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Line 3696 - 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.

3696 And hurt my {brother} <Mother>. {N4}	5.2.244

1843 col1

col1

3696, 3703 brother, vngord] Collier (ed. 1843) notes the Ff readings of “mother” and “ungorg’d”: “Modern editors pass over these variations as if the defects did not exist in the folio. Such errors, however, detect themselves.”

1845 Hunter

Hunter

3696 brother] Hunter (1845, p. 265) : <p. 265> “It is thus in all the earlier editions, but in the folios the word is mother. The change might be made by Shakespeare after he retired to Stratford, the passage as it originally stood coming too near to an incident which had recently occurred in the family of Greville in that neighbourhood, where one of them had by misadventure killed his brother with an arrow.” </p. 265>

1854 del2

del2

3696, 3703 brother, vngord] Delius (ed. 1854) : “So die Qs., und allerdings stimmt zu dem Verhältniss Hamlet’s zu Laertes besser der Vergleich mit einem unabsichtlich verwundeten ‘Burder.’ Die Fol. hat mother, eine Aenderung, die vielleicht kein Druckfehler ist, sondern auf der Erwägung beruht, dass Hamlet wohl eine Mutter hat, die er dergestalt verletzen könnte, aber keinen Bruder.” [“So the Qq[brother] and indeed it voices better Hamlet’s relationship to Laertes, the comparison with an inadvertently wounded brother. The Fol has mother, an alteration which perhaps is no misprint; on the contrary, it rests on the consideration that Hamlet has indeed a mother whose form/shape? he knew to be injured, but no brother.”]

1858 col3

col3≈col1

3696, 3703 brother, vngord] Collier (ed. 1858) : “The folio, 1623, misprints ‘brother’ mother , but it is made ‘brother’ in the corr. fo. 1632. In the next speech of Laertes the folio, 1623 reads ungorg’d for ‘ungor’d.’”

1872 del4

del4 ≈ del2

3696, 3703 brother, vngord] Delius (ed. 1872) : “So Q.A. [Q1] und die Qs; die Fol. hat mother. So die Qs., und allerdings stimmt zu dem Verhältniss Hamlet’s zu Laertes besser der Vergleich mit einem unabsichtlich verwundeten ‘Burder.’ Die Fol. hat mother, eine Aenderung, die vielleicht kein Druckfehler ist, sondern auf der Erwägung beruht, dass Hamlet wohl eine Mutter hat, die er dergestalt verletzen könnte, aber keinen Bruder.” [“So Q1 and Qq[brother]; the fol. has mother and indeed it voices better Hamlet’s relationship to Laertes, the comparison with an inadvertently wounded brother. The Fol has mother, an alteration which perhaps is no misprint; on the contrary, it rests on the consideration that Hamlet has indeed a mother whose form/shape? he knew to be injured, but no brother.”]

1877 v1877

v1877 ≈ Hunter

3696 brother]

1885 macd

macd

3696 brother] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Brother is much easier to accept, though Mother might be in the simile.”

1899 ard1

ard1

3696 brother] Dowden (ed. 1899): “The [F1] mother is almost certainly a mere printer’s error; yet it is worth considering that Hamlet has been requested by his mother to ‘use some gentle entertaiment to Laertes’ [3657+-+12]; that the speech, in complying with her request, merely develops her words in the last scene, ‘This is mere madness, etc.’ [3482ff]; that it is spoken not without the characteristic irony of adopting another’s point of view; that Hamlet twice before has pointed his indifference to the King by expressed deference to his mother; and that he might ironically apologise for his apology (which Johnson thought unworthy of him as lacking sincerity) by hinting at the close why it was made and made in the desired form—’And hurt—my mother’ (with a slight salutation towards Gertrude). Can it be that this reading of [F1] was an afterthought of Shakespeare?”

1931 crg1

crg1 ≈ ard1

3696 brother]

1947 cln2

cln2 ≈ Granville-Barker

3696 Granville-Barker (apud Rylands, ed. 1947, Notes): “In the sad cadence of that ‘brother’ is the last echo of Ophelia’s story.”

1951 crg2

crg2=crg1

3696 brother]

1980 pen2

pen2

3696 brother] Spencer (ed. 1980): “As Ophelia’s brother, Laertes might have been Hamlet’s brother-in-law. But the allusion would be awkward, and perhaps, rather, the echoes of the fratricide are heard even here.”

1982 ard2

ard2

3696 brother] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Cf. [3707], ‘this brothers’ wager’. The ambivalence in Hamlet’s relation with laertes, who is both his foe and his second self, is fundamental to our understanding of the play.”