

1809 Sherwen

Sherwen

3509 diuinity that shapes our ends] Sherwen (1809, pp. 43-6): <p.43> “‘shap’

“‘I never as able (says Mr. T[yrwhitt] to conceive how shap, should have been used in the English language to signify fate, till I observed the following article in Skinner: Shap—now s my shap.—Nunc mihi fato præstitutum est: (i.e.) now is it shapen to me. Av. a.s. sceapan, &c.’ </p.43> . . . .<p.55> “A confirmation of shape fate may be detected in the following passage of Shakspeare, which has been quoted and repeated a thousand times without being thoroughly understood. ‘I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad, Than living dully sluggardis’d at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idlenesse.’

Query.—What is shapeless idleness?—I now answer with much confidence; shapeless i.e. fortuneless or luckless idleness—idleness to which no good luck, fortune, or fate can be attached.

“Shapeless idleness (says Dr. Warburton) is fine, as implying, that idleness prevents the giving any form or character to </p.53><p.54> the manners.’ How little did he know of the fine meanings of Shakspeare!

“Palpable as this mistake appears to me, it has been dignified by the adoption of the celebrated author of Lewesden Hill, in the following elegant passage. ‘so methinks, Even so, sequester’d from the noisy world, Could I wear out this transitory being In peaceful contemplation, and calm ease. But conscience, which still censures on our acts, That awful voice within us, and the sense Of an hereafter, wake and rouse us up From such unshaped retirement.’

“Would that every other ingenious misconception of our immortal bard’s meanings had been consecrated in a similar manner! But since the author has borrowed the expression from Shakspeare’s sense: viz. Retirement deservedly unattended with any good fate or fortune; and this may perhaps be admitted as a notable instance of a commentator discovering a fine meaning to which the author himself was a stranger.

“This is not the only instnace in which Shakspeare has made use of shape for fate. ‘Our discretion sometimes serves us well, When our deep plots do pall: and that should teach us There’s Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will.’ </p.54>

<p.55> “If Dr. Farmer’s ludicrous and odious anecdote of the Butcher and his skewers be worthy of any notice, which I scarcely think it is, unless it be the notice of reprobation, we must conclude that Shakspeare, who is here alluding in a very fine strain to the superintendance of Divinity, meant to quibble with the words shape, fate, and shape, fashion, or form. But Dr. Farmer had as little conception of the fine meaning of Shakespeare in this instance, as Dr. Warburton in the preceding. ‘There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, Rough hew them how we will.’ That is, that fates or pre-ordains our ends.

“The metaphor is really drawn from the woodman’s labour in felling and measuring timber: every tree requires to be regularly shaped at the ends, that the true girth may be taken, and the solid contents calculated: the intermediate parts are carelessly chopped with an axe; cutting off the knots, protuberances, and branches, is called rough hewing. Thus it appears, that not only all nature, but every mechanical art, was subservient to the vivid imagination of Shakspeare; whose quibble with the words shape and fate, has, in this instance, a much more respectable origin than any </p.55><p.56> thing that could be drawn from the formation of a butcher’s skewer. ‘“ </p.56>

[Ed FNC: See also 428.]

1813 v1813

v1813 = v1803

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

1818 Todd

Todd = John +

3510 Rough hew] Todd (1818, roughhew): “† v.a. [rough and hew. Dr. Farmer informed Mr. Steevens that the phrase, as used by Shakspeare, is technical. [cites TLN note ‘A wool-man . . . rough-hew them’ Those who lop the branches and knots, from trees that have been felled, I may add, commonly call their work rough-hewing.] To give to any thing the first appearance of form. [cites Hamlet] ‘The whole world, without art and dress, Would be but one great wilderness, And mankind but a savage herd, For all that nature has conferr’d: This does but roughhew and design, Leaves art to polish and refine.’ Hudibras, p. iii.”

1819 cald1

cald1 = v1813 + magenta underlined (prefaces Steevens’s 1813 note)

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “That point or fashions our purposes, brings them according to his good pleasure to a close, how ill soever or unskilfully conceived or entered upon.”

cald1 = v1813 + magenta underlined (follows Steevens’s 1813 note)

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “Doubtless these terms are so far technical, as that they are drawn from arts or handycraft trades, occupied with the knife, the axe, plane, or some such tool; and as the use of the tools is general, the phrases belonging to them also pass into general use.”

1821 v1821

v1821 = v1813

v1821 1821 BOSWELL (1821 ed., p. 487) adds a brief note between the quote in MALONE and “whoever recollects . . . ”: “To shape the ends of wool-skewers , i.e. to point them, requires a degree of skill; any one can rough-hew them.”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew]

1841 knt1 (nd)

knt1 = cald1 + magenta (as preface to CALD1)

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Knight (ed. [1939]) : “Philosophy, as profound as it is beautiful! says the uninitiated reader of Shakspere. But he that is endued with the wisdom of the commentators will learn, how easy it is to mistake for philosophy and poetry what really only proceeded from the very vulgar recollections of an ignorant mind.”

-1845 mHunter2

mHunter2 ≈ mHunter1

3510 Rough hew them how we will] Hunter (-1845, p. 227): <p. 227> “Rough-hewing must be the first work at the stone after it is dug from the quarry. Do this as we will, the finishing form is done by the Divinity: —or we may begin a work but God ends it.—This I presume is the meaning, but the sense is not clearly indicated by the words.—Rough-hew is now nearly if not entirely, gone out of use. We still talk of the Rough-Rider for the man who first breaks in a horse. But rough-hew appears to have been used not uncommonly in Shakspeare’s time: ‘Thus is Matildaes story shown in act, And rough heawen out by an hand: Being of the materiall point compackt That with the certaine state of doe stand.’ This is the Epilogue to his play of ‘The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington’. So Davis ‘To smooth one bill rough-hewn: & see Abozzser in Florio’s Dictionary.” </p. 227>

1855 mHUNTER (Prolegomena and Notes on Shakespeare [BL ADD. MS. 24495 ] : pp. 219-46) has a note on these two line

1846 Hunter

Hunter : v1821 (Farmer)

3510 Rough hew] Hunter (1845, pp. 263-4) : <p. 263>“The sooner Dr. Farmer’s unfortunate remark on this pas-, </p. 263><p. 264>sage is expunged the better. Rough-hew is not and never was technical. It is a common English word applicable to to [sic] all kinds of work where there is room for ordinary manual labour before the master comes and applies a skilful hand. Thus, in Palsgrave’s Table of Verbs, ‘I rough-hewe a pece of tymber to make an ymage of, or to put to some byldyng:’ and again, ‘It is rough-hewen all redy, I will now fall a karvynge of it,’ p. 344. This is in 1530. Florio in 1598 explains the Italian Abbozzare ‘to rough-hew any first draught, to bungle ill-favoredly,’ and abbozamento is ‘a rough, coarse, imperfect, bungling piece of work.’ In the Epilogue to the play of The Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon, ‘Thus is Matilda’s story shewn in art And rough-hewen out by an uncunning hand Being of the most material points compackt That with the certainst state of truth do stand.’

“And in The Scourge of Folly by John Davies, called of Hereford, ‘Thou learn’d art in the laws; then wer tain Thee with Love’s fee to smooth our bill rough-hewn; For thou wilt say,we cause have to complain Which in our piteous bill at large is shewn.’

“Concerning the meaning of the passage there can be no doubt. We but begin a work; God finishes it.” </p. 264>

1854 del2

del2

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Delius (ed. 1854) : “Das Bild ist von irgend einem Handwerk entlehnt, wo der Stoff erst im Rohen zugehauen wird (rough-hew), ehe er weiter appretirt (shape) werden kann. So giebt die Vorsehung auch unsern Plänen zuletzt die ihr gut dünkende Form, wir mögen dieselben nach unserm Belieben vorher auch noch so willkurhlich zurechtgehauen haben.”[The image is borrowed from any handwork, where the matter first will be roughhewn in its raw state, before it can become shaped further. So the Providence at last gives also our plans/destinies their well- obscured form, we are able in the same fashion to have according to our preordained choice also so arbitrary a shaping.]

1846- mHunter1

mHunter1

3510 Rough hew them how we will] Hunter (1846-) : <f. 40v > “rough-hew them how you will. That there was a kind of work people called Rough Hewers appears justifiable, because we find that there certainly were ... called Hard-Hewers” </f. 40v >

[Ed: ms. notes, “Shakespeare. Notes on his Life and Writings,” 1846-, f. 27v)f.]

1857 elze1

elze1 : Farmer ; Drake

3509-10 shapes , Rough hew] Elze (ed. 1857): "Dr. Farmer erzählt, dass ihn einstmals ein fleischer, zugleich Woll- und Nagelhändler, bezüglich eines Neffen gesagt habe: ’he could rough-hew the skewers, but I was obliged to shape their ends’. ’Skewers’ sind nämlich die hölzernen Nägel, deren sich die Fleischer zum Befestigen und Aufspannen der Felle bedienen. Da nun Shakespeare’s Vater gleichfalls Fleischer und Wollhändler war, so liegt die Vermuthung nahe, dass der Dichter hier auf das väterliche Gewerbe, ind em er als junger Bursche gewiss oft hülfreiche Hand geleistet hatte, angespielt habe, um so mehr, als er auch in The Winter’s Tale IV, 2 ((Let me see: —Every ’leven wether tods; &c.)) eine genaue Kenntniss des Wollgeschäfts verräth. Drake 17." [Dr. Farmer explains that once a butcher, together with a wool and nailhandler told him concerning a nephew: : ’he could rough-hew the skewers, but I was obliged to shape their ends’. ’Skewers’ are namely the wooden nails/spikes, which the butcher used for fastening and stretching hides. If Shakespeare’s father now was likewise a butcher and wooldhandler, so the conjecture lies near that the poet has alluded here to his paternal trade, in which he, as a young boy, had lent a helping hand often , for even more, also in [Win. 4.2.] Let me see: —Every ’leven wether tods; &c.)), a thorough knowledge of woolmaking, Drake conjectures 17.]

1859 stau

stau : v1821 (Farmer reference) ; mHunter2 (Florio //) + magenta underlined

3510 Rough hew them how we will] Staunton (ed. 1859) :“Farmer’s assertion that these words were merely technical, and referred to the making skewers , has never, we believe, been contradicted; a striking proof, if so, how much the commentators on Shakespeare have yet to learn from our early literature. To rough-hew meant to plan or scheme, or do anything in the rough. Thus Florio interprets ‘Abbozzare,’ to rough-hew or cast any first draught , to bungle up ill-fauouredly and Baret, in his Aluearie , says, ‘To cut out grossely: to hew rough. ‘ ‘It is rough hewed , or squared out, or it is begun.’”

1864-68 c&mc

c&mc ≈ standard

3510 Rough hew] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1864-68, rpt. 1874-78): “‘Give a first form to,’ ‘sketch out,’ ‘originally devise.’ Florio defines the Italian word abozzare, by ‘To rough-hew any first draught, to bungle ill-favouredly.’”

1872 del4

del4 = del2; stau (Florio definition)magenta underlined

3510 Rough hew them how we will] Delius (ed. 1872) : Staunton citirt dazu aus Florio’s italienische Wörterbuch: Abbozzare, to rough-hew, or cast any first draught, to bungle up ill-favouredly.” [“Staunton cites, therefore, from Florio’s Italian dictionary, ‘Abbozare, to rough-hew, to bungle up ill-favouredly.”]

1870 Miles

Miles

3509-10 Miles (1870, pp. 39-40): <p. 39>“The power referred to is God, not fate. Even before that </p. 39> <p. 40>glance beyond the grave, that verification of penal fire, he respects the ‘cannon ‘gainst self-slaughter.’” </p. 40>

3509-10 Miles (1870, pp. 77-8): <p. 77> In the conversation with Horatio, that opens the last scene, there is more about the voyage to England. Hamlet knew well enough that his conductors were marshalling him to knavery; but the unsealing of their grand commission, and the device of a new one, was a sudden inspiration. [cites 3509-10]

“Much follows from this unpremeditated and most legitimate theft: it is as fertile of results as the dropping of the handkerchief in Othello. In the first place, besides ascertaining the full extent of the royal knavery, he obtains full proof, under the royal seal, of the king’s villainy. In the second place, this royal commission, whihc, in the presentiment or rather in the assurance of speedy death, he entrusts to Horatio, will be a justification before the world of the blow which must soon be delivered; will shield the princely name, about which he is so solicitous, from posthumous obloquy, and assist in consigning the seeming virtuous wearer of the precious diadem to everlasting infamy. In the third place, Rosencrantz </p. 77> <p. 78>and Guildenstern, those supple traitors to all the rights of fellowship, to all the consonancy of youth, to all the obligations of every preserved love, are finally and most righteously disposed of by this de jure King of Denmark, who carries his father’s signet in his purse. They are not even near his conscience; [3561-65]” </p. 78>

1872 cln1

cln1 ≈ v1821 (Farmer) : stau? (FLORIO “Abbozzare’ . . . draught”)

3510 Rough hew them how we will]

1873 rug2

rug2 ≈ standard

3510 Moberly (ed. 1873): “When we, with such skill as we possess, have planned our purposes, in comes God’s providence and shapes them otherwise.”

1877 v1877

v1877 = v1813 (STEEVENS) ; ≈ cald2 ; knt1 (summarized) ; ≈ HUNTER (minus Death of Robert Earl of Huntingdon analogue and The Scourge of Folly analogue) ; ≈ STAU (summarized)

3510 Rough hew them how we will] Furness (ed. 1877) : “Knight fleers at Farmer’s suggestion.”

1877 neil

neil

3509-10 Neil (ed. 1877, Notes): “[Prov. 16: 9, 33]”

[1879] Bullock

Bullock

3509-10 Bullock ([1879], pp. 41-42): Bullock provides this quotation as an example of precept 22, “An Overruling Providence”

1882 elze2

elze2

3510 Rough hew] Elze (ed. 1882): “‘This phrase, says a writer in N. & Q., June 20, 1874, p. 484, is uesed by Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie, [chap. XX [p. 254, ed. Arber]; speaking of the ‘Gorgious’ he says: ‘For the glorious lustre it seeteth vpon our speech and language, the Greeks call it (Exargasia [_xergas] the Latine (Expolitio), a terme transferred from these polishers of marble or porphirite, who after it is rough hewen and reduced to that fasion they will, set vpon it a goodly glasse, so smoth andcleere, as ye may see your face in it.’ Lyly, in his Euphues [ed. Arber, p. 263], speaking of the bees, says, ‘diuers hew, others polish’.”

1885 macd

macd

3509 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—even by our indiscretion. Emphasis on shapes.”

macd

3510 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Here is another sign of Hamlet’s religion. We start to work out an idea, but the result does not correspond with the idea: another has been at work along with us. we rough-hew—block out our marble, say for a Mercury; the result is an Apollo. Hamlet had rough-hewn his ends—he had begun plans to certain ends, but had he been allowed to go on shaping them alone, the result, even had he carried out his plans and shaped his ends to his mind, would have been failure. Another mallet and chisel were busy shaping them otherwise from the first, and carrying them out to a true success. For success is not the success of plans, but the success of ends.”

1889 Barnett

Barnett ≈ v1821 (STEEVENS)

3510 Rough hew] Barnett (1889, p. 62): <p. 62>“This fine metaphor, recognized by the uninitiated reader as both philosophy and poetry, has been spoiled for ever by the commentators. Who on reading it could miss its meaning? Hear how it is vulgarized. ‘Dr. Farmer informs me’ says Stevens [sic], ‘that these words are merely technical. A wood-man, butcher, and dealer in skewers, informed him that his nephew (an idle lad) could only assist him in making them; he could rough-hew them, but I was obliged to shape their ends.’

“He goes on ‘Whoever recollects the profession of Shakespeare’s father, will admit that his son might be no stranger to such terms. I have frequently seen packages of wool pinned up with skewers.’ After this who will dare to assert that there is such a thing as poetry in the word?” </p. 62>

1890 irv2

irv2 ≈ v1821 (Steevens/Farmer reference) ; STAU? (Florio gloss)

3510 Rough hew]

1899 ard1

ard1 ≈ v1877 (Farmer ; Florio def.) w/o attribution +

3510 Rough hew] Dowden (ed. 1899): “We do not need the assistance of the dealer in skewers who told Farmer that his nephew could rough-hew them, but that he had himself to shape their ends.”

1909 N&Q

[W.C.B.]

3510 Rough hew][W.C.B.] (1909, 85): <p. 85> “H. Peacham, ‘compleat Gentleman,’ 1622, p. 91, says of George Buchanan: ‘In his person, behauiour and fashion, he was rough hewen.’”</p. 85>

1931 crg1

crg1

3510 Rough hew]

1939 kit2

kit2

3509 ends] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “the outcome of our plans.”

3509 ends] Kittredge (ed. 1939, Glossary): “the outcome of our plans.”

1936 cam3b

cam3b

3509-10 Wilson (2nd ed. 1936, Additional Notes): “Mr. J.P. Malleson writes (privately): ‘Years ago a country labourer astonished my father by saing as he sharpened stakes for fixing hurdles in the ground: ‘My mate roughhews them and I shape their ends.’

“Perhaps the image came to Sh. from the passage in Saxo or Belleforest which describes Amleth shaping the ends of litle staves in the fire, v. Gollancz, Sources of Hamlet, pp. 103-05, 199.”

1951 crg2

crg2=crg1

3510 Rough hew]

1954 sis

sis ≈ standard

3510 Rough hew] Sisson (ed. 1954, Glossary):

1957 pel1

pel1 : standard

3510 Rough hew]

1932 pel2

pel2=pel1

3510 Rough hew]

1974 EVNS1

evns1

3509 shapes our ends] Evans (ed. 1974): “gives final shape to our design.”

evns1

3510 Rough hew them] Evans (ed. 1974): “block them out in initial form.”

1980 pen2

pen2

3509-10 Spencer (ed. 1980): “This is the first evidence of Hamlet’s new piety or Christian patience, preparing us for lines [3668-3673+1]. Perhaps Shakespeare is interesting the audience by showing, after the excited reasoning of IV.4.32-66, the meditative force of V.1.65-212, and the anxieties of V.1.250-88, a new kind of irresponsibility in Hamlet.”

pen2 ≈ standard

3510 Rough hew them]

1982 ard2

ard2 ≈ standard +

3509-10 Jenkins (ed. 1982): “For the sentiment, LN [Longer Notes]. The concentrated expression of it uses a single word ((ends)) to apply both to purposes and their outcome, and a metaphor from stone or timber work, in which rough-hew was a familiar term.”

ard2

3509-10 Jenkins (ed. 1982, Longer Notes, 557): <p. 557>“Cf. ‘Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own’, [3.2.208 (2129)], where, however, belief in a beneficient power is absent. The present passage shows Hamlet recognizing a design in the universe he had previously failed to find (([1.2.133-7; 2.2.298-303; etc.)) Cf. Proverbs xvi.9 ((Bishops’ Bible)), ‘A man deviseth a way in his heart: but it is the lord that ordereth his goings’; and, for the same metaphor as in Shakespeare, Florio’s Montaigne, II.8, ‘My consultation doth somewhat roughly hew the matter, and by its first show, lightly consider the same: the main and chief point of the work, I am wont to resign the heaven’” </p. 557>

1984 chal

chal : evns1 ; ard2

3509 ends] Wilkes (ed. 1984): "a))the outcome of our lives b)) the ends of timber."

1985 cam4

cam4 : v1877 (Florio)

3509-10 Edwards (ed. 1985): “i.e. there is a higher power in control of us, directing us towards our destination, however much we have blundered in the past and impeded our own progress. This recognition drastically modifies Hamlet’s earlier assessment of his freedom and power to direct his own course. [cites Florio] Shakespeare here uses it to mean a crude botching. Hamlet feels the guiding hand of heaven in his own impulsive and unpremeditated actions, after the failure of his own willed efforts. ;Compare the tenth of the 39 Articles, ‘Of Free-Will’, which argues that ‘we have no power to do good works’ until we have the ‘good will’ given by ‘the grace of God by Christ’, after which that grace will be ‘working with us’.”

1987 oxf4

oxf4 : Tilley

3509-10 Hibbard (ed. 1987): “Compare ‘Man proposes, God disposes’ ((Tilley M298)).”

oxf4

3509 our ends] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “our purposes and their final outcomes.”

1988 bev2

bev2: standard

3510 Rough hew]

1992 fol2

fol2≈ standard

3509 our ends]

3510 Rough hew]

1993 dent

dent

3509-10 Andrews (ed. 1989): “Hamlet’s metaphor suggests a number of related ways in which Providence ‘shapes our Ends’: ((a)) it gives our lives a well-carved shape, despite our own tendency to ‘hew’ ((chop)) them in a rough, shapeless manner; ((b)) it takes our ‘Ends’ ((intentions)) and gives them a shpae we can only approach in a rough-hewn fashion; and (c)) it takes the ‘Ends’ of our lives ((both literally, and in the sense pertaining to God’s purpose for them)) and gives them a shape ((fits them into a design)) that we can at best approximate with our rough-hewn plans and actions. Rough-hew echoes Hamlet’s earlier reference to ‘the Native Hew of Resolution’ ((III.i.81)).”

1998 OED

OED

3510 Rough hew]OED to be chipped, sometimes rough-hewn. b. transf. or fig. 1565 COOPER Thes. s.v. Exascio, It is rough hewed, or squared out, or it is begunne. 1592 NASHE Four Lett. Confut. Wks. (Grosart) II. 197 He..speakes not that sentence in the Pulpit, which before he rough-hewes not ouer with his penne. 1602 SHAKS. Ham. V. ii. 10 There’s a Diuinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will. [etc.]