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Line 3877 - Commentary Note (CN) More Information

Notes for lines 2951-end ed. Hardin A. Aasand
For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.
3877 Of accidentall iudgements, casuall slaughters{,}5.2.382
1795[?] Goethe
Goethe
3877 Goethe (1795?; rpt. 1989, p. 151): <p. 151> “It pleases and flatters us to see a hero who acts of his own accord, loves and hates according to the dictates of his heart, completing what he sets out to do by removing all obstacles that impede his progress toward some lofty goal. Historians and poets like to persuade us that such pride of purpose may be the lot of mankind. But in this case we are differently informed: the hero has no plan, but the play has. A villain is not punished according to some rigid concept of revenge narrowly applied: a monstruous deed is performed, extends its evil consequences, and drags innocent people into its orbit. The evildoer seems to be avoiding the fate that is in store for him, but then plunges into it where he thought he had found a safe way out. For cruel deeds bring evil to the innocent just as good deeds bring advantages to those who do not deserve them, often without the originator being punished or rewarded. How marvelously this is presented in the play before us! Purgatory sends a spirit to demand revenge, but in vain. Circumstances combine to hasten this, but in vain! Neither humans nor subterranean powers can achieve what is reserved for Fate alone. The time of reckoning arrives; and the good perish with the bad. a whole family is mowed down, and a new one emerges.” </p. 151>
1844 verp
verp : Goethe
3877 Verplanck (ed. 1844): “Several critics (Goethe among them [see Wilhelm Meister’s Apprentice, ed. 1989; p. 151]) have remarked, that the catastrophe of this drama resembles those familar to the Greek tragedy, where royal families, stained like that of Denmark, with ‘carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,’ are swept away by the torrent of irresistible destiny, confounding the innocent with the guilty in one common fate, while the sceptre passes to some unlineal hand. As Shakespeare has here entirely departed from the old legend, which made Hamlet, after punishing his father’s murder, succeed to the throne; and as it is not his custom to vary from the popular history or fable on which his drama happens to be founded [this is a bizarre conclusion], without some cogent reason; it is clear, that this catastrophe seemed to him essential to the great end and effect of his poem. But its resemblance with the Grecian stage is one of coincidence, not of imitation. His theology or his philosophy holds, instead of ancient Destiny, an over-ruling Providence, directing man’s weak designs to its own wise purposes:—’—a divinity, that shapes our ends, Rough-hew him how we will.’ It is this, and not fixed fate, that at last nerves Hamlet’s wavering will to be the instrument of signal judicial punishment. But the avenger is made to fall in the common ruin. To this the poet was led, neither by learned imitation nor by philosophical theory, but from his own sympathy with the character he had created. He could not but feel, as to this loved child of his fancy, what he has expressed as to Lear; and therefore would not ‘—upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.’ What could prolonged life,—what could power or royal pomp, do for Hamlet? Surely nothing, according to Shakspeare’s habitual estimate of the worthlessness of life’s empty shows. They could not restore to him the ‘freshness of the heart;’ they could only leave him to toil on, and groan under the load of a weary existence.
“To the general mind this might not so appear; and for that very reason it was the more necessary that the grand, melancholy effect of the Prince’s character and story shold not be weakened by any vulgar triumph at the close, confounding him with the common herd of romantic and dramatic heroes.”
[cites 3895-98]
Verplanck’s allusion to Goethe may be to this moment in Book 4, Chapter 15 of Wilhelm Meister’s Apprentice: “It pleases and flatters us to see a hero who acts of his own accord, loves and hates according to the dictates of his heart, completing what he sets out to do by removing all obstacles that impede his progress toward some lofty goal. Historians and poets like to persuade us that such pride of purpose may be the lot of mankind. But in this case we are differently informed: the hero has no pan, but the play has. A villain is not punished according to some rigid concept of revenge narrowly applied: a monstruous deed is performed, extends its evil consequences, and drags innocent people into its orbit. The evildoer seems to be avoiding the fate that is in store for him, but then plunges into it where he thought he had found a safe way out. For cruel deeds bring evil to the innocent just as good deeds bring advantages to those who do not deserve them, often without the originator being punished or rewarded. How marvelously this is presented in the play before us! Purgatory sends a spirit to demand revenge, but in vain. Circumstances combine to hasten this, but in vain! Neither humans nor subterranean powers can achieve what is reserved for Fate alone. The time of reckoning arrives; and the good perish with the bad. a whole family is mowed down, and a new one emerges.”
1869 tsch
tsch: see n. 3876
1877 neil
neil
3877 casuall] Neil (ed. 1877, Notes): “accidental, unintended, happening by chance. ‘If such a thing as this is, shall perchance befalle to him at any time, as humane things are casuall’—R. Bernard’s Terence, in English, 1598, p. 226, 1667.”
1885 macd
macd
3877 accidentall iudgements] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “‘just judgments brought about by accident’—as in the case of all slain except the king, whose judgment was not accidental, and Hamlet, whose death was not a judgment.”
3877 casuall slaughters] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “—those of the queen, Polonius, and Ophelia.”
1885 mull
mullmacd w/o attribution
3877 casuall slaughters]
1939 kit2
kit2
3877 accidentall iudgements] Kittredge (ed. 1936): “judgments of God brought about by means apparently accidental. This refers particularly to the death of the Queen and of Laertes. Cf. [3784]. Casual slaughters merely repeats the idea.”
1947 cln2
cln2
3877 accidentall iudgements] Rylands(ed. 1947): “mistakes of judgement (i.e. Ophelia’s madness).”
cln2
3877 casuall] Rylands(ed. 1947): “chance (Polonius’s death).”
1957 pel1
pel1 :
3877 casuall] Farnham (ed. 1957): "not humanly planned ((reinforcing accidental))."
1970 pel2
pel2=pel1
3877 casuall]
1974 evns1
evns1 ≈ standard
3877 iudgements]
evns1 ≈ standard
3877 casuall]
1980 pen2
pen2macd w/o attribution
3877 Spencer (ed. 1980): “((the unpremeditated killing of Polonius behind the arras; Ophelia’s drowning; the Queen’s unintended death by poison; the killing of Laertes by his own Unbated and envnomed sword).”
1982 ard2
ard2Kit2 (w/o attribution)
3877 accidentall iudgements] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “divine judgments manifested in seeming accidents.”
ard2Kit2 (w/o attribution)
3877 casuall]
1984 chal
chal : standard
3877 casuall]
chal : standard
3877 accidentall iudgements]
1985 cam4
cam4 ≈
3877 accidentall iudgements] Edwards (ed. 1985): “punishments brought about fortuitously. Horatio no doubt has Laertes in mind.”
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
3877 iudgements]
bev2: standard
3877 casuall]
1992 fol2
fol2≈ standard
3877 casuall]
1993 dent
dent ≈ standard
3878 accidentall iudgements]
dent ≈ standard
3877 casuall slaughters]
3877