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.”

7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations. Click here for more information about browsing the entries and here for more information about the special symbols used in Hamletworks. Click the question mark icon above to remove this help message.

1730 theol

theol

3559 Hora. So Guyldensterne and Rosencraus goe too’t] Theobald (15 Jan. 1729-1730, [fol. 31r] [Nichols 2: 409]): <fol. 31r> “I must make a short stop on one passage in KJ 3.4.1 (1383), because I think differently on the place. ‘So by a roaring tempest, &c.’

“You take this for a flat, absurd, and ill-timed simile. I confess, I never thought it a simile; nor, on a nearer view, do I believe you will. the French begins the scene abruptly, as Virgil has done his fourth Œneid: ‘—At Regina grauie, &c.’—and the ‘So,’ here, is but a connective particle to what is supposed to have preceded the opening of the scene in discourse.

“Thus in [Ham. a.s.? (3559)]: ‘So Rosencraus and Guildenstern go to’t.’” </fol. 31r>

1791- rann

rann

3559 go to’t] Rann (ed. 1791-) : “to pot.”

1869 tsch

tsch

3559 goe too’t] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “go to ‘t euphemistisch für go to death, gehn drauf.” [go to’t, euphemism for go to death, go thereon.]

1889 Barnett

Barnett

3559 goe too’t] Barnett (1889, p. 63): <p. 63>“go to destruction.” </p. 63>

1919 TLS

Greenwood contra Sargeaunt (TLS 1919:83)

3559 goe too’t] Greenwood (1919, p. 98) thinks that Hamlet arranged for the pirate ship to take him away and to leave Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their fate.: Contrary to Sargeaunt (TLS 1919: 83) who says that Hamlet had no justification for killing them [they are included in Horatio’s general description of events (3876-80)], Greenwood says Hamlet saw them as co-conspirators with the king, who knew that they were on an embassy that was to lead to Hamlet’s death. Greenwood cites their commission (2276), their willingness to do the king’s bidding (2279-82), Hamlet’s knowledge of them and their purpose and his intention thereto. (2577+1-2577+8). Ed. note: Greenwood goes beyond the evidence when he says Hamlet arranges for the pirate ship. If so, why doesn’t he say so in telling Horatio the story? 2986- 3000; 3561-5

Greenwood continues the discussion contra Sargeaunt (TLS, 1919, 126): If Horatio thought that Hamlet had Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed “for no cause,” as Mr. Sargeaunt says, he would have had to think Hamlet a murderer. Hamlet’s letter promises to tell Horatio more. He adds on p. 201 that his main goal had been to show that the lines he referred to show that Hamlet thought them guilty and that he had them killed for cause. Sh. cannot have intended him to kill them “for no cause,” as Sargeaunt avows. Ed. note: Greenwood might have added that Horatio could not say that flights of angels sing Hamlet to his rest if he thought him a murderer.

1939 kit2

kit2

3559 goe too’t] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “to their death. Cf. Heywood, 2 Edward IV, ii, 4 (1599; ed. de Ricci, sig. Rro: ‘Keeper: the men are patient, and resolude to die; The captaine and that other gentleman Haue cast the die whether shall suffer first. Brackenbury. How fell the Lot, to Stranguide or to him? Keeper. The guiltlesse passenger must first go toot.’”

1968 Burckhardt

Burckhardt: analogue

3559 Burckhardt (1968, pp. 144-5): “In Der bestrafte Brudermord—a seventeenth-century German version of the Hamlet story, which appears to be derived from the lost ’Ur-Hamlet’—Hamlet rids himself of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (as Shakespeare was to call them) by a neat and simple stratagem. As he marches between them, their pistols aimed at him from either side, he suddenly ducks; by sheer reflex the two courtiers pull their triggers and shoot each other dead. The stratagem illustrates nicely how to win by the dialectical, divide et impera or tertius ridens method. The dialectician is not such a fool as himself to take arms against a sea of troubles; he divides his troubles into antitheses and makes them takes arms against each other. If he can make no sense of ’being,’ he pairs it off against ’non-being’ and presto! he emerges in possession of ’becoming,’ historical process and metaphysical certitude. For a mere trick, dialectics has earned handsome (but unhappily only paper) profits.

“Shakespeare does not allow his Hamlet to play it; perhaps that is one measure of his difficulties. The Prince likewise rids himself of Rosencrants and Guildenstern, but not quite by the tertius ridens method. He has to do more than duck; he has to act and make himself co-responsible (with Claudius) for the courtier’s death. Now it is they who are in the middle, ’between the fell, and incensed points / Of mighty opposites’ [3564-5]. Hamlet claims that they ’sit not near [[his]] conscience’; but what about Ophelia who perishes between the same fell points? And in any case he finds himself one of the mighty opposites; for him, ’to be’ and ’not to be’ do not cancel each other into a higher synthesis.’ ”

1974 evns1

evns1 ≈ standard

3559 goe too’t]

1980 pen2

pen2 ≈ standard

3559 goe too’t]

1982 ard2

ard2 ≈ standard +

3559 goe too’t] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Cf. [TGV 4.4.3-4], ‘one that I sav’d from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it’.”

1984 chal

chal : standard

3559 goe too’t]

1987 oxf4

oxf4

3559 goe too’t] Hibbard (ed. 1987): “to their deaths. Compare [TGV 4.4.3-5 (1823)], ‘one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his bind brothers and sisters went to it’.”