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.

1819 cald1

cald1

3626 French bet against the Danish] Caldecott (ed. 1819) : “For this, the reading of the quartos, the folios give but ; manifestly a false print. The folio of 1632, which does not appear ever to have consulted the quartos, reads and points the passage thus: ‘that’s the French, but against, &c.’”

1832 cald2

cald2 = cald1

3626 French bet against the Danish]

1864-68 c&mc

c&mc

3629 why . . . it] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1864-68, rpt. 1874-78): “Hamlet’s inquiry serves to mark unmistakably his own raillery of and the author’s intended satire upon Osric’s mincing pronunciation, as pointed out in Note 81[3617] of the present Act. See also Note 34, Act I, [AYL].”

1869 tsch

tsch

3628 liberall] Tschischwitz (ed. 1869): “liberal, dem lat. liberalis entsprechend, also: cavaliermässig. Wir würden sagen: von standesgemässer Conception.” [liberal, corresponding to the Latin liberalis, also, moderately cavalier. We would say from a conception appropriate to one’s rank.]

1872 del4

del4

3629 all you call it] Delius (ed. 1872) : “impon’d as you call it]] So die Fol.; die Qs. lesen why is this all you call it, mit Auslassung von impawned (vgl. oben Anm. 51).” [imponed as you call it]]So the folio. The Qs. read whis is this all you call it, with the omission of impawned (compare note 51[see n. 3617] above).]

1872 cln1

cln1

3629 all] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “imponed as]] The quartos have ‘all.’”

1873 rug2

rug2

3628-29 French . . . Danish] Moberly (ed. 1873): “the bet as to French fencing against Danish.”

1885 macd

macd

3629 why . . . it] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “I do not take the Quarto reading for incorrect. Hamlet says: ‘why is this all—you call it—?—?’ as if he wanted to use the word (imponed) which Osricke had used, but did not remember it: he asks for it, saying ‘you call it’ interrogatively.”

1934 Wilson

Wilson

3629 all] Wilson (1934, 2:261): is this impon’d GLO, CAM1, ard1

3629 all] Wilson (1934, 2:248) characterizes the uncorrected Q2 omission of this F1 variant as “certainly omitted.” </p. 248> See also n. 3617-18

1982 ard2

ard2 : Dollerup

3628 French . . . Danish] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “What the Frenchified Laertes has brought back with him is set against the home product. Danish horses were esteemed and exported ((Dollerup, pp. 118-19)).”

ard2 : contra cam3 ; kit2

3629 impon’d] Jenkins (ed. 1982, Longer Notes, 560-1): <p. 560>“If Q2 were our only text, its ‘why is this all you call it?’ could be interpreted as it stands, with Hamlet ridiculing Osric’s verbosity by affecting to be unable to repeat it: Why is this—all you said it was? But F, ‘why is this impon’d as you call it’, together with the Q2 compositor’s obvious difficulty with his copy in this passage, suggests that there is an omission in Q2 and that all ((for as?)) is a compositor’s adjustment—not so much to fill the gap as to preserve some sense across it ((cf. [5.1.230, 5.2.184)). What should fill the gap, as shown by F, is the verb from [3617], and it is odd perhaps that the compositor should </p. 560> <p. 561>have been floored by a word he had set up once already. If I am right in regarding all as a makeshift reading, then obviously it cannot ((as Dover Wilson and Kittredge would have it)) belong with an emended text. As between impawned and imponed the first is the more authoritative as well as the more Shakespearean and exact. Its occurrence in Q2 ((‘impaund’)) would be difficult to account for except on the assumption that it stood in the foul papers as Shakespeare’s own word, of which imponed in F ((‘impon’d’)) is probably a corruption. Yet it is a little surprising to find Osric mocked for the use of a word which Shakespeare had elsewhre used quite seriously himself (([1H4 4.3.108; H5 1.2.21)). It is sometimes supposed that what is being mocked is not so much the word itself as Osric’s pronunciation of it, represented by one or other of the variants. Yet everything else shows Osric’s linguistic affectations to be a matter not of pronunciation but of highfalutin terms. I can only suggest that impawned, a word not yet in familar use and elsewhere used of hostages and the stakes of war, is, in the context of a sporting wager, regarded as extravagant. The inflated diction, as with carriages for hangers, helps to give a comically fantastic air to ominious event.” </p. 561>