HW Home	Previous CN	View CN	View TNM	View TNI	Next CN

Line 3830 - 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.”

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.

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

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

3830 O {god} <good> Horatio, what a wounded name {O1v}	5.2.344

1774 capn

capn

3830 O god] Capell (1774:1:1:149) : “It is not to be express’d, how much this passage suffers by following, as the moderns have done, the folio reading—’Oh good Horatio:’ The fright the dying Prince is put into, is but half express’d without this exclamation; and the addressing his friend by an epithet, and so unmeaning an epithet, brings the pathos to nothing: whereas the only change of the voice,—from sharp, as the exclamation would be, to extream soft at once in the appellation ‘Horatio ,’— is affecting beyond description: The sentences that preceed this ‘O God!’ are disjoin’d sentences, and the first an imperfect one; but is made an adjuration by copies, and join’d to the second.

1832 cald2

cald2

3830 O god] Caldecott (ed. 1832) : “see Stat. Jac.1.”

1872 Hudson

Hudson

3830-5 O . . . story] Hudson (1872, 2:281-2): <p. 281> “And so Hamlet has a just, a benevolent, and an honourable concern as to what the world may think of him: he craves, as every good man must crave, to have his name sweet in the mouths, his memory fragrant and preciosu in the hearts, of his countrymen. How he feels on this point, is touchingly shown in his dying moments, when he wrenches the cup of poison from Horatio’s hand, and appeals at once to his strong love and his great sorrow: </p. 281> <p. 282> [cites 3830-5] <p. / 282>

1882 elze2

elze2

3830 O god Horatio] Elze (ed. 1882): “Compare the phrases: ‘O God, sir’ and ‘O Lord, sir’ (Ado 2.1.283 (674)]; B. Jonson, Every Man out of his humour, V,8; [LLL 1.2.6 (316)]; [AWW 2.2.43 (865)]; B. Jonson, Cynthia’s Revels, Induction (Works, 1853; in I vol., p. 70b).”

1885 macd

macd

3830 wounded name] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—for having killed his uncle:—what, then, if he had slain him at once?”

1889 Tomlinson

Tomlinson :

3830-35 Tomlinson (1889, pp. 12-13): <p. 12> “Lastly, when Horatio, the dear fellow-student of Hamlet at Wittenberg, calm and contemplative, like him, but more self-possessed, is charged by his dying friend to let the world know the true history of the sad catastrophe, Fortinbras comes in as the restorer of a better state of things, which is to succeed the suffering, rain, death, and public revolt, consequent on crime on the one hand, indecision and culpable delay and mistake on the </p. 12> <p. 13> other. And although in the incidents of this great drama we see the innocent suffer with the guilty—whether guilty of crime or of indecision—we cannot resist the conclusion that a moral Power still governs the world; or, as Hamlet puts it:—’There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, Roughhew them how we will.” </p. 13>

1890 irv2

irv2

3830 O god Horatio] Symons (in Irving & Marshall, ed. 1890): “O good Horatio]] This is the reading of Ff; the Qq. print O god Horatio, which is quite as good a reading.”

1934 Wilson

Wilson

3830-31 Wilson (1934, 2:266-67): <p. 266>“The variants in the second line [3831] have already been discussed in vol. I, pp. 141-2 [see n. 3831], and the decision given in favour of the reading of F1 on the ground of its manifest superiority in metre and diction, despite the verbal coincidence of ‘leaue’ in the two quartos. In the first line, however, I have convinced myself, after some hesitation, that we ought to follow the Q2 ‘god’. As a matter of fact, ‘god’ is a fairly well-established Shakespearian spelling of ‘good’, which is found again at 4.5. 72-4 as well as in other texts, so that F1 presents no real difficulty. Yet, taking the whole context into account, the more agitated Q2 variant is surely preferable, although it is unnecessary to make it a detached exclamation as Capell, Malone and Furness do, and read ‘O God!—Horatio’, as if it were a dying groan; it is simply an exclamation of strong feeling, and one that may well have been modified in F1 to comply with the Act of </p. 266> <p. 267>1606. 1 Moreover, there is the evidence of Q1 to throw into the balance. While its reading of ‘leaue’ with Q2 may be, and I think must be, a coincidence, its “O fie’ is strong evidence that the reporter remembered an expletive of some kind in Burbadge’s mouth. There are, however, few passages in the text which have given me more perplexity than this.” </p. 267>

3830 god] Wilson (1934, 2:266): O god CAP, MAL, v1821; good “most”

1934 cam3

cam3 ≈ v1877 w/o attribution ; Wilson

3830 god] Wilson (ed. 1934): Q1 ‘O fie Horatio,’ F1 ‘Oh good Horatio’—which all edd. but Cap[ell, Malone and Furness read. The Q1 reading lends support to Q2. MSH. p. 266.”

1947 cln2

cln2

3830 wounded name] Rylands (ed. 1947): “tarnished reputation.”

1956 Sisson

Sisson

3830 god] Sisson (1956, 2:229): <p. 229> “Folio, followed by many editors, Oh good Horatio. But the Folio reading is only one of many instances of the purging of profanity under the orders of the Master of the Revels. Malone rightly followed Q2, as New Cambridge and Alexander agree.” </p. 229>

1980 pen2

pen2 ≈ standard

3830 wounded name]