Edition: HamletHamlet, Quarto 1
The Tragical History of HAMLET Prince of Denmark.
Enter two Sentinels First Sentinel and Barnardo. Enter Horatio and Marcellus. Exit.1.Sp15Marcellus
Horatio says ’tis but our fantasy,
And will not let belief take hold of him,
Touching this dreaded sight twice seen by us.
Therefore I have entreated him along with us
To watch the minutes of this night,
That if again this apparition come,
He may approve our eyes, and speak to it.
1.Sp17Barnardo
Sit down, I pray, and let us once again
Assail your ears, that are so fortified,
What we have two nights seen.
1.Sp19Barnardo
Enter Ghost.
Last night of all, when yonder star that’s
westward from the pole had made his course to
1.Sp28Horatio
Exit Ghost.
What art thou that thus usurps the state in
Which the majesty of buried Denmark did sometimes
Walk? By heaven, I charge thee speak.
1.Sp33Barnardo
How now, Horatio, you tremble and look pale.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What think you on’t?
1.Sp34Horatio
Afore my God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of my
own eyes.
1.Sp36Horatio
As thou art to thyself.
Such was the very armor he had on
When he the ambitious Norway combated.
So frowned he once, when in an angry parle
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
’Tis strange.
1.Sp37Marcellus
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour,
With martial stalk he passèd through our watch.
1.Sp38Horatio
In what particular to work, I know not,
But in the thought and scope of my opinion
This bodes some strange eruption to the state.
1.Sp39Marcellus
Good, now sit down, and tell me, he that knows,
Why this same strict and most observant watch
So nightly toils the subject of the land,
And why such daily cost of brazen cannon
And foreign mart for implements of war,
Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task
Does not divide the Sunday from the week:
What might be toward, that this sweaty march
Doth make the night joint laborer with the day?
Who is’t that can inform me?
1.Sp40Horatio
Exit Ghost.
Marry, that can I, at least the whisper goes so:
Our late King, who as you know was by
Fortenbrasse of Norway,
Thereto pricked on by a most emulous cause, dared to
The combat, in which our valiant Hamlet,
For so this side of our known world esteemed him,
Did slay this Fortenbrasse,
Who by a sealed compact, well ratified by law
And heraldry, did forfeit with his life all those
His lands which he stood seized of by the conqueror,
Against the which a moiety competent
Was gagèd by our King.
Now, sir, young Fortenbrasse,
Of inapprovèd mettle hot and full,
Hath in the skirts of Norway here and there
Sharked up a sight of lawless resolutes
For food and diet to some enterprise,
That hath a stomach in’t. And this (I take it) is the
Chief head and ground of this our watch.
But lo, behold, see where it comes again!
I’ll cross it, though it blast me.—Stay, illusion!
If there be any good thing to be done,
That may do ease to thee and grace to me,
Speak to me!
If thou are privy to thy country’s fate,
Which happ’ly foreknowing may prevent, oh, speak to me!
Or if thou hast extorted in thy life,
Or hoarded treasure in the womb of earth,
For which they say you spirits oft walk in death,
Speak
To me! Stay and speak, speak!—Stop it, Marcellus.
1.Sp43Marcellus
’Tis gone. Oh, we do it wrong, being so majestical,
To offer it the show of violence,
For it is as the air invulnerable,
And our vain blows malicious mockery.
1.Sp45Horatio
And then it faded like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons. I have heard
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morning,
Doth with his early and shrill-crowing throat
Awake the god of day, and at his sound,
Whether in earth or air, in sea or fire,
The stravagant and erring spirit hies
To his confines; and of the truth hereof
This present object made probation.
1.Sp46Marcellus
It faded on the crowing of the cock.
Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long,
And then, they say, no spirit dare walk abroad,
The nights are wholesome, then no planet strikes,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So gracious and so hallowed is that time.
1.Sp47Horatio
So have I heard, and do in part believe it.
But see, the sun, in russet mantle clad,
Walks o’er the dew of yon high mountain top.
Break we our watch up, and, by my advice,
Let us impart what we have seen tonight
Unto young Hamlet; for upon my life
This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.
Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,
As needful in our love, fitting our duty?
1.Sp48Marcellus
Exeunt.
Let’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know
Where we shall find him most conveniently.
Enter King, Queen, Hamlet, Laertes, Corambis,
and the two Ambassadors, with Attendants.
2.Sp1King
Lords, we here have writ to Fortenbrasse,
Nephew to old Norway, who, impudent
And bed-rid, scarcely hears of this his
Nephew’s purpose; and we here dispatch
Young good Cornelia, and you, Voltemar,
For bearers of these greetings to old
Norway, giving to you no further personal power
To business with the King
Than those related articles do show.
Farewell, and let your haste commend your duty.
2.Sp3King
We doubt nothing. Heartily farewell.
And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?
You said you had a suit. What is’t, Laertes?
2.Sp4Laertes
My gracious lord, your favorable license,
Now that the funeral rites are all performed,
I may have leave to go again to France;
For though the favor of your grace might stay me,
Yet something is there whispers in my heart
Which makes my mind and spirits bend all for France.
2.Sp6Corambis
Exit.
He hath, my lord, wrung from me a forced grant,
And I beseech you grant your highness’leave.
2.Sp9King
And now, princely son Hamlet,
What means these sad and melancholy moods?
For your intent going to Wittenberg,
We hold it most unmeet and unconvenient,
Being the joy and half heart of your mother.
Therefore let me entreat you stay in court,
All Denmark’s hope, our cousin and dearest son.
2.Sp10Hamlet
My lord, ’tis not the sable suit I wear,
No, nor the tears that still stand in my eyes,
Nor the distracted havior in the visage,
Nor all together mixed with outward semblance,
Is equal to the sorrow of my heart.
Him have I lost I must of force forgo;
These but the ornaments and suits of woe.
2.Sp11King
This shows a loving care in you, son Hamlet,
But you must think your father lost a father,
That father dead, lost his, and so shall be until the
General ending. Therefore cease laments.
It is a fault ’gainst heaven, fault ’gainst the dead,
A fault ’gainst nature, and in reason’s
Common course most certain,
None lives on earth but he is born to die.
2.Sp14King
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
Spoke like a kind and a most loving son;
And there’s no health the King shall drink today
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell
The rouse the King shall drink unto Prince Hamlet.
2.Sp15Hamlet
Enter Horatio and Marcellus and Barnardo.
Oh, that this too much grieved and sallied flesh
Would melt to nothing, or that the universal
Globe of heaven would turn all to a chaos!
O God, within two months; no not two: married
Mine uncle! Oh, let me not think of it,
My father’s brother, but no more like
My father than I to Hercules.
Within two months, ere yet the salt of most
Unrighteous tears had left their flushing
In her gallèd eyes, she married. O God, a beast
Devoid of reason would not have made
Such speed! Frailty, thy name is Woman.
Why, she would hang on him as if increase
Of appetite had grown by what it looked on.
Oh, wicked, wicked speed, to make such
Dexterity to incestuous sheets,
Ere yet the shoes were old,
The which she followed my dead father’s corse
Like Niobe, all tears: married. Well, it is not,
Nor it cannot come to good;
But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
2.Sp19Hamlet
O my good friend, I change that name with you.
But what make you from Wittenberg, Horatio?
Marcellus.
2.Sp21Hamlet
I am very glad to see you. Good even, sirs.
But what is your affair in Elsinor?
We’ll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.
2.Sp23Hamlet
Nor shall you make me truster
Of your own report against yourself.
Sir, I know you are no truant.
But what is your affair in Elsinor?
2.Sp25Hamlet
Oh, I prithee do not mock me, fellow student,
I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.
2.Sp27Hamlet
Thrift, thrift, Horatio, the funeral baked meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven
Ere ever I had seen that day, Horatio.
O my father, my father! Methinks I see my father.
2.Sp36Horatio
Ceasen your admiration for a while
With an attentive ear, till I may deliver,
Upon the witness of these gentlemen,
This wonder to you.
2.Sp38Horatio
Two nights together had these gentlemen,
Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,
In the dead vast and middle of the night.
Been thus encountered by a figure like your father,
Armed to point, exactly cap-à-pie,
Appears before them thrice, he walks
Before their weak and fear-oppressèd eyes
Within his truncheon’s length,
While they, distilled almost to jelly
With the act of fear, stands dumb
And speak not to him. This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did.
And I with them the third night kept the watch,
Where as they had delivered form of the thing.
Each part made true and good,
The apparition comes. I knew your father,
These hands are not more like.
2.Sp40Horatio
As I do live, my honored lord, ’tis true,
And we did think it right done
In our duty to let you know it.
2.Sp44Horatio
My lord, we did, but answer made it none.
Yet once methought it was about to speak,
And lifted up his head to motion,
Like as he would speak, but even then
The morning cock crew loud, and in all haste
It shrunk in haste away, and vanished
Our sight.
2.Sp68Hamlet
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
If it assume my noble father’s person,
I’ll speak to it, if hell itself should gape
And bid me hold my peace. Gentlemen,
If you have hither concealed this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still,
And whatsoever else shall chance tonight,
Give it an understanding but no tongue.
I will requite your loves. So fare you well.
Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve
I’ll visit you.
2.Sp70Hamlet
Exit.
Oh, your loves, your loves, as mine to you.
Farewell.—My father’s spirit in arms!
Well, all’s not well. I doubt some foul play.
Would the night were come!
Till then, sit still, my soul. Foul deeds will rise,
Though all the world o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.
Enter Laertes and Ofelia.
3.Sp1Laertes
My necessaries are inbarked. I must aboard,
But, ere I part, mark what I say to thee:
I see Prince Hamlet makes a show of love.
Beware, Ofelia, do not trust his vows.
Perhaps he loves you now, and now his tongue
Speaks from his heart, but yet take heed, my sister.
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmask her beauty to the moon.
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious thoughts.
Believe’t, Ofelia. Therefore keep aloof
Lest that he trip thy honor and thy fame.
3.Sp2Ofelia
Brother, to this I have lent attentive ear,
And doubt not but to keep my honor firm.
But, my dear brother, do not you,
Like to a cunning sophister,
Teach me the path and ready way to heaven
While you, forgetting what is said to me,
Yourself like to a careless libertine
Doth give his heart his appetite at full,
And little recks how that his honor dies.
3.Sp3Laertes
Enter Corambis.
No, fear it not, my dear Ofelia.
Here comes my father. Occasion smiles upon a second leave.
3.Sp4Corambis
Exit.
Yet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stayed for. There, my blessing with thee,
And these few precepts in thy memory.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;
Those friends thou hast, and their adoptions tried,
Grapple them to thee with a hoop of steel,
But do not dull the palm with entertain
Of every new unfledged courage.
Beware of entrance into a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear it that the opposèd may beware of thee.
Costly thy apparel as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fashion,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they of France of the chief rank and station
Are of a most select and general chief in that.
This above all, to thy own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any one.
Farewell. My blessing with thee!
3.Sp9Corambis
Marry, well thought on. ’Tis given me to understand
That you have been too prodigal of your maiden presence
Unto Prince Hamlet. If it be so—
As so ’tis given to me, and that in way of caution—
I must tell you, you do not understand yourself
So well as befits my honor and your credit.
3.Sp13Corambis
Springes to catch woodcocks.
What, do not I know when the blood doth burn
How prodigal the tongue lends the heart vows?
In brief, be more scanter of your maiden presence,
Or, tend’ring thus, you’ll tender me a fool.
3.Sp15Corambis
Exeunt.
Ofelia, receive none of his letters,
For lovers’ lines are snares to entrap the heart.
"Refuse his tokens. Both of them are keys
To unlock chastity unto desire.
Come in, Ofelia. Such men often prove
"Great in their words, but little in their love.
Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.
Sound Trumpets.
4.Sp5Hamlet
Oh, the King doth wake tonight, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels,
And as he dreams, his draughts of Rhenish down,
The kettledrum and trumpet thus bray out
The triumphs of his pledge.
4.Sp7Hamlet
Enter the Ghost.
Ay, marry, is’t, and, though I am
Native here and to the manner borne,
It is a custom more honored in the breach
Than in the observance.
4.Sp9Hamlet
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damned,
Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,
Be thy intents wicked or charitable,
Thou comest in such questionable shape
That I will speak to thee.
I’ll call thee Hamlet, king, father, royal Dane.
Oh, answer me! Let me not burst in ignorance,
But say why thy canonized bones, hearsèd in death,
Have burst their ceremonies, why thy sepulcher,
In which we saw thee quietly interred,
Hath burst his ponderous and marble jaws
To cast thee up again. What may this mean
That thou, dead corse, again in compleat steel,
Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous, and we fools of nature,
So horridly to shake our disposition
With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?
Say, speak, wherefore? What may this mean?
4.Sp11Marcellus
Look with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removèd ground.
But do not go with it.
4.Sp14Horatio
What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
That beckles o’er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible shape
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And drive you into madness? Think of it.
4.Sp17Hamlet
Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee,
And, for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal like itself?—
Go on, I’ll follow thee.
4.Sp19Hamlet
Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet.
Exit with Horatio.
My fate cries out, and makes each petty artery
As hardy as the Nemean lion’s nerve.
Still am I called. Unhand me, gentlemen!
By heaven, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets me.
Away, I say!—Go on, I’ll follow thee.
Enter Ghost and Hamlet.
5.Sp4Ghost
I am thy father’s spirit, doomed for a time
To walk the night, and all the day
Confined in flaming fire,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are purged and burnt away.
5.Sp6Ghost
Nay, pity me not, but to my unfolding
Lend thy lis’tning ear. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I would a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
But this same blazon must not be, to ears of flesh and blood.
Hamlet, if ever thou didst thy dear father love—
5.Sp10Ghost
Yea, murder in the highest degree,
As in the least ’tis bad,
But mine most foul, beastly, and unnatural.
5.Sp11Hamlet
Haste me to know it, that with wings as swift as
Meditation, or the thought of it, may sweep to my revenge.
5.Sp12Ghost
Oh, I find thee apt, and duller shouldst thou be
Than the fat weed which roots itself in ease
On Lethe wharf. Brief let me be.
’Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,
A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark
Is with a forgèd process of my death rankly abused.
But know, thou noble youth: he that did sting
Thy father’s heart now wears his crown.
5.Sp14Ghost
Yea, he, that incestuous wretch, won to his will with gifts—
Oh, wicked will and gifts that have the power
So to seduce!—my most seeming virtuous Queen.
But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Would sate itself from a celestial bed
And prey on garbage. But soft, methinks
I scent the mornings air. Brief let me be.
Sleeping within my orchard, my custom always
In the afternoon, upon my secure hour
Thy uncle came, with juice of hebona
In a vial, and through the porches of my ears
Did pour the lep’rous distillment, whose effect
Hold such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it posteth through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And turns the thin and wholesome blood
Like eager droppings into milk,
And all my smooth body, barked and tettered over.
Thus was I sleeping by a brother’s hand
Of crown, of queen, of life, of dignity
At once deprived, no reckoning made of,
But sent unto my grave,
With all my accompts and sins upon my head.
Oh, horrible, most horrible!
5.Sp16Ghost
Exit
If thou hast nature in thee, bear it not.
But howsoever, let not thy heart
Conspire against thy mother aught;
Leave her to heaven,
And to the burden that her conscience bears.
I must be gone. The glow-worm shows the martin
To be near, and ’gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
Hamlet, adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember me.
5.Sp17Hamlet
Enter Horatio and Marcellus.
O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?
And shall I couple hell? Remember thee?
Yes, thou poor ghost. From the tables
Of my memory I’ll wipe away all saws of books,
All trivial fond conceits
That ever youth or else observance noted,
And thy remembrance all alone shall sit.
Yes, yes, by heaven, a damned pernicious villain,
Murderous, bawdy, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
So uncle, there you are, there you are.
Now to the words: it is "Adieu, adieu! Remember me."
So ’tis enough. I have sworn.
5.Sp34Hamlet
Right, you are in the right, and therefore
I hold it meet without more circumstance at all,
We shake hands and part; you as your business
And desires shall lead you—for look you,
Every man hath business and desires, such
As it is—and for my own poor part, I’ll go pray.
5.Sp38Hamlet
The Ghost under the stage.
Yes, by Saint Patrick, but there is, Horatio,
And much offense too. Touching this vision,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you.
For your desires to know what is between us,
O’ermaster it as you may.
And now, kind friends, as you are friends,
Scholars and gentlemen,
Grant me one poor request.
5.Sp51Hamlet
Hic et ubique? Nay then, we’ll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen, and lay your hands
Again upon this sword, never to speak
Of that which you have seen, swear by my sword.
5.Sp53Hamlet
Well said, old mole. Canst work in the earth?
So fast, a worthy pioneer. Once more remove.
5.Sp55Hamlet
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in the heaven and earth, Horatio,
Then are dreamt of in your philosophy.
But come here, as before, you never shall—
How strange or odd soe’er I bear myself,
As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on—
That you at such times seeing me never shall
With arms encumb’red thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing some undoubtful phrase,
As "Well, well, we know," or "We could an if we would,"
Or "There be, an if they might," or such ambiguous
Giving out, to note that you know aught of me:
This not to do, so grace and mercy
At your most need help you, swear.
5.Sp57Hamlet
Exeunt.
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. So, gentlemen,
In all my love I do commend me to you,
And what so poor a man as Hamlet may
To pleasure you, God willing shall not want.
Nay, come, let’s go together.
But still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint. Oh, cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
Enter Corambis and Montano.
6.Sp1Corambis
Montano, here, these letters to my son,
And this same money with my blessing to him,
And bid him ply his learning, good Montano.
6.Sp3Corambis
You shall do very well, Montano, to say thus:
"I knew the gentleman," or "know his father,"
To inquire the manner of his life,
As thus; being amongst his acquaintance,
You may say, you saw him at such a time, mark you me,
At game, or drinking, swearing, or drabbing,
You may go so far.
6.Sp5Corambis
I’faith, not a whit, no, not a whit.
Now happily he closeth with you in the consequence,
As you may bridle it, not disparage him a jot.
What was I about to say?
6.Sp7Corambis
Exit.
Enter Ofelia.
Ay, you say right, he closeth with him thus,
This will he say—let me see what he will say—
Marry, this: "I saw him yesterday," or "t’other day,"
Or "then," or "at such time," "a-dicing,"
Or "at tennis," ay, or "drinking drunk," or "ent’ring
Of a house of lightness," viz. brothel.
Thus, sir, do we that know the world, being men of reach,
By indirections find directions forth,
And so shall you my son. You ha’ me, ha’ you not?
6.Sp14Ofelia
O my dear father, such a change in nature,
So great an alteration in a prince,
So pitiful to him, fearful to me,
A maiden’s eye ne’er lookèd on!
6.Sp16Ofelia
Oh, young Prince Hamlet, the only flower of Denmark,
He is bereft of all the wealth he had!
The jewel that adorned his feature most
Is filched and stol’n away: his wit’s bereft him.
He found me walking in the gallery all alone.
There comes he to me, with a distracted look,
His garters lagging down, his shoes untied,
And fixed his eyes so steadfast on my face
As if they had vowed this is their latest object.
Small while he stood, but grips me by the wrist,
And there he holds my pulse till, with a sigh,
He doth unclasp his hold and parts away
Silent as is the mid time of the night.
And as he went, his eye was still on me,
For thus his head over his shoulder looked.
He seemed to find the way without his eyes,
For out of doors he went without their help,
And so did leave me.
6.Sp19Corambis
Exeunt
Why, that hath made him mad.
By heav’n, ’tis as proper for our age to cast
Beyond ourselves as ’tis for the younger sort
To leave their wantonness. Well, I am sorry
That I was so rash. But what remedy?
Let’s to the King. This madness may prove,
Though wild awhile, yet more true to thy love.
Enter King and Queen, Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
7.Sp1King
Right noble friends, that our dear cousin Hamlet
Hath lost the very heart of all his sense,
It is most right, and we most sorry for him.
Therefore we do desire, even as you tender
Our care to him and our great love to you,
That you will labor but to wring from him
The cause and ground of his distemperancy.
Do this, the King of Denmark shall be thankful.
7.Sp2Rossencraft
My lord, whatsoever lies within our power
Your majesty may more command in words
Than use persuasions to your liege men, bound
By love, by duty, and obedience.
7.Sp3Gilderstone
Enter Corambis and Ofelia.
What we may do for both your majesties
To know the grief troubles the prince your son,
We will endeavor all the best we may;
So in all duty do we take our leave.
7.Sp8Corambis
Enter the Ambassadors Voltemar and Cornelia, with a diplomatic dispatch.
Have I, my lord? I assure your grace,
I hold my duty as I hold my life,
Both to my God and to my sovereign King;
And I believe, or else this brain of mine
Hunts not the train of policy so well
As it had wont to do, but I have found
The very depth of Hamlet’s lunacy.
7.Sp11Voltemar
The King is handed a document.
Most fair returns of greetings and desires.
Upon our first he sent forth to suppress
His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared
To be a preparation ’gainst the Polack;
But, better looked into, he truly found
It was against your highness, whereat grieved
That so his sickness, age, and impotence
Was falsely borne in hand, sends out arrests
On Fortenbrasse, which he in brief obeys,
Receives rebuke from Norway, and, in fine,
Makes vow before his uncle never more
To give the assay of arms against your majesty;
Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,
Gives him three thousand crowns in annual fee
And his commission to employ those soldiers,
So levied as before, against the Polack,
With an entreaty herein further shown
That it would please you to give quiet pass
Through your dominions for that enterprise
On such regards of safety and allowances
As therein are set down.
7.Sp12King
Exeunt Ambassadors.
It likes us well, and at fit time and leisure
We’ll read and answer these his articles.
Meantime, we thank you for your well
Took labor. Go to your rest. At night we’ll feast together.
Right welcome home.
7.Sp13Corambis
This business is very well dispatched.
Now, my lord, touching the young Prince Hamlet,
Certain it is that he is mad. Mad let us grant him, then.
Now to know the cause of this effect,
Or else to say the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause—
7.Sp15Corambis
Madam I will. My lord, I have a daughter,
Have while she’s mine; for that we think
Is surest we often lose. Now to the prince.
My lord, but note this letter,
The which my daughter in obedience
Delivered to my hands.
7.Sp17Corambis
Mark, my lord.
"Doubt that in earth is fire,
Doubt that the stars do move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But do not doubt I love.
To the beautiful Ofelia.
Thine ever, the most unhappy Prince Hamlet."
My lord, what do you think of me?
Ay, or what might you think when I saw this?
7.Sp19Corambis
I would be glad to prove so.
Now when I saw this letter, thus I bespake my maiden:
"Lord Hamlet is a prince out of your star,
And one that is unequal for your love."
Therefore I did command her refuse his letters,
Deny his tokens, and to absent herself.
She as my child obediently obeyed me.
Now, since which time, seeing his love thus crossed,
Which I took to be idle and but sport,
He straightway grew into a melancholy,
From that unto a fast, then unto distraction,
Then into a sadness, from that unto a madness,
And so, by continuance and weakness of the brain,
Into this frenzy which now possesseth him.
And if this be not true, take this from this.
7.Sp21Corambis
How? So, my lord, I would very fain know
That thing that I have said ’tis so, positively,
And it hath fallen out otherwise.
Nay, if circumstances lead me on,
I’ll find it out if it were hid
As deep as the center of the earth.
7.Sp23Corambis
Enter Hamlet.
Exit.
The King and Corambis conceal themselves.
Marry, my good lord, thus:
The Prince’s walk is here in the gallery;
There let Ofelia walk until he comes.
Yourself and I will stand close in the study.
There shall you hear the effect of all his heart,
And if it prove any otherwise than love,
Then let my censure fail another time.
7.Sp28Hamlet
To be, or not to be, ay, there’s the point,
To die, to sleep, is that all? Ay, all.
No, to sleep, to dream, ay, marry, there it goes,
For in that dream of death, when we awake,
And borne before an everlasting judge,
From whence no passenger ever returned,
The undiscovered country, at whose sight
The happy smile, and the accursèd damned.
But for this, the joyful hope of this,
Who’d bear the scorns and flattery of the world,
Scorned by the right rich, the rich cursed of the poor,
The widow being oppressed, the orphan wronged,
The taste of hunger, or a tyrant’s reign,
And thousand more calamities besides,
To grunt and sweat under this weary life,
When that he may his full quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would this endure,
But for a hope of something after death?
Which puzzles the brain, and doth confound the sense,
Which makes us rather bear those evils we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Ay, that. Oh, this conscience makes cowards of us all.—
Lady, in thy orisons be all my sins remembered.
7.Sp29Ofelia
My lord, I have sought opportunity, which now
I have, to redeliver to your worthy hands a small
remembrance, such tokens which I have received of you.
7.Sp36Hamlet
Yea, marry, may it; for beauty may sooner transform
Honesty from what she was into a bawd
Than honesty can transform beauty.
This was sometimes a paradox,
But now the time gives it scope.
I never gave you nothing.
7.Sp37Ofelia
My lord, you know right will you did,
And with them such earnest vows of love
As would have moved the stoniest breast alive.
But now too true I find:
Rich gifts wax poor when givers grow unkind.
7.Sp40Hamlet
Oh, thou shouldst not ha’ believed me!
Go to a nunnery, go. Why shouldst thou
Be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,
But I could accuse myself of such crimes
S
It had been better my mother had ne’er borne me.
Oh, I am very proud, ambitious, disdainful,
With more sins at my beck than I have thoughts
To put them in. What should such fellows as I
Do, crawling between heaven and earth?
To a nunnery, go. We are arrant knaves all.
Believe none of us. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp44Hamlet
For God’s sake, let the doors be shut on him,
He may play the fool nowhere but in his
Own house. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp46Hamlet
If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee
This plague to thy dowry:
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow,
Thou shalt not scape calumny. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp48Hamlet
But if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool,
For wise men know well enough
What monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go.
7.Sp50Hamlet
Exit.
Nay, I have heard of your paintings, too.
God hath given you one face
And you make yourselves another.
You fig, and you amble, and you nickname God’s creatures,
Making your wantonness your ignorance.
A pox, ’tis scurvy. I’ll no more of it.
It hath made me mad. I’ll no more marriages.
All that are married, but one, shall live;
The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.
To a nunnery, go!
7.Sp51Ofelia
Exit.
Enter King and Corambis coming forward from concealment.
Great God of heaven, what a quick change is this?
The courtier, scholar, soldier, all in him,
All dashed and splintered thence. Oh, woe is me,
To ha’ seen what I have seen, see what I see!
7.Sp53Corambis
Exit King.
Enter Hamlet.
Well, something it is. My lord, content you awhile.
I will myself go feel him. Let me work.
I’ll try him every way. See where he comes.
Send you those gentlemen. Let me alone
To find the depth of this. Away, be gone!
7.Sp57Hamlet
Then, sir, I would you were so honest a man.
For to be honest, as this age goes,
Is one man to be picked out of ten thousand.
7.Sp63Hamlet
Marry, most vile heresy:
For here the satirical satyr writes
That old men have hollow eyes, weak backs,
Grey beards, pitiful weak hams, gouty legs,
All which, sir, I most potently believe not.
For, sir, yourself shall be old as I am,
If, like a crab, you could go backward.
7.Sp64Corambis
How pregnant his replies are, and full of wit!
Yet at first he took me for a fishmonger.
All this comes by love, the vehemency of love;
And when I was young, I was very idle,
And suffered much ecstasy in love, very near this.—
Will you walk out of the air, my lord?
7.Sp66Corambis
Enter Gilderstone and Rossencraft.
By the mass, that’s out of the air, indeed,
Very shrewd answers.—
My lord, I will take my leave of you.
7.Sp67Hamlet
Exit.
You can take nothing from me, sir,
I will more willingly part withal.—
Old doting fool!
7.Sp71Gilderstone
We thank your grace, and would be very glad
You were as when we were at Wittenberg.
7.Sp72Hamlet
I thank you, but is this vistitation free of
Yourselves, or were you not sent for?
Tell me true, come. I know the good King and Queen
Sent for you. There is a kind of confession in your eye.
Come, I know you were sent for.
7.Sp75Rossencraft
My lord, we were, and willingly, if we might,
Know the cause and ground of your discontent.
7.Sp78Hamlet
Yes, faith, this great world you see contents me not,
No, nor the spangled heavens, nor earth, nor sea;
No, nor man, that is so glorious a creature,
Contents not me—no, nor woman too, though you laugh.
7.Sp82Gilderstone
What entertainment the players shall have?
We boarded them o’the way. They are coming to you.
7.Sp88Gilderstone
I’faith, my lord, novelty carries it away.
For the principal public audience that
Came to them are turned to private plays,
And to the humor of children.
7.Sp89Hamlet
I do not greatly wonder of it,
For those that would make mops and mows
At my uncle when my father lived
Now give a hundred, two hundred pounds
For his picture. But they shall be welcome.
He that plays the King shall have tribute of me,
The vent’rous Knight shall use his foil and target,
The Lover shall sigh gratis,
The Clown shall make them laugh
That are tickled in the lungs, or the blank verse shall halt for’t,
And the Lady shall have leave to speak her mind freely.
Do you see yonder great baby?
He is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.
7.Sp91Hamlet
I’ll prophesy to you he comes to tell me o’the players.—
You say true, o’Monday last, ’twas so indeed.
7.Sp96Corambis
The best actors in Christendom,
Either for comedy, tragedy, history, pastoral,
Pastoral-historical, historical-comical,
Comical-historical-pastoral, tragedy-historical:
Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plato too light;
For the law hath writ those are the only men.
7.Sp100Corambis
Ah, still harping o’my daughter!'—Well, my lord,
If you call me Iephthah, I have a daughter that
I love passing well.
7.Sp103Hamlet
Why, by lot, or God wot, or as it came to pass,
And so it was, the first verse of the godly ballad
Will tell you all. For look you where my abridgement comes.
Welcome masters! Welcome all.—
What, my old friend, thy face is valanced
Since I saw thee last. Com’st thou to beard me in Denmark?—
My young lady and mistress! By’r Lady, but your
Ladyship is grown by the altitude of a chopine higher than you were.
Pray God, sir, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent
Gold, be not cracked in the ring.— Come on, masters,
We’ll even to’t, like French falconers,
Fly at any thing we see. Come, a taste of your
Quality, a speech, a passionate speech.
7.Sp105Hamlet
I heard thee speak a speech once,
But it was never acted, or, if it were,
Never above twice, for, as I remember,
It pleased not the vulgar; it was caviary
To the million. But to me
And others that received it in the like kind,
Cried in the top of their judgments, an excellent play,
Set down with as great modesty as cunning.
One said there was no sallets in the lines to make them savory,
But called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet.
Come, a speech in it I chiefly remember
was Aeneas’ tale to Dido,
And then especially where he talks of princes’ slaughter.
If it live in thy memory, begin at this line—
Let me see’—
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’Hycarnian beast’—
No, ’tis not so. It begins with Pyrrhus:
Oh, I have it.
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couchèd in the ominous horse,
Hath now his black and grim complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
Now is he total guise, horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons.
Baked and imparchèd in calagulate gore,
Rifted in earth and fire, old grandsire Pram seeks.
So, go on.
7.Sp107Player
Anon he finds him striking too short at Greeks.
His antic sword, rebellious to his arm,
Lies where it falls, unable to resist.
Pyrrus at Priam drives, but, all in rage,
Strikes wide; but with the whiff and wind
Of his fell sword, th’unnervèd father falls.
7.Sp109Hamlet
It shall to the barber’s with your beard.
A pox! He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry,
Or else he sleeps. Come on to Hecuba, come.
7.Sp112Player
All in the alarum and fear of death rose up,
And o’er her weak and all o’er-teeming loins a blanket
And a kercher on that head where late the diadem stood,
Who this had seen, with tongue-envenomed speech
Would treason have pronounced,
For if the gods themselves had seen her then,
When she saw Pyrrhus with malicious strokes
Mincing her husband’s limbs,
It would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.
7.Sp113Corambis
Look, my Lord, if he hath not changed his color,
and hath tears in his eyes.—No more, good heart, no more!
7.Sp114Hamlet
’Tis well, ’tis very well. I pray, my lord,
Will you see the players well bestowed?
I tell you, they are the chronicles
And brief abstracts of the time.
After your death, I can tell you,
You were better have a bad epitaph
Than their ill report while you live.
7.Sp116Hamlet
Exit.
Oh, far better, man. Use every man after his deserts,
Then who should scape whipping?
Use them after your own honor and dignity.
The less they deserve, the greater credit’s yours.
7.Sp118Hamlet
(
As the Players are about to follow Corambis
) Come hither, masters. Can you not play "The
Murder of Gonzago"?
7.Sp120Hamlet
And couldst not thou for a need study me
Some dozen or sixteen lines,
Which I would set down and insert?
7.Sp122Hamlet
Exeunt all but Hamlet.
’Tis well. I thank you. Follow that lord.
And, do you hear, sirs? Take heed you mock him not.
Gentlemen, for your kindness I thank you,
And for a time I would desire you leave me.
7.Sp124Hamlet
Exit.
Why, what a dunghill idiot slave am I!
Why, these players here draw water from eyes:
For Hecuba. Why, what is Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?
What would he do an if he had my loss?
His father murdered, and a crown bereft him?
He would turn all his tears to drops of blood,
Amaze the standers-by with his laments,
Strike more than wonder in the judicial ears,
Confound the ignorant, and make mute the wise.
Indeed, his passion would be general.
Yet I, like to an ass and John-a-Dreams,
Having my father murdered by a villain,
Stand still, and let it pass. Why, sure I am a coward.
Who plucks me by the beard, or twits my nose,
Gives me the lie i’th’ throat down to the lungs?
Sure I should take it, or else I have no gall,
Or by this I should ha’ fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal, this damned villain,
Treacherous, bawdy, murderous villain!
Why, this is brave, that I, the son of my dear father,
Should like a scallion, like a very drab,
Thus rail in words. About, my brain!
I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play
Hath, by the very cunning of the scene, confessed a murder
Committed long before.
This spirit that I have seen may be the devil,
And out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such men,
Doth seek to damn me. I will have sounder proofs.
The play’s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King.
Enter the King, Queen, and Lords Corambis, Rossencraft, and Gilderstone.
8.Sp1King
Lords, can you by no means find
The cause of our son Hamlet’s lunacy?
You being so near in love, even from his youth,
Methinks should gain more than a stranger should.
8.Sp2Gilderstone
My lord, we have done all the best we could
To wring from him the cause of all his grief,
But still he puts us off, and by no means
Would make an answer to that we exposed.
8.Sp3Rossencraft
Yet was he something more inclined to mirth
Before we left him, and, I take it,
He hath given order for a play tonight,
At which he craves your highness’ company.
8.Sp4King
With all our heart; it likes us very well.
Gentlemen, seek still to increase his mirth.
Spare for no cost, our coffers shall be open,
And we unto yourselves will still be thankful.
8.Sp6Queen
Exeunt Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
Thanks, gentlemen, and what the Queen of Denmark
May pleasure you, be sure you shall not want.
Gertred, you’ll see this play?
8.Sp10Corambis
Madam, I pray be ruled by me,
And, my good sovereign, give me leave to speak.
We cannot yet find out the very ground
Of his distemperance. Therefore
I hold it meet, if so it please you,
Else they shall not meet, and thus it is—
8.Sp12Corambis
Exeunt omnes.
Marry, my good lord, this: soon, when the sports are done,
Madam, send you in haste to speak with him,
And I myself will stand behind the arras.
There question you the cause of all his grief,
And then, in love and nature unto you, he’ll tell you all.
My lord, how think you on’t?
Enter Hamlet and the Players.
9.Sp1Hamlet
Pronounce me this speech trippingly o’the tongue
as I taught thee.
Marry, an you mouth it, as a many of your players do,
I’d rather hear a town bull bellow
Than such a fellow speak my lines.
Nor do not saw the air thus with your hands,
But give everything his action with temperance.
Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig fellow
To tear a passion in totters, into very rags,
To split the ears of the ignorant, who for the
Most part are capable of nothing but dumb shows and noises.
I would have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant.
It out-Herods Herod.
9.Sp3Hamlet
The better, the better. Mend it altogether.
There be fellows that I have seen play,
And heard others commend them, and that highly too,
That, having neither the gait of Christian, pagan,
Nor Turk, have so strutted and bellowed
That you would ha’ thought some of Nature’s journeymen
Had made men, and not made them well,
They imitated humanity so abhominable.
Take heed, avoid it.
9.Sp5Hamlet
Exeunt Players.
Enter Horatio.
And do you hear? Let not your Clown speak
More than is set down. There be of them, I can tell you,
That will laugh themselves, to set on some
Quantity of barren spectators to laugh with them,
Albeit there is some necessary point in the play
Then to be observed. Oh, ’tis vile, and shows
A pitiful ambition in the fool that useth it.
And then you have some again that keeps one suit
Of jests, as a man is known by one suit of
Apparel, and gentlemen quotes his jests down
In their tables before they come to the play, as thus:
"Cannot you stay till I eat my porridge?" and "You owe me
A quarter’s wages," and "My coat wants a cullison,"
And "Your beer is sour," and blabbering with his lips
And thus keeping in his cinquepace of jests
When, God knows, the warm Clown cannot make a jest
Unless by chance, as the blind man catcheth a hare.
Masters, tell him of it.
9.Sp12Hamlet
Nay, why should I flatter thee?
Why should the poor be flattered?
What gain should I receive by flattering thee,
That nothing hath but thy good mind?
Let flattery sit on those time-pleasing tongues
To gloze with them that loves to hear their praise,
And not with such as thou, Horatio.
There is a play tonight, wherein one scene they have
Comes very near the murder of my father.
When thou shalt see that act afoot,
Mark thou the King; do but observe his looks,
For I mine eyes will rivet to his face.
And if he do not bleach and change at that,
It is a damnèd ghost that we have seen.
Horatio, have a care; observe him well.
9.Sp13Horatio
Enter King, Queen, Corambis, Ofelia, and other Lords Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
My lord, mine eyes shall still be on his face,
And not the smallest alteration
That shall appear in him but I shall note it.
9.Sp16Hamlet
I’faith, the chameleon’s dish, not capon-crammed—
feed o’the air.
Ay, father! (
To Corambis
) My lord, you played in the university.
9.Sp22Hamlet
No, by my faith, mother, here’s a mettle more attractive.
Lady, will you give me leave, and so forth,
To lay my head in your lap?
(Enter, in a dumb-show, the King and the Queen. He sits
down in an arbor. She leaves him. Then enters
Lucianus with poison in a vial, and pours it in his ears, and
goes away. Then the Queen cometh and finds him
dead, and goes away with the other. )
Exeunt Players.
Enter the Prologue.
9.Sp30Hamlet
Ay, or any show you’ll show him.
Be not afeard to show, he’ll not be afeard to tell.
Oh, these players cannot keep counsel. They’ll tell all.
9.Sp31Prologue
Exit.
Enter the Duke and Duchess.
For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
9.Sp35Duke
Full forty years are past—their date is gone—
Since happy time joined both our hearts as one.
And now the blood that filled my youthful veins
Runs weakly in their pipes, and all the strains
Of music, which whilom pleased mine ear,
Is now a burden that age cannot bear.
And therefore sweet Nature must pay his due.
To heaven must I, and leave the earth with you.
9.Sp36Duchess
Oh, say not so, lest that you kill my heart!
When death takes you, let life from me depart!
9.Sp37Duke
Content thyself. When ended is my date,
Thou mayst perchance have a more noble mate,
More wise, more youthful, and one—
9.Sp38Duchess
Oh, speak no more, for then I am accurst!
None weds the second but she kills the first.
A second time I kill my lord that’s dead
When second husband kisses me in bed.
9.Sp40Duke
I do believe you, sweet, what now you speak,
But what we do determine oft we break,
For our demises still are overthrown;
Our thought are ours, their end’s none of our own.
So think you will no second husband wed,
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
9.Sp43Duke
Exit Lady.
’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile.
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The
Tedious time with sleep.
9.Sp51Hamlet
Mousetrap. Marry, how? Trapically. This play is
The image of a murder done in Guiana. Albertus
Was the duke’s name, his wife Baptista.
Father, it is a knavish piece o’work, but what
O’ that? It toucheth not us, you and I that have free
Souls. Let the galled jade wince. This is one
Lucianus, nephew to the King.
9.Sp55Hamlet
Who, I? Your only jig-maker. Why, what should
a man do but be merry? For look how cheerfully my
mother looks; my father died within these two hours.
9.Sp57Hamlet
Two months? Nay, then, let the devil wear black,
For I’ll have a suit of sables. Jesus, two months dead,
And not forgotten yet? Nay, then, there’s some
Likelihood a gentleman’s death may outlive memory.
But, by my faith, he must build churches, then,
Or else he must follow the old epitithe:
"With ho, with ho, the hobby-horse is forgot."
9.Sp61Hamlet
So you must take your husband, begin. Murdered!
Begin. A pox, leave thy damnable faces and begin.
Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.
9.Sp62Murderer
He pours the poison in the sleeper’s ears.
Exit.
Exeunt King and Lords.
Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing,
Confederate season, else no creature seeing,
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate’s bane thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property
One wholesome life usurps immediately.
9.Sp67Hamlet
Enter Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
Then let the stricken deer go weep,
The heart ungallèd play,
For some must laugh, while some must weep;
Thus runs the world away.
9.Sp72Rossencraft
We are very glad to see your grace so pleasant.
My good lord, let us again entreat
To know of you the ground and cause of your distemperature.
9.Sp80Hamlet
Why look, it is a thing of nothing.
’Tis but stopping of these holes,
And with a little breath from your lips
It will give most delicate music.
9.Sp84Hamlet
Why, how unworthy a thing would you make of me!
You would seem to know my stops, you would play upon me,
You would search the very inward part of my heart
And dive into the secret of my soul.
Zounds, do you think I am easier to be played
On than a pipe? Call me what instrument
You will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot
Play upon me. Besides, to be demanded by a sponge—
9.Sp86Hamlet
Exit Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
Enter Corambis
Exit Corambis.
Exit Horatio.
Ay, sir, a sponge, that soaks up the King’s
Countenance, favors, and rewards, that makes
His liberality your storehouse. But such as you
Do the King, in the end, best service;
For he doth keep you as an ape doth nuts,
In the corner of his jaw: first mouths you,
Then swallows you. So, when he hath need
Of you, ’tis but squeezing of you,
And, sponge, you shall be dry again, you shall.
9.Sp98Hamlet
Exit.
My mother! She hath sent to speak with me.
O God, let ne’er the heart of Nero enter
This soft bosom.
Let me be cruel, not unnatural.
I will speak daggers. Those sharp words being spent,
To do her wrong my soul shall ne’er consent.
Enter the King.
10.Sp1King
He kneels.
Enters Hamlet.
Oh, that this wet that falls upon my face
Would wash the crime clear from my conscience!
When I look up to heaven, I see my trespass;
The earth doth still cry out upon my fact.
Pay me the murder of a brother and a king,
And the adulterous fault I have committed:
Oh, these are sins that are unpardonable!
Why, say thy sins were blacker than is jet,
Yet may contrition make them as white as snow.
Ay, but still to persever in a sin,
It is an act ’gainst the universal power.
Most wretched man, stoop, bend thee to thy prayer,
Ask grace of heaven to keep thee from despair.
10.Sp2Hamlet
Exit Hamlet.
Exit King.
Ay so. Come forth and work thy last.
And thus he dies; and so am I revenged.
No, not so. He took my father sleeping, his sins brim full.
And how his soul stood to the state of heaven,
Who knows, save the immortal powers?
And shall I kill him now,
When he is purging of his soul,
Making his way for heaven? This is a benefit,
And not revenge. No, get thee up again.
When he’s at game, swearing, taking his carouse, drinking drunk,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed,
Or at some act that hath no relish
Of salvation in’t, then trip him,
That his heels may kick at heaven
And fall as low as hell. My mother stays.
This physic but prolongs thy weary days.
Enter Queen and Corambis.
Exit Corambis.
11.Sp12Hamlet
Ay, a rat! Dead, for a ducat!
Rash intruding fool, farewell.
I took thee for thy better.
11.Sp16Hamlet
Ay, a king. Nay, sit you down, and, ere you part,
If you be made of penetrable stuff,
I’ll make your eyes look down into your heart
And see how horrid there and black it shows.
11.Sp18Hamlet
Why, this I mean.
See here, behold this picture.
It is the portraiture of your deceasèd husband.
See here a face to outface Mars himself,
An eye at which his foes did tremble at,
A front wherein all virtues are set down
For to adorn a king and guild his crown,
Whose heart went hand in hand even with that vow
He made to you in marriage; and he is dead.
Murd’red, damnably murd’red. This was your husband.
Look you now, here is your husband,
With a face like Vulcan.
A look fit for a murder and a rape,
A dull, dead, hanging look, and a hell-bred eye,
To affright children and amaze the world.
And this same have you left to change with this.
What devil thus hath cozened you at hob-man blind?
Ah! Have you eyes, and can you look on him
That slew my father and your dear husband,
To live in the incestuous pleasure of his bed?
11.Sp22Hamlet
Nay, but still to persist and dwell in sin,
To sweat under the yoke of infamy,
To make increase of shame, to seal damnation—
11.Sp24Hamlet
Why, appetite with you is in the wane;
Your blood runs backward now from whence it came.
Who’ll chide hot blood within a virgin’s heart
When lust shall dwell within a matron’s breast?
11.Sp26Hamlet
Oh, throw away the worser part of it,
And keep the
Better.
Save me, save me, you gracious
Powers above, and hover over me
With your celestial wings!—
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That I thus long have let revenge slip by?
Oh, do not glare with looks so pitiful,
Lest that my heart of stone yield to compassion,
And every part that should assist revenge
Forgo their proper powers and fall to pity!
11.Sp27Ghost
Hamlet, I once again appear to thee
To put thee in remembrance of my death.
Do not neglect, nor long time put it off.
But I perceive by thy distracted looks
Thy mother’s fearful, and she stands amazed.
Speak to her, Hamlet, for her sex is weak.
Comfort thy mother, Hamlet, think on me.
11.Sp29Queen
Nay, how is’t with you
That thus you bend your eyes on vacancy,
And hold discourse with nothing but with air?
11.Sp34Hamlet
Exit Ghost.
No? Why, see the King my father, my father, in the habit
As he lived. Look you how pale he looks!
See how he steals away out of the portal!
Look, there he goes!
11.Sp35Queen
Alas, it is the weakness of thy brain,
Which makes thy tongue to blazon thy heart’s grief.
But, as I have a soul, I swear by heaven
I never knew of this most horrid murder.
But Hamlet, this is only fantasy,
And, for my love forget these idle fits.
11.Sp36Hamlet
Idle? No, mother, my pulse doth beat like yours.
It is not madness that possesseth Hamlet.
O mother, if ever you did my dear father love,
Forbear the adulterous bed tonight,
And win yourself by little as you may.
In time it may be you will loathe him quite.
And, mother, but assist me in revenge,
And in his death your infamy shall die.
11.Sp37Queen
Hamlet, I vow, by that Majesty
That knows our thoughts and looks into our hearts,
I will conceal, consent, and do my best,
What stratagem soe’er thou shalt devise.
11.Sp38Hamlet
Exit Hamlet with the dead body.
Enter the King and Lords Rossencraft and Gilderstone.
It is enough. Mother, good night.—
Come, sir, I’ll provide for you a grave,
Who was in life a foolish, prating knave.
11.Sp40Queen
Exeunt Lords.
Alas, my lord, as raging as the sea.
Whenas he came, I first bespake him fair,
But then he throws and tosses me about,
As one forgetting that I was his mother.
At last I called for help, and, as I cried, Corambis
Called. Which Hamlet no sooner heard but whips me
Out his rapier, and cries, "A rat, a rat!" and in his rage
The good old man he kills.
11.Sp43King
Enter Hamlet and the Lords Rossencraft, Gilderstone, and perhaps another.
Gertred, your son shall presently to England.
His shipping is already furnishèd,
And we have sent by Rossencraft and Gilderstone
Our letters to our dear brother of England
For Hamlet’s welfare and his happiness.
Haply the air and climate of the country
May please him better than his native home.
See where he comes.
11.Sp46Hamlet
At supper, not where he is eating, but
Where he is eaten; a certain company of politic worms
Are even now at him.
Father, your fat king and your lean beggar
Are but variable services: two dishes to one mess.
Look you, a man may fish with that worm
That hath eaten of a king,
And a beggar eat that fish
Which that worm hath caught.
11.Sp48Hamlet
Nothing, father, but to tell you, how a king
May go a progress through the guts of a beggar.
11.Sp50Hamlet
Exit a Lord.
In heav’n. If you chance to miss him there,
Father, you had best look in the other parts below
For him, and if you cannot find him there
You may chance to nose him as you go up the lobby.
11.Sp52Hamlet
Nay, do you hear? Do not make too much haste.
I’ll warrant you he’ll stay till you come.
11.Sp53King
Well, son Hamlet, we, in care of you, but specially
In tender preservation of your health,
The which we price even as our proper self,
It is our mind you forthwith go for England.
The wind sits fair. You shall aboard tonight.
Lord Rossencraft and Gilderstone shall go along with you.
11.Sp56Hamlet
Exeunt all but the King and Queen.
My mother, I say. You married my mother,
My mother is your wife; man and wife is one flesh;
And so, my mother, farewell. For England, ho!
11.Sp57King
Exit.
Gertred, leave me,
And take your leave of Hamlet.
To England is he gone, ne’er to return.
Our letters are unto the King of England,
That, on the sight of them, on his allegiance,
He presently, without demanding why,
That Hamlet lose his head, for he must die.
There’s more in him than shallow eyes can see.
He once being dead, why then our state is free.
Enter Fortenbrasse, Drum, and Soldiers.
12.Sp1Fortenbrasse
Exeunt all.
Captain, from us go greet
The King of Denmark.
Tell him that Fortenbrasse, nephew to old Norway,
Craves a free pass and conduct over his land,
According to the articles agreed on.
You know our rendezvous. Go, march away!
Enter King and Queen.
13.Sp1King
Hamlet is shipped for England. Fare him well.
I hope to hear good news from thence ere long,
If everything fall out to our content,
As I do make no doubt but so it shall.
13.Sp2Queen
God grant it may. Heav’ns keep my Hamlet safe!
But this mischance of old Corambis’ death
Hath piercèd so the young Ofelia’s heart
That she, poor maid, is quite bereft her wits.
13.Sp3King
Enter Ofelia playing on a lute, and her hair
down, singing.
Alas, dear heart! And on the other side
We understand her brother’s come from France,
And he hath half the heart of all our land;
And hardly he’ll forget his father’s death
Unless by some means he be pacified.
13.Sp5Ofelia
“How should I your true love know
From another man?
By his cockle hat and his staff,
And his sandal shoon.
White his shroud as mountain snow,
Larded with sweet flowers,
That bewept to the grave did not go
With true lovers’ showers.
He is dead and gone, lady,
he is dead and gone.
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.”
13.Sp7Ofelia
She sings.
Well, God yield you.
It grieves me to see how they laid him in the cold ground.
I could not choose but weep.
13.Sp8Ofelia
Exit Ofelia.
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he’s gone, and we cast away moan,
And he never will come again.
His beard as white as snow;
All flaxen was his poll.
He is dead, he is gone,
And we cast away moan.
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
13.Sp10King
A noise within.
Enter Laertes.
A pretty wretch! This is a change indeed.
O Time, how swiftly runs our joys away!
Content on earth was never certain bred.
Today we laugh and live, tomorrow dead.
How now, what noise is that?
13.Sp11Laertes
The Queen attempts to restrain him.
Stay there until I come.—
O thou vile king, give me my father!
Speak, say, where’s my father?
13.Sp16King
Let him go, Gertred. Away! I fear him not.
There’s such divinity doth wall a king
That treason dares not look on.
Let him go, Gertred.—That your father is murdered,
’Tis true, and we most sorry for it,
Being the chiefest pillar of our state.
Therefore will you, like a most desperate gamester,
Swoopstake-like, draw at friend and foe and all?
13.Sp17Laertes
To his good friends thus wide I’ll ope mine arms
And lock them in my heart, but to his foes
I will no reconcilement but by blood.
13.Sp18King
Enter Ofelia as before.
Why, now you speak like a most loving son.
And that in soul we sorrow for his death,
Yourself ere long shall be a witness.
Meanwhile, be patient and content yourself.
13.Sp19Laertes
Who’s this, Ofelia? O my dear sister!
Is’t possible a young maid’s life
Should be as mortal as an old man’s saw?
O heav’ns themselves!—How now, Ofelia?
13.Sp20Ofelia
Well, God-a-mercy. I ha’ been gathering of flowers.
Here, here is rue for you.
You may call it herb-a-grace o’Sundays.
Here’s some for me, too. You must wear your rue
With a difference. There’s a daisy.
Here, love, there’s rosemary for you
for remembrance. I pray, love, remember.
And there’s pansy for thoughts.
13.Sp22Ofelia
There is fennel for you. I would ha’ giv’n you
Some violets, but they all withered when
My father died. Alas, they say the owl was
A baker’s daughter. We see what we are,
But cannot tell what we shall be.
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
13.Sp24Ofelia
Exit Ofelia.
Nay, love, I pray you make no words of this now.
I pray now, you shall sing "a-down,"
And you "a- down-a." ’Tis o’the King’s daughter
And the false steward, and if anybody
Ask you of anything, say you this:
“
Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And a maid at your window
To be your Valentine.
The young man rose,
And donned his clothes,
And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.”
Nay, I pray, mark now:
“
By Gis and by Saint Charity
Away, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t when they come to’t;
By Cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.ʼ
‘So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
If thou hadst not come to my bed.ʼ”
So, God be with you all. God b’w'y’, ladies.
God b’w'y’ you, love.
13.Sp25Laertes
Grief upon grief! My father murdered,
My sister thus distracted:
Cursed be his soul that wrought this wicked act!
13.Sp26King
Content you, good Laertes, for a time,
Although I know your grief is as a flood,
Brimful of sorrow; but forbear awhile,
And think already the revenge is done
On him that makes you such a hapless son.
13.Sp27Laertes
Exeunt omnes.
You have prevailed, my lord. Awhile I’ll strive
To bury grief within a tomb of wrath,
Which once unhearsed, then the world shall hear
Laertes had a father he held dear.
Enter Horatio with a letter and the Queen.
14.Sp1Horatio
Madam, your son is safe arrived in Denmark.
This letter I even now received of him,
Whereas he writes how he escaped the danger
And subtle treason that the King had plotted.
Being crossed by the contention of the winds,
He found the packet sent to the King of England,
Wherein he saw himself betrayed to death,
As, at his next convers’ion with your grace,
He will relate the circumstance at full.
14.Sp2Queen
Then I perceive there’s treason in his looks
That seemed to sugar o’er his villainy.
But I will soothe and please him for a time,
For murderous minds are always jealous.
But know not you, Horatio, where he is?
14.Sp3Horatio
Yes, madam, and he hath appointed me
To meet him on the east side of the city
Tomorrow morning.
14.Sp4Queen
Oh, fail not, good Horatio, and withal commend me
A mother’s care to him. Bid him awhile
Be wary of his presence, lest that he
Fail in that he goes about.
14.Sp5Horatio
Madam, never make doubt of that.
I think by this the news be come to court:
He is arrived. Observe the King, and you shall
Quickly find, Hamlet being here,
Things fell not to his mind.
14.Sp7Horatio
He being set ashore, they went for England,
And in the packet there writ down that doom
To be performed on them ’pointed for him.
And by great chance he had his father’s seal,
So all was done without discovery.
14.Sp8Queen
Exeunt.
Thanks be to heaven for blessing of the Prince!
Horatio, once again I take my leave,
With thousand mother’s blessings to my son.
Enter King and Laertes.
15.Sp1King
Hamlet from England! Is it possible?
What chance is this? They are gone, and he come home!
15.Sp2Laertes
Oh, he is welcome, by my soul he is!
At it my jocund heart doth leap for joy,
That I shall live to tell him: thus he dies.
15.Sp5King
Nay, but Laertes, mark the plot I have laid:
I have heard him often, with a greedy wish,
Upon some praise that he hath heard of you
Touching your weapon, wish with all his heart
He might be once tasked for to try your cunning.
15.Sp7King
Marry, Laertes, thus: I’ll lay a wager,
Shall be on Hamlet’s side, and you shall give the odds,
The which will draw him with a more desire
To try the maistry, that in twelve venies
You gain not three of him. Now, this being granted,
When you are hot in midst of all your play,
Among the foils shall a keen rapier lie,
Steeped in a mixture of deadly poison
That, if it draws but the least dram of blood
In any part of him, he cannot live.
This being done will free you from suspicion,
And not the dearest friend that Hamlet loved
Will ever have Laertes in suspect.
15.Sp9King
Enter the Queen.
I’ll warrant you, we’ll put on you
Such a report of singularity
Will bring him on, although against his will.
And, lest that all should miss,
I’ll have a potion that shall ready stand,
In all his heat when that he calls for drink,
Shall be his period and our happiness.
15.Sp12Queen
O my lord, the young Ofelia,
Having made a garland of sundry sorts of flowers,
Sitting upon a willow by a brook,
The envious sprig broke. Into the brook she fell,
And for a while her clothes, spread wide abroad,
Bore the young lady up; and there she sat smiling,
Even mermaid-like, ’twixt heaven and earth,
Chanting old sundry tunes, uncapable,
As it were, of her distress. But long it could not be
Till that her clothes, being heavy with their drink,
Dragged the sweet wretch to death.
15.Sp13Laertes
Exeunt.
So, she is drowned.
Too much of water hast thou, Ofelia;
Therefore I will not drown thee in my tears.
Revenge it is must yield this heart relief,
For woe begets woe, and grief hangs on grief.
Enter Clown Gravedigger and another.
16.Sp71 Clown
No, I deny that, for look you, sir, I stand here.
If the water come to me, I drown not myself.
But if I go to the water, and am there drowned,
Ergo I am guilty of my own death.
Y’are gone, go, y’are gone, sir.
16.Sp91 Clown
Marry, more’s the pity that great folk
Should have more authority to hang or drown
Themselves more than other people.
Go fetch me a stoup of drink. But before thou
Goest, tell me one thing: who builds strongest
Of a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?
16.Sp122 Clown
Why, then, a carpenter, for he builds the gallows,
And that brings many a one to his long home.
16.Sp131 Clown
Pretty again. The gallows doth well. Marry, how
does it well? The gallows does well to them that do ill.
Go get thee gone.
16.Sp141 Clown
Exit Second Clown.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
And if anyone ask thee hereafter, say,
A grave-maker, for the houses he builds
Last till Doomsday. Fetch me a stoup of beer, go.
16.Sp151 Clown
“A pick-ax and a spade,
A spade, for and a winding sheet,
Most fit it is, for ’twill be made
(He throws up a shovel.)
For such a guest most meet.”
16.Sp16Hamlet
Hath this fellow any feeling of himself,
That is thus merry in making of a grave?
See how the slave jowls their heads against the earth!
16.Sp181 Clown
He throws up skull.
“A pick-ax and a spade, a spade,
For and a winding sheet,
Most fit it is for to be made
For such a guest most meet.”
16.Sp19Hamlet
Look you, there’s another, Horatio.
Why may’t not be the skull of some lawyer?
Methinks he should indict that fellow
Of an action of battery, for knocking
Him about the pate with’s shovel. Now where is your
Quirks and quillets now, your vouchers and
Double vouchers, your leases and freehold
And tenements? Why, that same box there will scarce
Hold the conveyance of his land, and must
The honor lie there? Oh, pitiful transformance!
I prithee tell me, Horatio,
Is parchment made of sheepskins?
16.Sp21Hamlet
I’faith, they prove themselves sheep and calves
That deal with them, or put their trust in them.
There’s another. Why may not that be Such-a-one’s
Skull, that praised my Lord Such-a-one’s horse
When he meant to beg him? Horatio, I prithee
Let’s question yonder fellow. —
Now, my friend, whose grave is this?
16.Sp29Hamlet
An excellent fellow, by the Lord, Horatio.
This seven years have I noted it: the toe of the peasant
Comes so near the heel of the courtier
That he galls his kibe. I prithee tell me one thing:
How long will a man lie in the ground before he rots?
16.Sp301 Clown
I’faith, sir, if he be not rotten before
He be laid in, as we have many pocky corses,
He will last you eight years. A tanner
Will last you eight years full out, or nine.
16.Sp321 Clown
Why, his hide is so tanned with his trade
That it will hold out water, that’s a parlous
Devourer of your dead body, a great soaker.
Look you, here’s a skull hath been here this dozen year—
Let me see, ay, ever since our last king Hamlet
Slew Fortenbrasse in combat, young Hamlet’s father,
He that’s mad.
16.Sp401 Clown
Why, they say he shall have his wits there.
Or if he have not, ’tis no great matter there.
It will not be seen there.
16.Sp441 Clown
This? A plague on him, a mad rogue’s it was.
He poured once a whole flagon of Rhenish of my head.
Why, do not you know him? This was one Yorick’s skull.
16.Sp46Hamlet
A fellow of infinite mirth. He hath carried me twenty times
upon his back. Here hung those lips that I have kissed a
hundred times, and to see, now they abhor me.—Where’s
your jests now, Yorick? Your flashes of merriment? Now go
to my lady’s chamber and bid her paint herself an inch
thick, to this she must come, Yorick.—Horatio, I prithee
tell me one thing. Dost thou think that Alexander looked
thus?
16.Sp50Hamlet
Enter King and Queen, Laertes, and other Lords,
with a Priest after the coffin.
No? Why might not imagination work as thus of
Alexander: Alexander died. Alexander was buried. Alexander
became earth. Of earth we make clay. And Alexander being
but clay, why might not time bring to pass that he might
stop the bunghole of a beer-barrel?
16.Sp52Hamlet
Hamlet and Horatio conceal themselves.
What funeral’s this that all the court laments?
It shows to be some noble parentage.
Stand by awhile.
16.Sp54Priest
My lord, we have done all that lies in us,
And more than well the church can tolerate.
She hath had a dirge sung for her maiden soul;
And, but for favor of the King and you,
She had been buried in the open fields,
Where now she is allowed Christian burial.
16.Sp55Laertes
So? I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministr’ing angel
shall my sister be when thou liest howling.
16.Sp57Queen
Sweets to the sweet, farewell!
I had thought to adorn thy bridal bed, fair maid,
And not to follow thee unto thy grave.
16.Sp58Laertes
Hamlet leaps in after Laertes.
Forbear the earth awhile. Sister, farewell.
Now pour your earth on, Olympus-high,
And make a hill to o’ertop old Pelion!
16.Sp61Hamlet
Oh, thou prayest not well.
I prithee take thy hand from off my throat,
For there is something in me dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear. Hold off thy hand!
I loved Ofelia as dear as twenty brothers could.
Show me what thou wilt do for her.
Wilt fight? Wilt fast? Wilt pray?
Wilt drink up vessels? Eat a crocodile? I’ll do’t.
Com’st thou here to whine?
And where thou talk’st of burying thee alive,
Here let us stand, and let them throw on us
Whole hills of earth, till with the height thereof
Make Oosell as a wart!
16.Sp62King
Forbear, Laertes. Now is he mad as is the sea,
Anon as mild and gentle as a dove.
Therefore awhile give his wild humor scope.
16.Sp63Hamlet
Exit Hamlet and Horatio.
What is the reason, sir, that you wrong me thus?
I never gave you cause. But stand away.
A cat will mew, a dog will have a day.
16.Sp65King
My lord, ’tis so. But we’ll no longer trifle.
This very day shall Hamlet drink his last,
For presently we mean to send to him.
Therefore, Laertes, be in readiness.
16.Sp67King
Exeunt omnes.
Come Gertred, we’ll have Laertes and our son
Made friends and lovers, as befits them both,
Even as they tender us and love their country.
Enter Hamlet and Horatio.
17.Sp1Hamlet
Believe me, it grieves me much, Horatio,
That to Laertes I forgot myself;
For by myself methinks I feel his grief,
Though there’s a difference in each other’s wrong.
Horatio, but mark yon water-fly.
The Court knows him, but he knows not the Court.
17.Sp8Gentleman
Very swoltery hot.
The King, sweet Prince, hath laid a wager on your side:
Six Barbary horse against six French rapiers,
With all their accoutrements too, o’the carriages.
In good faith, they are very curiously wrought.
17.Sp11Hamlet
The word had been more cousin-german to the
phrase if he could have carried the cannon by his side.
17.Sp13Gentleman
Marry, sir, that young Laertes in twelve venies
At rapier and dagger do not get three odds of you;
And on your side the King hath laid,
And desires you to be in readiness.
17.Sp14Hamlet
Very well. If the King dare venture his wager,
I dare venture my skull. When must this be?
17.Sp15Gentleman
Exit.
My lord, presently. The King and her majesty,
With the rest of the best judgment in the Court,
Are coming down into the outward palace.
17.Sp18Hamlet
You may, sir, none better, for y’are spiced!
Else he had a bad nose could not smell a fool.
17.Sp23Hamlet
Enter King, Queen, Laertes, Lords.
Why then it is not to come. There’s a predestinate providence
in the fall of a sparrow. Here comes the King.
17.Sp24King
Now, son Hamlet, we have laid upon your head,
And make no question but to have the best.
17.Sp27Hamlet
First, Laertes, here’s my hand and love,
Protesting that I never wronged Laertes.
If Hamlet in his madness did amiss,
That was not Hamlet, but his madness did it,
And all the wrong I e’er did to Laertes
I here proclaim was madness. Therefore let’s be at peace,
And think I have shot mine arrow o’er the house
And hurt my brother.
17.Sp28Laertes
They play again.
She drinks.
Sir I am satisfied in nature,
But in terms of honor I’ll stand aloof,
And will no reconcilement,
Till by some elder masters of our time
I may be satisfied.
17.Sp44Laertes
They catch one another’s rapiers, and both are wounded.
Laertes falls down. The Queen falls down and dies.
She dies.
Ay? Say you so? Have at you.
I’ll hit you now, my lord.
And yet it goes almost against my conscience.
17.Sp50Laertes
Even as a coxcomb should,
Foolishly slain with my own weapon.
Hamlet, thou hast not in thee half an hour of life;
The fatal instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenomed. Thy mother’s poisoned.
That drink was made for thee.
17.Sp51Hamlet
The King dies.
The poisoned instrument within my hand?
Then, venom, to thy venom. Die, damnèd villain!
Come, drink. Here lies thy union, here!
17.Sp52Laertes
Laertes dies.
Oh, he is justly served.
Hamlet, before I die, here take my hand,
And, withal, my love. I do forgive thee.
17.Sp55Hamlet
Hamlet dies.
Enter Voltemar and the Ambassadors from England.
Enter Fortenbrasse with his train.
Upon my love, I charge thee let it go.
Oh, fie, Horatio, an if thou shouldest die,
What a scandal wouldst thou leave behind?
What tongue should tell the story of our deaths,
If not from thee? Oh, my heart sinks, Horatio.
Mine eyes have lost their sight, my tongue his use.
Farewell, Horatio. Heaven receive my soul!
17.Sp58Fortenbrasse
O imperious Death! How many princes
Hast thou at one draught bloodily shot to death!
17.Sp59Ambassador
Our embassy that we have brought from England,
Where be these princes that should hear us speak?
Oh, most most unlooked-for time! Unhappy country!
17.Sp60Horatio
Content yourselves. I’ll show to all the ground,
The first beginning of this tragedy.
Let there a scaffold be reared up in the marketplace,
And let the state of the world be there,
Where you shall hear such a sad story told
That never mortal man could more unfold.
17.Sp61Fortenbrasse
Exeunt.
I have some rights of memory to this kingdom,
Which now to claim my leisure doth invite me.
Let four of our chiefest captains
Bear Hamlet like a soldier to his grave;
For he was likely, had he lived,
To ha’ proved most royal.
Take up the body. Such a sight as this
Becomes the fields, but here doth much amiss.
Annotations
Scene 1
Location: Elsinore Castle, Denmark. A guard platform.
Who is that?
Q2 reads
WHose there?,presumably an an error for F1’s
Who’s there?
First Sentinel
Q1 reads
1.For these three speeches, Q2/F1 identify the speaker as Francisco.
Barnardo
Q1 reads
2.for Barnardo’s speeches throughout this scene.
2is identified as Barnardo at lines 10, 11, and 28.
watch
Q2/F1 read
houre.
An if you meet
If you meet.
Q1 reads
And if you meete,Q2/F1
If you doe (do) meete.
partners
Q2 reads
riualls,F1
Riuals.
See who goes there
Q2 reads
stand ho, who is there?,F1
Stand: who’s there?
soldier
The Q2 plural,
souldiers,can make sense if Marcellus, arriving with Horatio, assumes that the two of them are replacing two guardsmen previously on watch. Or plural could be a copying error. Most editors prefer Q1/F1’s
Soldier.
Exit
This SD is marked in Q2/F1 with
Exit Fran.
Marcellus
Q1/F1 both assign this speech to Marcellus. The skeptical tone of the question favors
Q2’s assignment to
Hora.,but either is possible, and F1 could be an authorial choice.
approve
Confirm.
Tut
Q2/F1 read
Tush, tush.
I pray
Q2 reads
a while,F1
a-while.
have two nights
Q2, like Q1, reads
haue two nights,F1
two Nights haue.
yonder star
Q2/F1 read
yond same.
tolling
Q1 reads
towling,Q2/F1
beating.
Break off your talk
Q2/F1 read
Peace, breake thee of.
horrors
Q2 reads
horrowes,F1
harrowes.
Question it
Q2 reads
Speake to it,F1
Question it.
Walk
Q2/F1 read
march.
makes no answer
Q2/F1 read
will not answere (answer).
sensible … avouch
Confirmation that is evident to the sense (of sight).
parle
Parley, conference with the enemy.
sledded Polacks
Poles traveling on sleds.
Q1/Q2 read
sleaded pollax,F1
sledded Pollax.Most editors take this to represent sledded Polacks; pole-axe is another possibility, though sleaded or sledded are hard to reconcile with that reading.
jump
Precisely.
F1’s
iust(just) is possibly an authorial change, though perhaps instead a copying error for the more striking iump in Q1/Q2.
he passèd through
Q2/F1 read
hath he gone by.
subject
Subjects, citizens.
why
Q2 reads
with,F1, more authoritatively,
why.
cost
I.e., cast, casting.
F1’s
Castis favored by most editors, since the idea of casting goes so well with brass cannon. Although Q1/Q2’s
costis intelligible, it could easily be a copying error.
foreign mart
Shopping abroad.
The fact that Q2 agrees with Q1 in the spelling
forrainehere, and
ship-writesin the next line, suggests that Q2 is following Q1 at this point (Arden 3).
impress
Impressments, conscription.
toward
About to happen.
Doth … day
I.e., Demands that everyone work all seven days of the week.
Marry
I.e., By Holy Mary (a mild oath).
pricked on
Egged on, incited.
emulous cause
Competitive sense of purpose.
Q2/F1 read
emulate pride (Pride).
dared … combat
Challenged to fight, one on one.
this side … world
I.e., all of Western Europe.
seale[d]
Confirmed by an official seal.
Q1’s
sealeis presumably an error for Q2/F1’s
seald(Seal’d).
heraldry
The laws and pageant customs of chivalry.
those
Q2 reads
these,F1
those.
seized of
Possessed of.
Against … King
In return for which a comparable portion of land was pledged by our King of Denmark.
Of … full
Full of untested fiery spirits.
For Q1’s
inapproued,Q2 reads
vnimprooued,F1
vnimprouued.
skirts
Outskirts.
Sharked … resolutes
Rounded up a troop of lawless renegadoes.
Where Q1 reads
sight,Q2 reads
list,F1
List.
For … in’t
To feed and supply a bold enterprise.
Q2/F1 follow at this point with some five lines omitted in Q1, and then another passage
of about 18 lines following line 88.
cross it
I.e., stand in its way, confront it; also, hold up a Christian cross in front of it,
as Horatio may do here.
blast me
Strike or wither me with a curse.
you
Q2 reads
your,probably an error for Q1/F1’s
you.
invulnerable
Q1’s
invelmorableis presumably a misprint for Q2/F1’s
invulnerable.
faded
Q2/F1 read
started,presumably the authorized reading.
morning
Q2 reads
morne,F1
day.
early and shrill-crowing
Q1’s reading is certainly appropriate to the cock’s crowing in the early morning,
but Q2/F1’s
lofty and shrill-soundingis presumably authorial.
The stravagant
Q2/F1 read
Th’extrauagant.
hies
Hastens.
probation
Proof.
ever ’gainst
Just before.
The bird of dawning
The rooster.
Q2’s
Thisand Q1/F1’s
Theare more or less interchangeable here.
dare walk abroad
Q2’s
dare sturre,F1’s
can walke,and Q1’s
dare walke abroadeare more or less equally plausible. F1’s version may be authorial, though not certainly so.
planet strikes
Planet exerts its baleful influence.
Q1 is plausible as it stands, but Q2/F1’s
plannets (Planets) strikemay be authorial.
takes
Bewitches.
Q1/Q2’s
takes,though rarely used without an object (Arden 3), seems more plausible than F1’s
talkes,which could be a misprint.
charm
Cast a spell, enchant.
gracious
Suffused with divine grace.
that
F1’s
themight possibly be an authorial revision, but it is also plausibly a weaker copying substitute for Q1/Q2’s more concrete
that.
russet
Reddish brown.
mountain top
Q1 is intelligible, but Q2’s
Eastward hilland F1’s
Easterne Hillare presumably more authorial. Some editors (e.g., Oxford) prefer the F1 reading as potentially an authorial revision, but it could also be a copying error.
Let’s
F1’s
Letis presumably a transcription error for Q1/Q2’s
Lets,i.e.,
Let’s.
conveniently
Conveniently.
Q2’s
conuenientis an acceptable form of the adverb in early modern English, but Q1/F1’s
conuenientlymakes for an equally acceptable iambic pentameter line and may be authorial.
Lords … Norway
Having omitted some 26 lines of the text in Q2/F1, Q1 here inverts Q2’s
we have heere writ / To Norway Vncle of young Fortenbrasse.F1 reads substantially the same as Q2.
impudent
Q1’s
impudentis almost certainly an error for Q2/F1’s
impotent,meaning “wasted by disease.” The error appears to be aural, something misheard in the theater.
Young good Cornelia
Q2/F1 read, more authoritatively,
You good Cornelius.
Voltemar
Voltemaris the Q1 equivalent of Q2’s
Valtemandand F1’s
Voltemand,the preferred spelling.
related
Relevant.
Q1’s
relatedis probably an error for Q2’s
delatedand F1’s
dilated.The phrase in Q2 reads
then the scope / Of these delated articles allowe; F1 is substantially the same.
In this
Q1/F1 read, more authoritatively,
In that.
nothing
Not in the slightest.
You said you had a suit
Q2 reads, more authoritatively,
You told vs of some sute; F1 is substantially the same.
My … France
After skipping some 7 lines of Q2/F1, Q1 paraphrases TLN 231-2, and then paraphrases
in what follows. The textual notes here are limited to those places where Q1 is close
enough to Q2/F1 to make a comparison meaningful.
My gracious lord
F1’s
Dread my Lordmay be authorial in place of Q2’s
My dread Lordand Q1’s
My gratious Lord.
stay me
Hold me back from going.
leave, Laertes?
Permission, Laertes?
Q2 reads
leaue, what says Polonius?F1 is substantially the same.
He hath
Q2 reads
Hath,F1
He hath.
wrung from me a forced grant
Q2 reads
wroung from me my slowe leaue; omitted in F1.
And … leave
And I beseech your highness to give your permission.
Q2 reads
I doe beseech you giue him leaue to go; F1 is substantially the same.
And now … Hamlet
Q2 reads
But now my Cosin Hamlet, and my sonne; F1 is substantially the same. More paraphrase and reordering follows.
For … Wittenberg
Forhere means “As for.” Wittenberg is a German city on the River Elbe, home to the famous university where in 1517 Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Schlosskirche, in what is conventionally regarded as the opening salvo of the Protestant Reformation. Marlowe represents Doctor Faustus as having studied and taught there.
This phrase comes 50 or so lines later in Q2/F1,
for your intent / In going back to schoole in Wittenberg.It is followed in Q1 by a paraphrase of TLN 296-9.
unmeet
Unsuitable.
half heart
The King’s idea is that he shares half his heart with Gertrude and she half her heart
with him.
My lord … wear
At this point, Q1 jumps back in the text as presented in Q2/F1, providing a paraphrase
of TLN 258 and following.
still
Still (ever since I learned of my father’s death); continually.
distracted
Q2/F1 read, more authoritatively,
deiected.
havior
Expression.
Nor … semblance
Nor all these things, together with my outward appearance.
Is equal
Can be considered equal.
Him have I lost … forgo
He whom I have lost, my father, I must of necessity give up as dead.
These … woe
Compare Q2:
These but the trappings and the suites of woe.F1 is substantially the same.
think
Q2/F1 read
knowe(know).
General ending
End of the world.
It is … ’gainst nature
Compare Q2:
tis a fault to heauen, / A fault against the dead, a fault to nature.F1 is essentially the same.
and in reason’s … most certain
And something that is certain, as an observation of common sense and experience.
None … to die
All who live must die.
Let … madam
These lines are close to the language of Q2/F1.
And … Hamlet
These lines paraphrase TLN 308-10 in Q2/F1, expressing the King’s vow: the celebratory
firing of cannon is to announce to the heavens that the King drinks a rouse, or toast,
to Hamlet.
Oh … sallied flesh / Would melt
Q2’s version of this celebrated line, with its famous crux, is
O that this too too sallied flesh would melt.F1 reads
solidfor sallied. The soliloquy that follows in Q1 paraphrases the texts of Q2/F1. Some lines, such as TLN 336-7 and 339-43, are very close, though sometimes in different order and with significant omissions.
within two months … Within two months
Compare Q2/F1’s
But two months dead … within a month … A little Month.
Hercules
Hero of classical mythology noted for his twelve labors, deeds requiring Herculean strength.
Why, she … looked on
These lines are close to Q2/F1, with
looked oninstead of
fed on.
Ere … all tears
These lines are close to Q2/F1.
Niobe
When Niobe boasted that her fourteen children outnumbered those of Leto, Leto’s children
Apollo and Artemis slew all the children as a punishment for their mother’s hubris
or pride. Turned by Zeus into a stone, Niobe never ceased her bitter tears.
The story of Niobe and her children is told by (among others) Ovid in his Metamorphoses, 6.146-312.
incestuous
Judaeo-Christian tradition (see Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21), incorporated into the
Anglican Book of Common Prayer, forbade a man to marry his brother’s wife’ as Claudius
has done in this play, and, historically as Henry VIII had done by marrying his dead
brother Arthur’s wife, Katharine of Aragon. As Arden 3 notes, Henry’s disavowal of
his marriage to Katharine on the grounds that it was sinful (so that the marriage
might be annulled and he be allowed to marry Anne Boleyn) was the precipitating event
of the English break with Rome and the beginning of the English Reformation. Yet as
Arden 3 also notes, Claudius and Gertrude, though burdened with many feelings of guilt
and remorse, do not include incest in the list of things for which they are sorry.
it is not … hold my tongue
These lines are word-for-word close to Q2/F1.
Enter Horatio and Marcellus
Q2 reads
Enter Horatio and Marcellus,F1
Enter Horatio, Barnard, and Marcellus.
I change that name with you.
I’ll share and exchange mutually the name of
friendwith you, rather than having you address me as your master. If anything, I am your servant.
Lines 76-81 are close to Q2/F1.
But what … depart
These lines are close to Q2/F1.
to see
Q2 reads
to,F1
to see.
the funeral … tables
The food left uneaten from the funeral banquet, including meat pies and pastries,
provided cold leftovers for the marriage festivities.
In Q1, line 87 to the end of the scene follows Q2/F1 quite closely.
dearest
Direst, most hated, bitterest.
Ere ever I had
Q2 reads
Or euer I had,F1
Ere I had euer.
Where
Q1’s
Wheresupports the reading of Q2,
Where; F1 reads
Oh where.
gallant
Q2/F1 read
goodly,presumably with better authority.
kee you
Quoth you, did you say.
Q1 reads
ke.The phrase is absent from Q2/F1.
Ceasen your admiration
Moderate your astonishment.
Q1’s
Ceasenmight be modernized as Cease, were it not that Q2 and F1 both read
Season.
Ceasencould be an aural error by a reporter hearing Season in the theatre.
attentive
Q2/F1 read
attent.
God’s
F1’s
Heauensis presumably an expurgation to avoid the blasphemy in Q1/Q2’s
Gods.
dead vast
Lifeless, desolate, empty space.
Q2/F1 read
dead wast.
Armed to point
Provided with weapons in every detail.
Q2’s
Armed at pointconveys the same meaning as Q1’s
Armed to poyntand F1’s
Armed at all points,which may be an authorial change.
cap-à-pie
From head to foot.
Q1 reads
Capapèa,Q2
Capapea.From old French cap-a-pie; in modern French de pied en cap (Arden 3).
fear-oppressèd
Q2 reads
feare surprised,F1
feare-surprized,presumably with an authorial reading.
truncheon’s
A truncheon is a military officer’s baton or staff, a sign of his office.
stands
Q2/F1 more correctly read
Stand.
delivered
Q2/F1 read
deliuered (deliuer’d) both in time.
right done
Q2/F1 read, with presumed authority,
writ downe.
watched
Q2 reads
watch,F1
watcht.
his head
Q2/F1 read
it head.
Our sight
Q2/F1 read
from our sight,thus providing the word
frommissing in Q1.
Indeed, indeed
Q1/F1 read
Indeed, indeed,Q2
Indeede.
My good lord
Q2/F1 read
My Lord,providing better scansion in a second half-line. Q1’s text may have picked up
My good lordfrom line 150.
Why then
Q2/F1 read, presumably with greater authority,
Then.
face?
Q1/F1 end this line with a question mark. Q2 ends in a (faint) period.
beaver
Visor on the helmet.
How looked he, frowningly?
F1’s
What, lookt he frowningly?interprets What as an exclamation. Q2 ambiguously lacked a comma:
What look’t he frowningly?
’a’
Have.
Q2/F1 read
haue.
Very like, very like
Very likely, very likely.
The repetition,
Very like, very likein Q1/F1 is, in the opinion of Arden 2, an actor’s interpolation, like
Indeed, indeedat line 146 (TLN 418), but the pattern may also suggest insistency, and the Q1/F1 reading could be authorial. Q2 reads
Very like.
tell
Count.
Marcellus
Q1’s assignment of this line to Marcellus alone is perfectly possible. Q2’s
Bothseems preferable to F1’s
All,since Horatio disagrees in the next line with the guards’ estimate of time.
grizzled, no?
Grey or mingled with grey, was it not?
F1’s
grisly? No.is possible as an alternative spelling of
grissly, no?meaning “grizzled, was it not” (but not grisly, “inspiring horror or disgust”). Q1’s
grisleld, no.tends to confirm Q2’s
grissl’d, no.
watch
Stand watch.
walk
Q1/Q2 read
walke,F1
wake.
warrant
Q1 reads
warrant,Q2
warn’t,F1
warrant you.
hold my peace
Be silent.
hither
Hitherto.
Q2/F1 read
hitherto.
tenable
Able to be held.
F1’s
trebleis perhaps possible in the sense of
trebly,invoking a threefold obligation to remain silent. Q1 spells the word
tenible.Q2 reads
tenable.
whatsoever
Q2 reads
whatsomeuer,F1
whatsoeuer.
requite
Repay.
your loves … to you
I.e., I accept your
dutyas love, and I pledge my love to you in that same sense.
Presumably Hamlet says this, and
Farewellin line 183, to Horatio and the rest as they are leaving. The Q1 placement of the exeunt opposite line 182 means only that they start to leave at this point, having pledged their duties to Hamlet.
all’s not well … to men’s eyes
The Q1 text, having followed Q2/F1 quite closely since line 87, is here nearly word
for word in the final moments of the scene.
doubt
Suspect, fear.
Foul
Q1/F1 read
foule,Q2
fonde.
Ofelia
This spelling, an aural version of Q2/F1’s Ophelia, persists throughout Q1. Q2 reads
Ophelia his sister.
inbarked
Embarked, loaded on board a sailing vessel.
Spelled
inbarkedin Q1/Q2 and
imbark’tin F1. The means of travel from the Danish court to Paris is perhaps unclear, but travel by water to Le Havre in France or indeed further upstream on the River Seine would lessen the need for a difficult and dangerous land journey. Laertes assumes too, in the following lines, that letters to and from his sister will travel by water.
Perhaps … now
This phrase occurs word for word in Q2/F1, but some of the time this scene reads more
like a paraphrase of those texts than an accurate version.
prodigal
Wasteful, recklessly extravagant.
As Arden 3 notes, the word occurs here and at lines 49 and 60, as compared with two
occurrences in Q2/F1. Lines 7-9 are close to Q2/F1 (TLN 499-501).
scapes
The aphetic form of
escapes.
thy honor and thy fame
Your chastity and your reputation.
But … dies
This speech is close in meaning to Q2/F1, TLN 509-14, with many verbal parallels and
some identical words or phrases including
way to heaven,
libertine,and
recks.
sophister
Captious or fallacious reasoner.
Compare Q2/F1’s
vngracious pastors (Pastors).
recks how that
Reckons how, takes heed how.
Occasion … leave
The goddess Occasion or Opportunity has smiled upon me by provided me the chance to
say goodbye to my father a second time and thereby receive from him a second blessing.
This proverbial phrase is here identical with Q2/F1.
Corambis
This is Q1’s name throughout for Q2/F1’s Polonius. In Q2/F1, Polonius enters a few lines earlier, whilee Laertes is speaking.
Yet here … memory
Essentially identical with Q2/F1, except that those texts then follow with
Look thou character,missing from Q1.
Be thou … with thee
Q1 is here close to Q2/F1, with the omission of TLN 524-5, 533-4, and 540-2.
the palm
Q1’s
theis presumably an error for Q2/F1’s
thy.
entertain
Presumably an error for Q2/F1’s
entertainment,though Q1 does scan better as iambic pentameter.
new unfledged
Newly hatched in the nest and still unable to fly.
Q2 reads
new hatcht vnfledg’d,F1
vnhatcht, vnfledg’d.
courage
Swashbuckler.
F1’s
Comradeoffers an easier meaning, but
courageis the reading of Q1/Q2, and, as Arden 3 points out, the u in courage could easily have been misread as m in Elizabethan handwriting.
apparel
Q2/F1 read
habite(habit), a reading that scans better than Q1’s
apparrell,which may a reporter’s approximation.
fashion
Q2/F1 read
fancy(
fancie), a reading with better authority than Q1’s
fashion,which may a reporter’s approximation.
Are of a … general chief in that
Q2’s
Or of aand Q1/F1’s
Are of aboth seem in need of emendation. Many editors choose Are of all. F1 reads
chefffor Q1/Q2’s
chiefe.Q1 reads
generallfor Q2/F1’s
generous.
any one
Q2/F1 read
any man.
Exit
Q2/F1 more logically place this exit after Ophelia has answered her brother in lines
44-5, and he has said
Farewell.On stage, this exchange takes place as Laertes is leaving.
It is … prince Hamlet
Q1 is here close to Q2/F1, especially in line 45, which is essentially identical.
In Q2/F1, line 47 begins with
So please you,missing from Q1 but thereafter identical with Q2/F1.
well thought on
Q2/F1 read
well bethought.
’Tis given … your credit
Q1 is here quite close to Q2/F1, with various substitutions such as
given to mefor
put on me,
So wellfor
so clearly,and
your creditfor
your honor.Then Q1 omits the following line in Q2/F1,
What is betrweene you giue me vp the truth.
Springes to catch woodcocks
Traps to catch proverbially gullible birds.
Q1 is here essentially identical to Q2/F1.
tongue
Q2/F1 read
soule (Soule),a reading with presumed better authority than Q1’s
tongue.Lines 60-1 in Q1 go back in somewhat varied language to an earlier passage in Q2/F1, at TLN 573-5.
For … desire
The sentiment here in Q1 is close to Q2/F1 at TLN 592-7.
shrewd
Q2 reads
shroudly,F1
shrewdly,in what is presumably a more authorized reading than Q1’s
shrewd.Lines 1-5 in Q1 are otherwise close to Q2/F1 at TLN 604-9.
wind
Q2/F1 read
ayre.
Keeps … reels
Drinks many toasts and drunkenly reels his way through a lively German dance called
the
upspring.
Or, perhaps the dance itself is seen as drunkenly reeling or staggering. Q1’s
Keepecould be an easy error for Q2/F1’s
Keepes.Lines 7-15 in Q1 are otherwise close to Q2/F1 at TLN 612-21.
as he dreams
As he drinks himself nearly unconscious, into a dreamlike stage.
Q1’s reading, though possible, is probably an erroneous reporting, owing to mishearing,
of Q2/F1’s
as he draines(dreines).
Rhenish
Rhine wine.
kettledrum
Q1’s presumably erroneous reading with a comma (
kettle, drumme) is correctly represented in Q2’s
kettle drummeand F1’s kettle Drum.
borne
Q1/Q2/F1’s
borneis a common spelling of born.
more … observance
Better left unperformed than followed.
This phase is followed in Q2 by a 22-line passage omitted from Q1/F1, TLN 621.1-22.
Angels … follow it
Q1 is close to Q2/F1 throughout this extensive passage, with significant variations
as noted below.
Thou comest in such
Q2/F1 read
Thou com’st in such a.
burst their ceremonies
Burst their way through the (already performed) burial ceremonies and the graveclothes
in which they are wrapped.
Q1’s
ceremonies,though possible, is more probably a mishearing of Q2’s
cerementsor F1’s
cerments.
interred
Q1 confirms Q2’s
interr’d,but F1’s
enurn’dcould be authorial.
burst
Q2 reads
op’t,F1
op’d.Q1’s
burstcould be a repetition from lines 24 and 26.
compleat steel
Full armor.
The spelling of Q2/F1 is
compleat; Q1 reads
compleate.The early modern spelling is retained here to make clear that the accent falls on the first syllable.
the glimpses … moon
The sublunary world, all that is fitfully lit by pale moonlight.
we fools of nature
We mere mortals, limited to natural knowledge and subject to nature.
So … disposition
To unsettle our mental composure so horrendously.
the reaches
The capacities.
F1’s
thee;reacheswould appear to be a miscopying error for Q1/Q2’s
the reaches.
Say … mean?
Q2/F1 read
Say why is this, wherefore, what should we doe?
It beckons … alone
Q2/F1 read
It beckins (beckons) you to goe away with it / As if it some impartment did desire.
waves
Q1 agrees with Q2. F1 reads
wafts.
my lord
Q2/F1 omit this phrase found in Q1.
will I
Q1 agrees with F1. Q2 reads
I will.
What … Think of it
Q1 in effect transposes this passage to here, rather than, as in Q2/F1, following
TLN 653-7.
beckles
Beats (?), beckons (?).
Q1’s
backlesis probably a mishearing of Q2’s
bettlesor F!’s
beetles.Q1 omits a line in Q2 prior to line 44,
Or to the dreadfull somnet of the cleefe.F1 has a similar line, though with Sonnet for somnet and Cliffe for cleefe.
a pin’s fee
The value of a pin.
The proverb Not worth a pin (Dent P334) characterizes anything of very small value.
(This passage occurs earlier in Q1 than in Q2/F1; see note 43-7 above.)
like
Q2/F1 read
As.Lines 50-3 are otherwise close to Q2/F1 (TLN 653-6).
My fate cries out
My destiny summons me.
Lines 56-64 are otherwise close to Q2/F1 (TLN 668-, although line 63 precedes 64 in
those texts.
each petty
Even the most insignificant.
artery
Printed
Artiuein Q1, presumably an attempt at Q2’s
artureand F1’s
Artire.
the Nemean lion’s nerve
A sinew of the huge lion slain by Hercules in the first of his twelve labors.
lets
Hinders.
Have after
Let’s follow him.
I’ll … lead me?
Q1 inverts the order of Q2/F1’s
Whether (Where) wilt thou leade me, speake, Ile go no further.Much of Q1 follows Q2/F1 in this scene quite closely, albeit with different lineation; see exceptions noted in the notes below.
I will
Q1 here omits several lines from Q2/F1, TLN 685-8 and 691-3; TLN 689-90 are retained
here, and TLN 688 is transplanted to line 9 in Q1.
a time
Q2/F1 read
a certaine terme.
all
Q2/F1 read
for.
in flaming fire
Q2/F1 read
to fast in fires (Fiers).
crimes
Sins.
my days of nature
My days on earth as a mortal.
purged
In Roman Catholic doctrine, Purgatory (not actually mentioned by name in this play)
is an intermediate state after death for the purging of sins. If an individual has
died in God’s grace but has committed sins not yet pardoned (owing, as in this present
instance, to a sudden death leaving no time for confessing those sins to a priest),
in Purgatory the soul can make satisfaction for those sins and thus become fit for
heaven.
Reformation leaders in Europe and England, beginning with Martin Luther in 1517, denounced
Purgatory as a Roman Catholic superstition placing unwarranted emphasis on the sacraments
of Confession and Last Rites or Extreme Unction, and on the essential role of priesthood
in offering forgiveness for sins. Reformation churches generally reduced the list
of Holy Sacraments from seven (Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Penance, Holy
Orders, Marriage, and Last Rites) to two (Baptism and the Eucharist). For Q1’s
purged and burnt,Q2/F1 read
burnt and purg’d.
Alas, poor ghost!
In Q2/F1, this interjection occurs earlier, at TLN 688.
But that
Were it not that.
would
Q2/F1 read
could.
harrow up
Lacerate, tear up, uproot.
spheres
Eye-sockets, compared here to the crystalline spheres or orbits in which, according
to Ptolemaic astronomy, the heavenly bodies moved around the earth.
knotted
Q1’s
knottedconfirms the reading of Q2. F1 reads
knotty.
on end
The eighteenth-century actor-manager, David Garrick, wore a trick wig that would stand
its hairs on end as a sign of fright. Q2/F1’s
an endis a common early modern spelling of Q1’s
on end.
fretful
Q1’s
fretfullconfirms F1’s
fretfull.Q2 reads
fearefull.
porpentine
Shakespeare’s usual spelling of porcupine.
This spelling,
Porpentine,is found in Q1/Q2/F1.
this same blazon
This revelation of the secrets of the supernatural world that I am hinting at.
Q2/F1 read
this eternall blazon (blason).
Hamlet
Q2 reads
list, list, ô list.F1 reads
list Hamlet, oh list.
O God!
F1’s
Oh Heauenis presumably an expurgation; see note at 2.114 (TLN 386) above. Q2 reads
O God.
Yea … ’tis bad
Yes, murder in the highest degree, which is foul even under the best of circumstances.
Q2/F1 read
Murther most foule, as in the best it is.
But mine most foul, beastly
Q2/F1 read
But this most foule, strange.
with wings … of it
Compare the proverb, As swift as thought, Dent T240. Where Q1 reads
with wings,Q2/F1 read
I with wings; and where Q1 reads
of it,Q2/F1 read,
of loue (Loue).
Oh
Omitted in Q2/F1. Perhaps an actor’s interpolation.
fat
Torpid, lethargic, gross, bloated.
which roots itself
I.e., that remains motionless, sluggish.
Q1’s
which rootes it selfe,Q2’s
That rootes it selfe,and F1’s
rots it selfeare all plausible. F1’s reading emphasizes decay, and may be an authorial choice.
Lethe
The river of forgetfulness in Hades.
Brief let me be
Q2/F1 read, instead,
Would’st thou not stirre in this; now Hamlet heare.
’Tis given out
The official story goes.
with a forgèd process
By a fabricated account.
In place of Q1’s
with,Q2/F1 read
by.
rankly abused
Grossly deceived.
he
Q2/F1 read
The Serpent.
sting
Elizabethans generally believed that poisonous snakes attacked their victims with
their tongues rather than their fangs.
heart
Q2/F1 read
life.
my uncle! My uncle!
Q2 reads simply
my Vncle?and F1, similarly,
mine Vncle?
Yea, he, that incestuous wretch … to seduce
Q2 reads
I, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, / With witchcraft of his wits, with trayterous gifts, / O wicked wit, and giftes that have the power / So to seduce; wonne to his shamefull lust / The will of.F1 is essentially the same except for
hathbefore
Traitorous.See 2.70 (TLN 341) and note above. Following line 40, Q1 omits some six lines found in Q2/F1, TLN 734-9.
So lust
Q2 erroneously reads
So but,corrected in F1.
angel
Q1 reads
angle,Q2
Angle,F1
Angell.
Would sate itself from
Q1 reads
Would fate it selfe from,Q2
Will sort it selfe in,F1
Will sate it selfe in.F1 appears to offer the most authoritative reading.
soft
Wait a minute, hold on.
methinks … air
The Ghost here confirms the tradition that Horatio has reported at TLN 156 ff.: ghosts
who visit the world of the living at night are supposed to return to their confines
by dawn.
Q1/Q2/F1’s
sentis a common spelling of
scent.Q1/F1’s
Morningsin place of Q2’s
morningis plausible, but could perhaps be a compositorial sophistication or misreading.
In the afternoon
Q2’s idiom,
of the afternoone,is more striking and unusual to our ears than Q1/F1’s
in the afternoon.Q1/F1’s reading could be a compositorial sophistication or mishearing.
secure hour
A time free from worries, and a safe time when one can relax one’s guard.
came
Q2/F1 read, with presumably better authority,
stole.
hebona
A poison.
The name of this unidentified poison may be related to henbane, of the nightshade
family, the Latin name of which, Hyoscyamus niger, suggests ebony, or possibly ebanus,
yew.F1’s
Hebenonis another spelling of this word not found elsewhere other than in
the juice of Hebonin Marlowe’sThe Jew of Malta, 3.4.101. Q1 reads
Hebona,Q2
cursed Hebona,F1
cursed Hebenon.
through the porches … ears
I.e., into the ears as an entranceway to my head.
Supposedly an Italian method of poisoning, used to murder the Duke of Urbino in 1538
and mentioned in Marlowe’s Edward II, 5.4.34-5, though realistically speaking not a very practical way to introduce poison
into the brain. Q2/F1 read in the
porches (Porches).
lep’rous distillment
A distillation causing a leprosy-like disfigurement.
Hold
Q2/F1 read, correctly,
Holds.
quicksilver
Mercury.
posteth
Q2/F1 read
courses.
alleys
Q1/Q2 read
allies,F1
Allies.
And turns … milk
Q2/F1 read
And with a sodaine vigour it doth possesse (posset)/ And curde like eager (Aygre) droppings into milke / The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine.Line 57 approximates TLN 756-8.
eager
Sour, acid.
barked … over
Enveloped with a loathsome scaly crust, like the bark on a tree-trunk.
Of crown … dignity
Q2/F1 read
Of life, of Crowne, of (and) Queene.
deprived
Q1 here reads like a gloss of Q2’s and F1’s
dispatcht,since that word here means
deprived.Following this word, Q1 omits two lines, TLN 761-2, that are present in Q2/F1.
no reckoning made of
No settling of spiritual accounts and restitution for sin allowed.
For Q1’s
made of,Q2/F1 read, with presumably greater authority,
made.
But sent … head
Q2/F1 read
but sent to my account / With all my imperfections on my head.
Oh, horrible, most horrible!
Q2/F1 read
horriblethrice. This line has sometimes been assigned to Hamlet by actor-managers and by editors, partly at least to offer a break in the Ghost’s monologue.
O God!
This interjection, perhaps an actor’s interpolation, does not appear in Q2/F1.
nature
I.e., the natural feelings of a son for his father.
Following this line, Q2/F1 provide two lines, TLN 767-8, that are omitted in Q1.
But howsoever
Q2 reads
But howsomeuer thou pursues this act,F1
But howsoeuer thou pursuest this Act.
let not … aught
Q2/F1 read
Tain’t not thy minde, nor let thy soule contriue / Against thy mother ought.
aught
In any way.
Q2/F1 print
ought,Q1
aught.
And to … be gone
Q2 reads
And to those thornes that in her bosome lodge / To prick and sting her, fare thee well at once.F1 is essentially the same.
martin
Morning.
Q1’s
Martinis presumably an error for Q2/F1’s
matine (Matine).
’gins … his
Begins … its.
Hamlet … adieu!
Q2 reads
Adiew, adiew, adiew,F1
Adue, adue, Hamlet.
Exit
This exit, indicated in Q1/F1 but not Q2, could be effected by means of the stage
trap door, in light of the Ghost’s crying out
under the stageat line 157 (TLN 845) below. On the other hand, the Ghost’s entrance in 3.4
in his night gown,according to Q1, might seem more appropriate if he enters and leaves by means of a stage door. Stage tradition, at all events, has generally chosen to have him enter and exit in 1.4 and 1.5 by means of stage doors rather than the trap.
Remember thee?
In Q2, This phrase is preceded by
ô earth, what els, /And shall I could hell, ô fie, hold, hold, my hart, / And you my sinnowes, growe not instant old, / But beare me swiftly vp.F1 is similar, though with
holdfor hold, hold and
stiffelyfor swiftly. Omitted in Q1.
Yes
Q2/F1 read
I,i.e., Ay.
ghost
Q2/F1 add a phrase missing in Q1,
whiles memory holds a seate / In this distracted globe, remember thee.
fond conceits
Foolish notions.
Q2/F1 read
fond records,F1
fond Records,and reverse the order in Q2/F1:
all triuiall fond records, /All sawes of bookes.
remembrance
Q2 reads
commandement,F1
Commandment,presumably with greater authority than Q1’s
remembrance.What follows in this scene remains close to Q2/F1, with a number of relatively minor departures.
villain
Q2/F1 read
woman.Q1’s
villainmay be an erroneous anticipation of the next line.
My tables … down
Hamlet may actually have a wax tablet on which he proceeds to note his observation,
or he may be speaking metaphorically. Two tablets might be hinged together as a sort
of notebook; hence perhaps the plural
tables.F1’s repetition of
My Tables, my Tablesmay be an interpolation; it is extra-metrical in F1’s verse line. For Q1’s
tables,Q2 reads
table,F1
Table.
meet
Fitting.
there you are, there you are
I.e., I’ve noted that down (literally or metaphorically, or both).
Q2/F1 do not repeat, wording this simply,
there you are.
Now to the words
Now to the business of fulfilling what I have written down and promised to do.
Q1’s version may a reporter’s approximation of Q2/F1’s
Now to my word.
Enter Horatio and Marcellus
The entrance here is as in Q2, before Horatio says
My lord, my lord!F1 places the SD after Horatio and Marcellus have said this line
within.Either they call out before they enter, or, as in Q2, enter on stage but are understood by the audience not yet to have seen Hamlet in the dark of night.
Marcellus
The line is plausibly assigned to Hamlet in Q2/F1.
Once
Ever.
There’s … knave
Hamlet seems about ready to tell them what he has learned from the Ghost, but then
jestingly turns the matter aside with a self-evident truism: there’s no villain in
Denmark who is not an arrant knave—i.e., a thoroughgoing villain.
tell you this
Q2/F1 read
tell vs this.
circumstance
Elaboration.
I’ll
F1’s
Looke you, Ileis plausibly an authorial emendation of Q2’s
I willand Q1’s
ile; it could be an actor’s interpolation, but even then could have authorial endorsement.
whirling
F1’s
hurlingis possible, but it may also indicate an accidentally dropped w from Q2’s more plausible
whurlingand Q1’s
wherling.
offense … offense
Horatio in line 115 means “There was no offense in what you just said; no need to
apologize.” Hamlet, in line 117, changes the meaning of the word to apply to Claudius’s
crime:
There certainly is a great offense’ against all human decency and law.
offense … offense
Horatio in line 115 means
There was no offense in what you just said; no need to apologize.Hamlet, in line 117, changes the meaning of the word to apply to Claudius’s crime:
There certainly is a great offense’ against all human decency and law.
Saint Patrick
The keeper of Purgatory, according to tradition.
Touching
Concerning, regarding.
honest
Genuine and truthful.
For
As for, regarding.
In faith … not I
Horatio insists that he will not tell anyone what they have seen this night. In the
next speech, Marcullus vows also to keep the secret. They are not refusing to swear;
in fact, they both seemingly take the view that they have sworn already by what they
just said
in faith.But Hamlet insists that they now swear by his sword, an especially solemn oath since the sword hilt can be held so as to form a crucifix. Hamlet may hold it that way.
Mel Gibson, in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1990 film Hamlet, holds his sword in such a way that the hilt forms a crucifix to ward off the potential
evil of a supernatural visitation.
under the stage
Q1/Q2/F1 all specify that the Ghost cries
under the stage,that is, beneath the main acting platform that was raised about 5 1/2 feet above the ground level of the
yard,thereby providing room for such ghostly effects. (There is another in Antony and Cleopatra, 4.3.12, when the music of
hoboys,an early oboe, Is heard
under the stage.) Evidently such sounds could be heard in the Globe Theatre.
Ha, ha, come you here … cellerage
Q2/F1 read
Ha, ha (Ah ha), boy, say’st thou so, art thou there trupenny? / Come on, you heare (Come one, you here) this fellowe in the Selleridge.
Hic et ubique?
Here and everywhere? (Latin.)
Traditionally, the devil was able to be everywhere at once.
seen
Q2/F1 read
heard.
swear by my sword
Q2 gives this line, reading
Sweare by his sword,to the Ghost, instead of line 142,
Sweare.F1 reads essentially the same as Q1.
mole … pioneer
The small tiny-eyed burrowing mole is here compared to the
pioneer,a foot soldier who dug tunnels and trenches used in warfare.
Pioneeris spelled
Pionerin Q1/Q2/F1.
remove
Move.
And … welcome
Compare the proverbial admonition, Give the stranger welcome (Dent S914.1).
your philosophy
This
natural philosophy(i.e., science) that people talk about.
The
youris probably impersonal, though Hamlet’s jibe does apply to Horatio particularly; the two of them love to argue over issues of natural history and skepticism vs. providential readings of human life on earth. (F1’s
our Philosophyis probably a copying error; if not, it would seem to suggest that Hamlet is still trying to sort out for himself the rival claims of religion and science. Q1’s
yoursupports the Q2 reading.)
But come … shall
Q2/F1 read
but come / Heere as before, neuer so helpe you mercy.
How … soe’er
However strangely or oddly.
think meet
See fit.
To … on
To assume the wild and erratic behavior of a madman.
Q1/Q2/F1 print
Antickefor
antic.
encumb’red
Folded.
The folded arms and headshake are intended to suggest that the person has knowledge
but dare not speak.
some undoubtful
Some ambiguous.
Q1’s
some vndoubtfullis perhaps an error for Q2/F1’s
of some doubtfull.
Well, well
F1’s
wellmay be an error of transmission for Q1/Q2’s
well, well.
an if
If.
an if
If.
There be … might
There are those (namely, ourselves) who could talk if they so chose.
Q2/F1 precede this phrase with
Or if we list to speake,not in Q1.
ambiguous
Q1 follows
ambiguouswith a colon not found in Q2 or F1.
Giving out
Utterance, pronouncement.
note
Indicate.
aught
Anything.
Spelled
aughtin Q1,
oughtin Q2/F1.
This not to do
Q1/F1’s
This (this not to doefollow what Hamlet has said with more precise logic than Q2’s
this doe sweare,and may be authorial.
so … help you
As you hope for God’s grace and mercy at your hour of greatest spiritual need.
swear
In Q2, this is assigned to the Ghost. In F1, Hamlet says
Sweare,which the Ghost then repeats after him.
In all
Q2 reads
Withall,F1
With all.
I do … you
I give you my best wishes.
And … To pleasure you
Q2/F1 read
And what so poor a man as Hamlet is / May do t’expresse his loue and frending (friending) to you.
want
Be lacking, be left undone.
Q2/F1 read
lack(
lacke].
still
Always.
out of joint
Disjointed, lacking coherence.
The metaphor is derived from the medical procedure of setting bones that are broken
or separated at the joint.
Nay … together
When Horatio and Marcellus politely defer to Hamlet as of senior rank and thus entitled
to go first, he insists on equalizing this business among friends.
Montano
This is Q1’s name for Q2’s
his manand for F1’s
Reynaldohere, and similarly identified as Mon. in line 1 of Q1 and in the speech headings throughout this scene (Rey. in Q2, Reynol. in F1). In this scene, Q! follows the sense of Q2 and F1, sometimes with substantially different wordings, at other times quite close.
ply his learning
Pursue his studies.
Later in this same scene, at TLN 966, Q1 reads
ply his musicke,Q2
ply his musique,and F1
plye his Musicke.
do very well
Q2/F1 read
do mervuiles (maruels) wisely.
As thus
F1’s
And thusis probably a misprint for Q1/Q2’s
As thus.
At game
Gambling.
drabbing
Frequenting whorehouses.
Compare lines 10-11 of Q1 with Q2/F1’s
As gaming, my Lord. / I, or drinking, fencing, swearing, / Quarrelling, drabbing, you may go so far(TLN 916-18).
impeach his reputation
Frequenting whorehouses.
Q2F1 read
dishonour him.
happily … in the consequence
Perchance he takes you into his confidence in the following way.
Where Q1 reads
the,Q2 F1 in TLN 937 read
this.Compare also Q1 line 17 with Q2/F1 TLN 945 and 947.
As … jot
You can control the conversation in such a way that Laertes’s reputation will not
suffer in the least.
closeth with him thus
F1’s
closes with you thusmay be authorial. The line scans persuasively in both Q2 and F1. The omission of
with youin Q2 could be an oversight.
I saw …
such a time
The first line is essentially identical with Q2/F1. The second line there, TLN 950,
reads
Or the or then, with such and such.
lightness
Wantonness, sexual debauchery.
Q2 reads
sale,F1
saile.
viz.
I.e., videlicet (Latin), namely.
Q2/F1 read
Videlizet (Vidalicet).
reach
Capacity, wide understanding.
Compare Q2/F1,
we of wisedome and of reach.
By … forth
Find out what we want to learn by these devious means.
In place of Q1’s
forth,Q2/F1 read
out.
ha’ me
Have me, understand me.
Q2/F1 read
haue me.
bid
Q2/F1 read
let.Q1 makes good sense.
Ofelia
As in scene 3, the Q1 spelling is retained here and throughout, to differentiate Q1
from Q2/F1’s Ophelia.
what’s … you?
Q2/F1 read
whats (what’s) the matter?What follows in Q1 stands substantially apart from Q2/F1, with many newly composed blank verse lines.
His garters lagging down
Compare Q2/F1,
Vngartred, and downe gyued (giued) to his ancle (Anckle).
And fixed … on my face
Compare Q2/F1,
He falls to such perusal of my face.
As if … object
As if his eyes had made a vow to fix their gaze on this (my face) as the last thing
they would ever behold, i.e., as long as he would live.
Compare Q2/F1:
As a (he) would draw it.
but grips me by the wrist
Compare Q2/F1:
He tooke me by the wrist, and held me hard.
For thus … their help
Q1 is here quite close to Q2/F1’s TLN 994-6. Q1 prints
of doores,Q2
adoores,F1
adores.Q1/F1’s
helpecould be authorial, or a copyist’s or compositor’s correction of Q2’s
helps.
What … of late?
Q2/F1 read
hard wordsfor Q1’s
crosse wordes.
deny his gifts
Compare Q2/F1:
and denied / His accesse to me.
Why, that
Q2/F1 read
That.
’tis … wantonness
It is as characteristic of old men like me to go too far in suspecting the worst of
other people as it is characteristic of young men to lose themselves in sexual pleasure.
(Compare TLN 1012-15 in Q2/F1, where the antithesis is expressed more clearly.)
Q2/F1 read much the same as Q1 here, except in printing
our selues in our opinionsfor Q1’s
ourseluesand
To lack discretionfor Q1’s
To leaue their wantonnesse.
This madness … love
This love madness, wild though it now appears, may in time prove itself to be true
love for you.
The sentiment in Corambis’s rhymed couplet here is quite unlike that of the rhymed
couplet with which Polonius concludes the scene in Q2/F1; it is arguably not even
in character for him to express a hope that Hamlet may eventually prove to be a suitable
wooer for Ophelia. But Q1 does preserve the verse pattern of ending the scene with
a couplet, and uses similar rhyming words (
prooue, louein Q1,
move, louein Q2/F1). Compare the endings of scenes 9, 10, 11, 13, and 15 below.
Rossencraft and Gilderstone
These are Q1’s versions of
Rosencrantzand
Guildenstern,variously spelled in Q2/F1 as well. The dialogue that follows down through line 16 is a paraphrase of Q2/F1, with relatively few verbal correspondences.
the very … sense
I.e., his sanity.
right
True.
tender
Value.
distemperancy
Distemperance, mental or physical disorder.
Compare TLN 2207-8 in Q2/F1,
what is your cause of distemper?
Do
If you do.
troubles
That troubles.
Thanks, Gilderstone … and gentle Gilderstone
Q1 reverses the order of names in this antithetical pairing of lines: Q2 reads
Thanks, Rosencraus, and gentle Guyldenstern,followed by
Thanks Guyldensterne, and gentle Rosencraus,and similarly in F1.
Corambis and Ofelia
In Q2/F1, Polonius enters alone.
My lord … Norway
Q1 reverses the order of Q2/F1’s words in Corambis’s first speech here, as at TLN
1064-5 above. Q2/F1 read
Th’embassadors from Norway, my good Lord, / Are joyfully returnd.Line 21 in Q1 ia essentially identical with Q2/F1 TLN 1066, and the dialogue that follows here is quite close to that of Q2/F1.
your grace
Q2/F1 read
my good Liege.
life
Q2/F1 read
soule (Soule).
train
Q2/F1 read
trayle (traile).
so well … but
Q2 reads
so sure / As it hath vsd to doe, that.F1 reads
so sure / As I haue vs’d to do; that.
depth
Q2/F1 read
cause.
God grant he hath!
Q2/F1 provide here, instead of
God grant he hath!,several lines of dialogue (TLN 1074-80) not in Q1, leading up to the entrance of the Ambassadors.
Voltemar
Q2 reads
Voltemand,F1
Voltumand(TLN 1082). The name Voltemar appears in Q1 also in line 5 of scene 2.
Voltemar
Q2 reads
Voltemand,F1
Voltumand(TLN 1082). The name
Voltemarappears in Q1 also in line 5 of scene 2.
Cornelia
Spelled Cornelius in F1, not named in Q2. In Q1, the name also appears earlier, in line 5 in scene
2.
Now
Q2/F1 read
Say.The Q1 report of this speech and of the text down to line 52 is markedly close to Q2/F1, with some significant departures noted here and in the following lines.
returns
Q2/F1 read
returne.
sent forth
Q2/F1 read
sent out.
three
This is Q1/F1’s equivalent for Q2’s
threescorein a speech that is otherwise very close. Q1/F1 scan better than does Q2.
would
Q2/F1 read
might.
that
Q2 reads
this,F1
his.
allowances
Q2/F1 read
allowance.
and at fit time … article
Q2/F1 read
And at our more considered (consider’d) time, wee’le (wee’l) read, / Answer, and thinke vpon this busines (Businesse).
Right
Q2/F1 read
Most.Other than that, lines 54-6 of Q1 correspond with those of Q/F1.
very well dispatched
Q2 reads
well ended,F1
very well ended.Q2’s reading scans best.
Or else to say
Q2/F1 read
Or rather say.Q1 is otherwise close to Q2/F1 in lines 61-2, but in the previous lines of Corambis’s speech Q1 is shorter and more approximate. The Queen’s
More matter with lesse art(TLN 1123) is changed in Q1 to
Good my lord, be brief,line 63. Also missing in Q1 are TLN 1124-32. Parts of lines 64-5 are close, but then in 66-71 Q1 is a shortened paraphrase of TLN 1134-43, omitting †he beginning of Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia.
Doubt … move
Q1’s version of Q2/F1’s
Doubt thou the starres are fire, / Doubt that the Sunne doth moue.Lines 74-5 is an accurate copy, except that
neueris changed in Q1 to
do not.
beautiful
Q2/F1 read
beautifiedin a fragment of Hamlet’s letter to Ophelia that in Q2/F1 precedes the verse
Doubt thou … I love.Q1 also omits Polonius’s fussy objection to this term as
an ill phrase, a vile phrasein Q2/F1, and a part of Hamlet’s letter that follows the verse song, and Polonius’s comment on the letter, TLN 1148-57.
My lord … saw this
Q1’s lines here paraphrase Q2/F1, TLN 1158-9.
Lord … star
Q2/F1 read
Lord Hamlet is a Prince out of thy star (Starre).Much of Corambis’s speech in Q1 is a shortened paraphrase of TLN 1160-80, including a catalogue of Hamlet’s supposed
sadnes,
fast,and
madnes.
Deny
Refuse to accept.
And if … from this
Q2/F1 read
Take this from this, if it be otherwise.The actor’s various options here include a gesture of severing his head from his body, or of removing the chain of office from around his neck or his staff of office from his hands.
Think you ’tis so?
Q2 reads
Do you thinke this?,F1
Do you thinke ’tis this?
very fain know
Very much like to know.
Q2/F1 read
faine (fain) know.Lines 97-102 in Q1 are fairly close to TLN 1183—6.
lead me on
Q2/F1 read
leade me.
I’ll … of the earth
Q2/F1 read
I will finde / Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed / Within the Center.
How … same?
Q2/F1 read
How may we try it further?
close in the study
Q2/F1 read
behind (behinde) an Arras.The Q1 version of Corambis’s speech here paraphrases Q2/F1 TLN 1192-1201.
let my censure fail
Let my judgment be regarded as of no value.
See where … shall be unseen
This is a composite of Q2/F1, TLN 1203-7 and 1694-5, featured here in Q1 to introduce
the famous
To be or not to besoliloquy in the present scene rather than later, as in Q2/F1. See next two notes.
Enter Hamlet
Presumably Hamlet does not see Corambis, Ofelia, the King, and Queen as he enters;
at least that is their assumption.
To be … remembered
This famous soliloquy varies verbally in many details from its Q2/F1 counterpart,
with the order of the lines considerably rearranged, and is here placed considerably
earlier in the action, along with the following dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia
(TLN 1738-1817), than where these lines are placed in Q2/F1.
For in that dream of death
Q2/F1 read
For in that sleepe of death.
From whence … returned, /The undisovered country
Q2/F1 read
The vndiscouer’d country, from whose borne / No trauiler (Traueller) returnes.
Who’d bear … of the world
Q2/F1 read
For who would beare the whips and scornes of time.
right
Very.
To grunt … life
Q2/F1 read
To grunt and sweat vnder a wearie (weary) life.
When … bodkin?
When he might settle his accounts at the day of divine judgment with nothing more
elaborate than an unsheathed dagger? (A quietus was an affirmation that a bill had
been paid, marked
Quietus est,
laid to rest.)
Q2/F1 read
When he himselfe might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin?
Which makes … cowards of us all
Q2/F1 read much the same as Q1 in these three lines, except that Q1’s
evilsis replaced in Q2/F1 by
ills,and line 138 is replaced in Q2 by
Thus conscience dooes make cowards; this line in F1 is essentially the same as in Q1.
Lady
Q2/F1 read
Nimph.Following line 139, Q1 omits three lines in Q2/F1, TLN 1745-7.
My lord … of you
Q2/F1 provide three verse lines here of similar meaning. Q1 then omits more dialogue,
TLN 1751-57.
Are you fair … Are you honest?
Q2/F1 presents these interrogations in reverse order,
Are you honest,
Are you faire?The same reversal occurs in line 145,
fair and honest, your beauty should admit no discourse to your honesty(Q1) for
honest & faire, you should admit / no discourse to your beautie(Q2),
honest and faire, your Honesty / should admit no discourse to your Beautie(F1), TLN 1762-3).
privilege
Q2/F1 read
comerse (Comerce).
sooner
The word
sooner,needed for the sense but missing from Q1, is found in Q2/F1.
from what … transform beauty
Q2 reads
from what it is to a bawde, then the force of honestie can transform beautie into his likenes,and F1 similarly.
sometimes a paradox … scope
Formerly a seeming absurdity, a conundrum, but now the manners of the present age
seems to allow such paradoxical behavior.
Q1 reads
sometimesfor Q2/F1’s
sometimeand
scopefor
proofe.Q1 then provides a passage, lines 152-7, in somewhat varied language, found earlier in Q2/F1 at TLN 1751-6, before line 141 in Q1. Line 157 here is identical with TLN 1756.
wax poor
Are lowered in esteem.
I never loved you
Compare Q2/F1:
I loued you not(TLN 1774).
You … you did
Compare Q2/F1:
Indeed my Lord you made me belieue (beleeue) so(TLN 1774).
Oh, thou … believed me
Compare Q2/F1:
You should not haue beleeu’d (beleeued) me(TLN 1772).
Go to … To a nunnery, go!
Q1 here prints Q2/F1 as though it were verse, but keeping quite close to the actual
wording, except for significant variations recorded in the following notes.
Why shouldst thou
Q2/F1 read
why (Why) would’st thou.
indifferent honest
Reasonably virtuous.
accuse myself of such crimes
Q2/F1 read
accuse mee (me) of such things.
It had … borne me
Q2/F1 read
that it were better my Mother had not borne me.
Oh, I
Q2/F1 read
I.
ambitious, disdainful
Q2/F1 read
reuengefull, ambitious (Ambitious).
sins
Q2/F1 read
offences.
beck
Command (as in beck and call).
put them in
Q2/F1 read
put them in, imagination to giue them shape, or time to act them in.
as I
Q2/F1 read
as I do.
heaven and earth
Q2 reads
earth and heauen,F1
Heauen and Earth.
To a nunnery… secure him!
These words in Q1 replace
goe thy waies to a Nunryin Q2/F1.
arrant
Downright.
thy father
Q2/F1 read
your father.
For God’s sake, let
Q2/F1 read
Let.
He
Q2/F1 read
that he.
To a nunnery, go
Q2/F1 read
Farewell.
Help him, good God!
Q2/F1 read
O helpe him you sweet heauens.
to thy
Q2/F1 read
for thy.
To a nunnery, go… . is this?
Q2 reads
get thee to a Nunry, farewell,F1
Get thee to a Nunnery. Go, Farewell.
But
Q2/F1 read
Or,with no break in the speech, no exclamation by Ofelia.
To a nunnery, go
Q2/F1 add here
and quickly to, farewell (too. Farwell).
Pray … him!
Q2/F1 read
Heauenly powers (O heauenly Powers,) restore him.
Nay, I have
Q2/F1 read
I haue.
paintings, too
Use of cosmetics also.
Q2 reads
paintings well enough,F1
pratlings too wel enough.
fig
Jog.
Q1’s
figmay be an attempt at Q2’s
gig,i.e., jig, or F1’s
gidge.
and you amble, and
Q2 reads
& amble, and you list,F1
you amble, and you lispe.
you nickname God’s creatures
I.e., you impose new names and false appearances on the creatures of this world instead
of accepting them as God made them.
In the Book of Genesis God gives names to his first creations, as when he called the
dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called seas (1:10), but
when he has created Adam, he turns the naming of the beasts and fowl over to him:
he brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them, and so Adam gave names to
all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air (2:19-20. Hamlet accuses Ophelia of taking
on this assignment frivolously and superficially. F1’s and nickname Gods creatures
is plausibly authorial in this sequence of clauses.
Making … ignorance
Excusing your bad behavior on the grounds that you didn’t know any better.
F1’s
and make your Wantonnesse, your Ignorancemay well be authorial in its second your, present also in Q1 but missing from Q2 (
and make your wantonnes ignorance) in what could be a simple copying error.
A pox, ’tis scurvy
I.e., A curse on it, it is foul. (
Poxliterally means syphilis.)
Q2 reads
goe to,F1
Go too.
of it
Q2/F1 read
on’t.
I’ll no more marriages
Q2/F1 read
I say we will haue no mo marriage (more Marriages).
All … live
Q2/F1 read
those (Those) that are married already (already), all but one shall liue.
To … go
Q2/F1 do not repeat this phrase, as does Q1 in lines 195-6.
Great … I see!
Ofelia’s poignant soliloquy here is a shortened approximation of Q2/F1, TLN 1806-17.
The courtier, scholar, soldier … him
Q2 reads
The Courtiers, souldiers, schollers, eye tongue, sword,and F1 essentially the same.
Oh, woe … what I see!
The couplet in Q2/F1 is close to Q1.
Love? … troubles him
The King’s speech here reduces Q2/F1 TLN 1819-32, some 14 lines, to two lines.
Well … be gone!
This brief dialogue in Q1, replacing some 14 lines (TLN 1833-46) in Q2/F1, is devised
in the rearranging of scenes to introduce the scene of Hamlet’s encounter with Polonius,
found earlier in Q1 at TLN 1203 and following.
feel him
Sound him out.
Now … know me?
Q2/F1 read
Do you knowe (know) me my Lord?Q1 returns at this point to the scene located in Q2/F1 after Polonius has read Hamlet’s letters to Ophelia to the King and Queen and has undertaken to query Hamlet about his erratic behavior. See note at 205-9 above. Q1 follows Q2/F1 in this scene fairly closely in some lines, but with notable omissions and changes, some of which are recorded here.
Yea, very well
Q2 reads
Excellent well,F1
Excellent, excellent well.After line 213, Q1 omits most the dialogue of Q2/F1 down to line 216.
Words, words
Q2/F1 read
Words, words, words.
the matter you read
F1’s dropping the
thatin Q2’s
the matter that you readcould be inadvertent or editorial. F1 erroneously prints
the matter you meane,mistakenly picking up meane from
I meaneearlier in the line.
Marry … heresy
Q2 reads
Slaunders sir,F1
Slanders Sir.
satirical satyr
Satirical beast.
Q1 reads
Satyricall Satyre,Q2
satericall rogue,F1
Satyricall slaue.F1’s reading could be authorial, though the passage in general contains many questionable readings. Hamlet’s list of old age’s physical characteristics in Q1 resembles that of Q2/F1 but with different wording.
All … believe not
Q2/F1 read
all which sir (Sir,) though I most powerfully and potentlie belieue (potently beleeue).Lines 226-7 in Q1 are close to Q2/F1. Following this, Q1 omits some 4 lines of Q2/F1.
pregnant
Cogent, full of meaning.
vehemency
Q1 reads
vemencie.Q1’s wording in lines 230-2 make use, with variations, of Polonius’s earlier aside at TLN 1226-8.
Will … my lord?
Q1 follows the wording here of Q2/F1, but places it before the Polonius’s remarks
about Hamlet’s
pregnantreplies at TLN 1247 ff.
Into … answers
Q1’s wording here make use, with variations, of Hamlet’s wry observation and Polonius’s
aside comment at TLN 1246-7.
My lord … of you
Q1 paraphrases Q2/F1 in this line but omits some lines of Polonius that precede 237
(TLN 1249-55).
withal
With.
Q1 prints
with all,Q2/F1
withall.Q1 then omits Q2/F1’s
except my life, except my life, except my life.
free of / Yourselves
A matter of your own choosing.
Lines 244-6 give a very brief paraphrase of Hamlet’s first greeting with Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern, TLN 1266 ff. Q1 then omits some 50 lines found in Q2/F1, leading
up to his questioning whether they have come of their own volition. The scene thereafter
is also abbreviated in Q1.
I want preferment
I lack social and political advancement (implicitly, the kingship that is rightfully
mine).
Compare Q2/F1’s
I lacke advancement,said by Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern after the play within the play (TLN 2210).
I think not so
I can scarcely believe that.
Yes, faith … though you laugh
Q1 provides a brief approximation of Hamlet’s speech in Q2/F1, TLN 1340-57.
spangled
Sprinkled with stars.
boarded them
Came along side them (a nautical metaphor).
Q1’s
Boardedsubstitutes for Q2’s
cotedand F1’s
coated.Q1’s version of Hamlet’s conversation about the visiting players in Q2/F1 is very abbreviated.
the tragedians … often
Q2/F1 read
Euen those you were wont to take such delight in, the Tragedians of the City.
travel
I.e., tour the provinces.
Q1 spells the word
trauell.The Q2/F1 spelling,
trauaile,suggests both travel and travail, labor. Hamlet’s question here about the players introduces the topic of those players and their troubles with juvenile actors in rival acting companies acting
private plays(line 277), a subject explored at length in F1 (1374-1407) but missing in Q2. Q1 gives a severely truncated version in lines 272-8.
resty
Indolent, lazy; or restive.
Not in Q2; F1 reads
rusty.
the humor of children
I.e., the satirical fashion of acting favored by the boy actors in the so-called
privatetheaters.
mops and mows
Faces, grimaces.
Q1 reads
mops and moes,Q2 reads
mouths,F1 reads
mowes,all yielding essentially the same meaning. Lines 279-83 in Q1 give a paraphrase of Q2/F1, TLN 1409-14.
pounds
Q1’s substitute for Q2’s
ducketsand F1’s
Ducates.The amounts in Q1 differ from those in Q2/F1.
He that … freely
The equivalent passage in Q2/F1 comes earlier, at TLN 1366-72. Verbally Q1 is quite
close here to Q2/F1, except that
the humorous Man shall end his part in peaceis omitted in Q1 before
the Clowne.
tribute of me
Payment; homage, praise from me.
Q2’s
on memay be idiomatic in Elizabethan usage, or could be an error for Q1/F1’s
of me.
foil and target
Sword and shield.
shall sigh gratis
Will sigh for nothing, i.e., with a greatly exaggerated melancholy and with no benefit.
Q1 here may well be a misprint for Q2/F1’s
shall not sigh gratis.
in the lungs
Compare Q2/F1
As deepe as to the lunges (Lungs)(TLN 1615).
halt
Limp, stumble.
Do you … he is not yet
Q2/F1 read
Harke (Hearke) you Guyldensterne (Guildensterne), and you to (too), at each eare a hearer, that great baby you see there is not yet.
swaddling-clouts
Clothes in which a baby is wrapped to keep it safe and still.
That may be
Q2/F1 read
Happily he is (he’s) the second time come to them.
I’ll prophesy to you
Q2/F1 read
I will prophecy (Prophesie).
You say … indeed
(Hamlet pretends to be in serious conversation with his friends.)
Q2/F1 read
mark it, / You say right sir, a (for a) Monday morning, t’was then indeede (indeed).
My lord … to tell you
Q2/F1 follow this line with Hamlet’s mocking riposte, repeating what Polonius has
just said to him. Omitted in Q1.
Roscius
Quintus Roscius Gallus, the famous Roman actor, c. 126-62 BC.
Spelled
Rossiosin Q1,
Rossiusin Q2/F1.
Buzz, buzz
An interjection, here conveying Hamlet’s contempt for Polonius’s telling the already
stale news of the actors’ arrival.
Q2/F1 provide here two short lines, missing in Q1:
Pol. Vppon (Vpon) my (mine) honor. / Ham. Then came (can) each Actor on his Asse(TLN 1442-3).
in Christendom
Q2/F1 read
in the world.
comedy, tragedy
Q2/F1 read
Tragedie, Comedy (Comedie).
Pastoral-historical, historical-comical
Printed
Pastorall, Historicall, Historicall, Comicallin Q1. Q2/F1 read
Pastorall Comicall, Historicall Pastorall.
Comical-historical-pastoral, tragedy-historical:
Q2/F1 read
scene indeuidible (indiuible), or Poem vnlimited.
Seneca
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger (c. 3 BC-65 AD), the most widely
read of Latin writers of tragedy.
Plato
Q1’s error for
Plautusin Q2/F1, i.e., Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254-184 BC), the most popular of Latin writers of the so-called New Comedy.
For … men
For, according to classical standards and criteria, these are the supreme exemplars
of tragedy and comedy.
Q2/F1 read
for the lawe of writ, and the liberty: these are the only men.
Jephthah … Israel
The old-Testament patriarch (Judges 11:30-40) who vowed that he would sacrifice the
first living thing he saw if God granted him the defeat of the Ammonites in battle;
the first thing he saw turned out to be his daughter and only child.
Spelled
Ieptain Q1/Q2,
Iepthain F1.
Why, what
Q2/F1 read
What.
one fair … well
Hamlet quotes from a ballad about Jephthah and his daughter.
passing
Exceedingly.
ah, still harping … my Lord
Q2/F1 read
Pol. Still on my daughter (Daughter). / Ham. Am I not i’th right old Ieptha?
Nay … not
I.e., (1) Just because you resemble Jephthah in having a daughter does not logically
demonstrate that you love her; (2) You haven’t quoted the next line of the ballad.
What … lord?
Polonius asks, what does follow logically? But Hamlet answers as if Polonius had asked,
what is the next line of the ballad?
by lot
By chance.
God wot
God knows.
or as it … tell you all
Q2/F1 read
and then you knowe (know,) it came to passe, as most like it was; the first rowe of the pious (Pons) chanson will showe (shew) you more.
ballad
Q1 prints
Ballet.
my abridgement
(1) something that will cut short what I was about to say; (2) my entertainment or
diversion.
masters
Good sirs. (Said with polite condescension to social inferiors.)
Also in line 325 below. For the beginning of Hamlet’s speech, Q2/F1 read
You are (Y’are) welcome maisters (Masters), welcome all, I am glad to see thee well, welcome good friends, oh old friend, why thy Face (O my olde Friend? Thy face).
valanced
I.e., fringed with beard. (A valance is usually a drapery hung along the edge of a
bed, table, altar, canopy, etc.)
beard
Confront, challenge, defy. (With obvious pun on the player’s beard.)
My young lady
The boy actor, to whom the female roles are assigned.
mistress
Hamlet addresses the boy actor with playful and courtly hyperbole as if he/she, now
coming to age as a young adult, were a woman to be admired and courted. (With no necessary
suggestion of the modern sense.)
By’r Lady
By Our Lady (the Virgin Mary). A mild oath.
Q1 prints
burlady.Q2’s
By ladyis perhaps a misprint for F1’s
Byrlady.
is grown . . than you were
Q2/F1 read
is nerer to heauen (neerer Heauen), then when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine (Choppine).
chopine
High platform shoe of Italian fashion.
uncurrent / Gold
Gold coin not legal because it is cracked or chipped inside the ring enclosing the
image of the sovereign. Shaving or chipping gold coins was a common form of cheating.
cracked … ring
I.e., the young male’s voice having lost its soprano range suitable for acting female
parts.
Come on, masters
Q2/F1 read
maisters (Masters), you are all welcome.
even to’t … falconers
Go at it like the French, who are presumed here to be avid falconers, not discriminating
as to what they loose their birds to fly at.
Q2’s
friendly Fanknersis sensibly corrected to
French Faulconersin F1, confirmed by Q1.
Come, a taste … passionate speech
Q2/F1 read
weele (wee’l) haue a speech straite, come (Speech straight. Come) giue vs a tast of your quality, come a passionate speech.
Quality
Skill in acting.
but it
But the play of which this speech was a part.
pleased … million
I.e., was a delicacy not generally appreciated by unsophisticated tastes.
Q2/F1 read
pleasd not the million, t’was cauiary (Cauiarie) to the generall.Throughout, Q1’s report of this speech of Hamlet is reasonably close to Q2/F1.
in … kind
In much the way that I did.
Cried … judgments
Proclaimed it authoritatively.
modesty
Moderation, restraint.
cunning
Skill.
sallets
I.e., spicy bits, improprieties. (Literally, salads.)
Aeneas’ … Dido
The story of the fall of Troy, as told by Aeneas to Dido in Book I of Virgil’s Aeneid.
The Virgilian story, not told in Homer’s Iliad, had been dramatized by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe in Dido Queen of Carthage (c. 1585). Shakespeare tells a similar story, about ancient Rome, in The Rape of Lucrece.
princes’ slaughter
Q2/F1 read, more convincingly,
Priams slaughter.
rugged
Shaggy, savage.
Pyrrhus
Pyrrhus, also known as Neoptolemus, was the son of Achilles, and was thus another
son (like Hamlet or Laertes or Fortinbras) seeking to avenge his father’s death.
Greek legend reports that Achilles, hsving been smitten by the charms of King Priam’s
daughter Polyxena, went to the Temple of Apollo to negotiate the marriage, where he
was wounded fatally in the heel by a poisoned arrow shot by Paris. The heel was Achilles’s
only vulnerable spot—literally, his Achilles’s heel—since his mother, Thetis, in an
attempt to bestow immortality on him, had dipped him as an infant into the River Styx,
but held him by the ankle.
Hyrcanian beast
A tiger from Hyrcania, on the Caspian Sea, famed for its wild beasts.
Q1 reads
arganian,Q2
ircanian,F1
Hyrcanian.
Oh … it
Omitted in Q2/F1; perhaps an actor’s interpolation.
sable arms
Black armor.
couchèd
Concealed.
the ominous horse
The fateful wooden Trojan horse, hidden inside of which 30 Greek warriors deceitfully
gained access to the citadel of Troy.
black and grim
Q2/F1 read
dread and black (blacke).
heraldry more dismal
I.e., the blood that Pyrrhus has smeared on his already dark and terrifying appearance.
Q2’s
heraldymay be a misprint, or an alternative spelling for F1’s
Heraldry,confirmed by Q1.
total guise
Completely outfitted or masked.
Q2 reads
totall Gules,F1
to take Geulles.Q2’s reading, seemingly the most authoritative, means “totally red, as if in heraldic colors.” Q1 reads
totall guise.
tricked
Smeared, decorated.
Baked and imparchèd … gore
Baked and roasted by parching heat in coagulated blood.
Q2/F1 read
Bak’d and empasted (impasted) with the parching streetes (streets).Q1’s
colagulate goreappears to be a recollection of a phrase three lines later in Q2/F1,
And thus ore-cised with coagulate gore,TLN 1504.
Rifted … fire
Q2/F1 read
That lend a tirranus and a (tyrannous, and) damned light / To their Lords murther (vilde Murthers), rosted (roasted) in wrath and fire, / And thus ore-cised with coagulate gore, / With eyes like Carbunkles (Carbuncles), the hellish Phirrhus (Pyrrhus).
Rifted
Torn apart.
Probably an error for Q2/F1’s
rosted (roasted).
So, go on
Q2 read
so proceede you.Omitted in F1.
Afore … accent
Q2/F1 read
Foregod (Fore God,) my Lord (Lord,) well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
Anon
Soon.
antic
Ancient, long-used; ludicrously inadequate.
Q1 spells it
antike,Q2/F1
anticke.The word may suggest both ancient and antic, i.e., comically or absurdly inadequate.
rebellious to his arm
Resistant to Priam’s bidding.
unable to resist
Q2/F1 read
Repugnant to commaund (command).
but, all in rage
Q2/F1 read
in rage strikes wide.
th’unnervèd father
The strengthless old man (and father of many sons).
Following this line, Q2/F1 provide some 22 lines (TLN 1515-37) omitted in Q1.
Enough … long
Q2/F1 read
This is too long.
A pox!
Q2/F1 read
prethee (Prythee) say on.
Come on … come
Q2/F1 read
say on, come to Hecuba.
moblèd
Veiled, muffled.
Q2 adds, after line 369,
Ham. The mobled Queene,F1
The inobled Queene?missing in Q1. F1’s inobled could mean “made noble” or perhaps “deprived of nobility,” but it may simply indicate how unusual and easily miscopied Q1/Q2’s
mobledappears to be.
Moblèd … very good
Q2 reads
That’s good,F1
That’s good: Inobled Queene is good.
the alarum
Q1’s
the alarum,confirming F1’s reading, is entirely plausible, suggesting a battle signal. Q2 reads
the alarme.Lines 371-80 in Q1 gives a shortened and sometimes reworded and reordered version of Q2/F1.
weake
Q2/F1 read
lanck (lanke).
kercher
Q2/F1 read
clout.
late
Lately.
diadem
Crown.
Who this had seen
Whoever had seen this.
Compare TLN 1542 above.
with tongue-envenomed speech
Q2/F1 read
with tongue in venom (Venome) steept (steep’d).
Would … pronounced
Would have protested treasonously against Fortune’s fickle rule.
For it … had seen
Q2/F1 read
But if … did see.
with malicious strokes / Mincing
Q2/F1 read
make malicous sport / In mincing with his sword.After line 378, Q1 omits two lines in Q2/F1, TLN 1556-7.
It would … heaven
It would have caused the sun and other heavenly bodies to weep. (
Milchmeans “milky, moist with tears.”)
Q2/F1 read
Wouldhere for Q1’s
It would.
And passion
And would have provoked compassionate pity.
changed
Q2/F1 read
turnd (turn’d).
No more, good heart
Q2/F1 read
prethee (Pray you) no more.
’Tis well … my lord
Q2/F1 read
Tis well, Ile haue thee speake out the rest of this (rest,) soone. Good my lord.
bestowed
Lodged.
I tell you
Q2/F1 read
doe you (D0 ye) heare, let them be well vsed (vs’d), for.
they … time
Playwrights and actors give a concise account and epitome of the age in which we live.
Q2/F1 read
they are the abstract (Abstracts) and breefe Chronicles of the time.
your death
Q2/F1 read
your death you were better.
You … epitaph
I.e., You would do better to have a generally unsavory reputation.
Q1 reads
Epiteethfor Q2/F1’s
Epitaph.Some editors speculate that Q1’s reading is intended for
epithet.
after
According to.
deserts
Q2/F1 read
desert (desart).
Then
Q2/F1 read
& (and).
the greater credit’s yours
Q2/F1 read
the more merrit (merit) is in your bounty (bountie). Take them in.
And couldst … for a need
You could, if asked to do so for a necessary reason.
Prior to line 398, Q2/F1 provide a brief dialogue in which Hamlet bids the players
follow Polonius and says to them
weele heare a play to morrow,asking if they can play
the murther of Gonzagoand then saying,
Weele hate to morrowe night.This takes the place of lines 395 and part of 396 in Q1. Hamlet continues, as essentially in Q1,
you could for neede.
study me
Learn, memorize, at my request.
Meis an archaic dative. Q2/F1 read simply
study.
dozen or sixteen
Q2 reads
dosen lines, or sixteene lines.F1 is essentially identical with Q1.
Which I … insert?
Q2/F1 read
which I would set downe and insert in’t, could you (ye) not?
Yes … lord
Q2/F1 read
I my Lord.
’Tis well. I thank you
Q2/F1 read
Very well.
And … Take heed
Q2/F1 read
& (and) looke.
Gentlemen … leave me
Q1 here is a paraphrase of Q2/F1’s TLN’s 1585-6.
dunghill idiot slave
Q1’s rough approximation of Q2/F1’s
rogue and pesant slaue (Rogue and Pesant slaue)is characteristic of many variants between Q1 and the other two early texts in this famous soliloquy, TLN 1591-1644. Q1 omits a line preceding line 407 in Q2/F1:
I so God buy to you (buy’ye), now I am alone(TLN 1589).
For … my loss?
Q2/F1 read
For Hecuba. / What’s Hecuba to him, or he to her (Hecuba), / That he should weepe for her? what would he doe / Had he the motiue, and that (the Cue) for passion / That I haue?
judicial
Judicious.
general
Universal.
John-a-Dreams
An idle dreamer.
plucks … beard
Yanks at my beard’ (A deep insult, questioning the manliness of the person thus insulted.)
Q2/F1 read
Pluckes off my beard.
twits my nose
Insults my nose.
Q2/F1 read
'Twekes me by the nose (Tweakes me by’th'Nose).
down to
Q2/F1 read
As deepe as to.
Sure
An expurgation. Q2 reads
Hah, s’wounds,F1
Hah? Why.
this slave’s offal
This wretch’s entrails.
Q1 follows in this line with
this damned villain,Q2/F1 with
bloody, (a Bawdy) villaine.
Treacherous … villain
Q2/F1 read
Remorselesse, treacherous (Treacherous), lecherous (Letcherous), kindlesse (kindles) villaine.F1 then follows, on a separate line, with
Oh Vengeance!,omitted from Q1/Q2.
Why … that I
Q2/F1 read
Why (Who?) what an Asse am I, (I sure) this is most braue.
the son … father
Q2/F1 read
the sonne of a (the) deere murthered.Often emended to the son of a dear father murdered. Q2/F1 then add a line missing in Q1:
Prompted to my reuenge by heauen and hell(TLN 1625).
Should … words
Q2/F1 read
Must like a whore vnpacke my hart (heart) with words, / And fall a cursing like a very drabbe (Drab): a stallyon (Scullion), fie vppont (vpon’t), foh.
scallion
Scullion, kitchen wench.
Q2 reads
stallyon,F1
Scullion.Q1’s
scalionis presumably an alternate form of
scullionor a misprint for it.
About
Go about it, get to work.
brain
Q2 reads
braines,F1
Braine.
Hath
Q2/F1 read
Haue.
confessed … long before
Q1 here replaces several lines in Q2/F1, TLN 1630-37.
This
Q2/F1 read
The.
the devil
Q2 reads
a deale,F1
the Deuill.Q2/F1 then provide
and the deale (Diuel) hath power / T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps,not in Q1.
such men
Q2/F1 read
such spirits.
Doth … proofs
Q2/F1 read
Abuses me to damne me. Ile haue grounds / More relatiue then this.
Lords … lunacy?
Q1 offers a paraphrase of Q2/F1 in these and many of the following lines of scene
8.
something
Somewhat.
likes
Pleases.
likes
Pleases.
still
Continually.
what
In whatsoever.
want
Lack.
leave
Permission.
distemperence
Compare
distemperancyat 7.7 (TLN 2207-8) above.
meet
Fitting.
Else … meet
I.e., It would not be appropriate for Hamlet and his mother to meet without a secret
witness. (Corambis here anticipates what he will say in the following lines.)
The pun on
meetin the previous line is not in Q2/F1 (Arden 3).
sports
Entertainments, here signifying the play that is to be presented by the visiting players.
At this point the text of Q1 shifts forward in Q2/F1 to TLN 1837, thereby setting
up the scene of Hamlet preparing the actors to present
The Murder of Gonzago,rather than, as in Q2/F1, preparing for Hamlet’s
To be or not to besoliloquy, which has been moved in Q1 (TLN 1710 ff.) to 7.117-38 above.
arras
Wall hangings, curtain.
nature
I.e., the natural love of a son for his mother.
Gertred
Q1’s
Gerterdis presumably a misprint for
Gretred.
Myself … to her
Corambis’s
to hersuggests that this speech may be said to the King about the Queen as she is exiting. The rhymed couplet does not occur in Q2/F1 (Arden 3). In Q2/F1, Gertrude’s departure is followed by the spying by the King and Polonius of Hamlet’s interview with Ophelia, Hamlet’s
To be or not to besoliloquy, his turning on Ophelia, and the King’s telling Polonius of his determination to send Hamlet to England, all of which, except the last item, takes place in scene 7 of Q1, above.
his grief
Hamlet’s cause of unhappiness.
Pronounce … thee
Q1 is reasonably close to Q2/F1 in Hamlet’s speeches to the players, albeit with many
word substitutions. Q1 roughly versifies what is prose speech in Q2/F1.
Marry, an you mouth it
Forsooth, if you declaim it or speak it exaggeratedly.
Q2/F1 read
but if you mouth it.
your players
Q2 reads
our Players,F1
your Players.
I’d … lines
The town bull is one owned collectively by a village to serve as stud for the cattle.
Q2/F1 read
I had as liue the towne cryer spoke (had spoke) my lines.
hands
Q2/F1 read
hand.
But … his temperance
Perform every action temperately. (
Hismeans “its.”)
Q2/F1 read:
for in the very (verie) torrent, tempest, and I (as I) may say, (the) whirlwind of (your) passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance.
periwig
I.e., wig-wearing.
Q2/F1’s
perwig-pated (Pery-wig-pated)makes clear the expression that Q1 presumably is approximating.
in totters
To tatters.
Q2 reads
to totters,F1
to tatters.
ignorant
Q2/F1 read
groundlings.
noises
Q2/F1 read
noyse (noise).
Termagant
A supposed Mohammedan deity who, though not actually found in extant English medieval
drama, had become a byword for tyrannical bluster, like Herod (see next note).
Compare Falstaff’s characterization of the Scot warrior, known as the Douglas, as
that hot termagant Scot (1 Henry IV, 5.4.113-14). Q1 follows Q2/F1 fairly closely at this point, albeit lined as verse
rather than prose.
Herod
King of Judea who ordered the massacre of all male children in his kingdom as a means
of destroying the child that, wise men told him, was born King of the Jews (Matthew
2:2)—namely, Christ. This Herod was a figure of comic bluster in
The Massacre of the Innocentsand other episodes from the Christmas story in medieval religious drama. (Q1 omits much of Hamlet’s continuation of his lecture to the players on the purposes of acting, TLN 1863-76.)
In Q2/F1, Hamlet adds
pray you auoyde (auoid) it,to which the chief Player responds,
I warrant your honour (Honor.
indifferently … among us
Moderately well reformed that in our practice of the art of acting.
Q2/F1 read
indifferently with vs.In Q2/F1, this line is preceded by a substantial speech (TLN 1864-83) in which Hamlet, offers further advice on good acting method and on the purpose of dramatic art
to holde as twere the Mirrovr vp to Nature.Parts of this speech are contained in Hamlet’s next speech in Q1, lines 14-22.
The better … altogether
Q2/F1 read
O reforme it altogether.
There be … abhominable
These phrases, reworded slightly, are found in Q2/F1 in Hamlet’s previous speech,
TLN 1876-83.
Nor Turk
Q1 plausibly varies this reading from Q2’s
nor manand F1’s
or Norman.
Nature’s journeymen
I.e., not Nature herself but merely one of her hired assistants.
abhominable
Q1’s
abhominable,and Q2/F1’s
abhominably,adopting a spelling strongly preferred throughout Shakespeare’s texts, preserves a then-popular false etymology, as if the word were derived from Latin ab + homine, removed from human nature, instead of the truer derivation, ab + omen, far distant from the shades of the dead.
Take heed … my lord
Q2/F1 read
pray you auoyde (auoid) it. I warrant your honour (Honor)back at TLN 1862-3.
And do … is set down
Q2/F1 read, some 15 lines later,
and let those that play your clownes speake no more then is set downe for them(TLN 1886-8).
There be of them … useth it
Q2/F1 read
for there be of them that wil (will) themselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of barraine (barren) spectators to laugh to, (too,) though in the meane time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered, that’s villanous, and (&) shewes a most pitifull ambition in the foole that vses it.Q1 then follow with an 11-line passage that is quite unlike anything in Q2/F1 (lines 31-41, TLN 1892.1-11).
set on
Incite.
barren
Devoid of wit or judgment.
one suit / Of jests
One repertory of witticisms.
Jestsis spelled
ieastsin Q1.
tables
Notebooks.
before … play
I.e., they have all heard these jokes before.
cullison
A corruption of “cognizance,” a badge or coat of arms or heraldic crest identifying
all the servants of a noble house.
cinquepace
Literally, a lively galliard-like dance, based on the number five; here a medley.
Spelled
cinkapasein Q1.
warm
Warming to his work, zealous.
tell him of it
Tell your Clown to avoid such stale stuff.
[Horatio!]
Hamlet’s calling to Horatio, needed to explain the next line, is omitted in Q1 but
is here supplied from Q2/F1, which read,
What howe, Horatio.and
What hoa, Horatio?(As Arden 3 notes, Q1 spells out Horatio in full, rather than using the normal Hor. as speech heading.) Horatio’s immediate entrance in response to his being called, plainly implied in Q1, is supplied from Q2/F1 (TLN 1901).
Here, my lord
Q2/F1 read
Here (Heere) sweet Lord, at your seruice.
even as just
Absolutely as judicious and trustworthy.
Q2/F1 read
een (eene) as iust.
As … withal
As I have ever encountered in my experience with people.
Oh, my lord!
Q2/F1 read
O my deere Lord.
Nay … thee?
Q2/F1 read
Nay, doe (do) not thinke I flatter.
Why … mind?
Q2/F1 read, in inverted order,
For what aduancement may I hope from thee / That no reuenew (Reuennew) hast but thy good spirits / To feede and clothe thee, why should the poore be flatterd (flatter’d)?
Let … Horatio
Let flattery keep company with those who are time-servers in their speech, chatting
unctuously with those who love to hear themselves praised, rather than with persons
of your great sensibility, Horatio.
Q1 shortens and rewords Q2/F1’s longer version of Hamlet’s loving praise for Horatio
As one in suffering all that suffers nothing,TLN 1911-25).
There is … observe him well
Q1 follows the train of thought here in Q2/F1, with altered wording and images.
And
Q1’s
Andcould be a variant spelling of An, if, but it makes sense as And.
bleach
Turn pale, blench.
Compare
blenchin Q2/F1 at TLN 1637.
My lord … note it
As at lines 57-64 above, Q1 here follows the train of thought in Q2/F1, with altered
wording and images.
still
Continually.
And not … note it
And I will not let even the smallest alteration in his appearance escape my noting
it down.
Ofelia
Ofelia’s name, omitted from the entrance SD here in Q1, is supplied from Q2/F1. Rossencraft
and Gilderstone (differently spelled) are named in F1, though not in Q1/Q2. Q2 makes
no provision for
other Lords.Q2 specifies
Trumpets and Kettle Drummes.F1 adds
Torches. Danish March. Sound a Flourish.
how fare you?
How are things with you, my kinsman Hamlet? (But Hamlet, in his
reply, plays on
faresin the sense of dines.)
Q2/F1 read
How fares our cosin Hamlet?
the chamelion’s … air
(1) I am feeding on air, like the chameleon (which was fabled to feed thus); (2) I
am feeding myself with thoughts about succeeding to the Danish crown, having been
given nothing but empty promises of succession. (Hamlet is
heirapparent; the word sounds like air.) Capons are castrated roosters, a tasty dish.
Compare the proverb, Love is a chameleon that feeds on air (Dent L505.1, noted by
Arden 3). Compare too the cramming of geese with feed to make paté de foie gros. Q2/F1
read
Of the Camelions dish, I eate the ayre, / Promis cram’d (promise-cramm’d), you cannot feede (feed) Capons so.
Ay, father!
Perhaps Hamlet is responding, ironically and even pretending at madness, to the King’s
having addressed him in line 69 as
son Hamlet.In Q2/F1 the King instead addresses him as
our cosin Hamlet(TLN 1948). See also line 139 and note below, where Hamlet again addresses the King as
fatherin Q1 but not in Q2/F1.
you played … university
Q2/F1 read
You playd (plaid) once i’th Vniuersitie (i’th'Vniuersity) you say.
counted
Q2/F1 read
accounted.This exchange in Q1 about Corambis’s/Polonius’s acting is reasonably close to that of Q2/F1.
in the Capitol
In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Caesar is assassinated in the Capitol (3.1.12). Historically, Caesar was assassinated
in Pompey’s porch, the colonnade of Pompey’s great open theater, dedicated in 55 BC.
Shakespeare mentions in that play that the conspirators are waiting for Cassius In
Pompey’s porch (1.3.126).
brute
The word plays on Brutus, the name of one of the chief conspirators against Caesar and also a synonym in Latin
for brutus, stupid.
According to historical legend, Marcus Brutus’s great ancestor in the founding of
the Roman republic, Lucius Junius Brutus, pretended to be stupid (much as Hamlet assumes
a guise of madness) to throw off his tyrannical enemies; hence, his name Brutus, stupid). A passage in Henry V compares King Henry’s wild youth with the evasive tactics of the first Roman Brutus,
/ Covering discretion with a coat of folly (2.4.37-8; see Arden 3).
part
(1) action; (2) role in a play.
so capital a calf
I.e., so egregious a fool.
With satirical wordplay on
capital/Capitol; see the previous two speeches.
Come … ready?
In Q2/F1, Rosencrantz answers Hamlet’s question with
I my Lord, they stay vpon your patience(TLN 1962), that is omitted in Q1.
Hamlet … by me
Q2/F1 read
Come hether (hither) my deere (good) Hamlet, sit by me.The following exchange between the Queen and Hamlet in Q1 is reasonably close to Q2/F1.
mettle more attractive
(1) a substantive of a more attractive quality (much as a magnet attracts iron); (2)
a person of a more attractive disposition.
Spelled
mettlein Q1/Q2/F1, with perhaps a primary meaning here of
metal.In Q2/F1, Polonius says, aside,
O ho, do you marke that?omitted in Q1 (TLN 1965).
Lady … lap?
Onstage, Hamlet often reclines at Ophelia’s feet. Q2/F1 read
Lady (Ladie,) shall I lie (lye) in your lap?Q1’s
and so forthcould be an invitation to the actor to improvise bawdily.
contrary
Contradictory, the opposite of what I said.
Contraryhere in Q1 may be an error for Q2/F1’s
country,with bawdy suggestion. Q2/F1 then reinforce the bawdry by adding Hamlet’s
That’s a fayre (faire) thought to lye betweene maydes (ly between Maids) legs,and a substantial ensuing dialogue about the Queen’s evidently having forgotten her dead husband, omitted in Q1 (TLN 1972-89).
the King and the Queen
The characters in the dumb show here named as King and Queen become
the Duke and Dutchesseat line 97.1 (cf. TLN 2023) below, as they are about to speak, and then in the speech prefixes that follow, and similarly in Q2/F1. All three texts contain Hamlet’s reference to
the Duke’s namein a real-life incident; see TLN 2107.
miching Mallico
Stealthy iniquity.
Q2 reads
muching Mallico,F1
Miching Malicho.
mischief
Q1 reads
my chiefe.
keep counsel
Keep a secret.
Q2 reads
cannot keepe,F1
cannot keepe counsell.Q1 is substantially close to Q2/F1 in lines 87-91. Lines 92-4 are essentially identical, and 95=7 very close.
stooping … clemency
Bowing to you, merciful and generous patrons.
[Exit]
None of the early texts specifies an exit for the Prologue, and conceivably he is
to remain on stage, but exits are often omitted.
a poesie … ring
A posy or brief verse motto inscribed inside a ring.
Q1/F1’s
Poesieis the fuller form of Q2’s
posie.
short
Q2/F1 read
breefe (briefe).
the Duke and Duchess
Compare
the King and the Queenat 83.1 and note above.
forty
Q2/F1 read
thirtie.The following dialogue of Duke and Duchess, i.e., Player King and Player Queen, departs verbally from Q2/F1 while keeping the gist of the conversation. The rhymed couplets similarly follow the pattern of Q2 and F1 but with different rhymes (Irace).
whilom
Formerly.
More wise … one—
The lack of a rhyming matched couplet here suggests textual corruption.
she kills
Q2 reads
who kild,F1
who kill’d.Q1 offers a more direct accusation of the Queen than in the other texts.
my lord that’s
Q2/F1 read read
my husband.Otherwise, this couplet, lines 113-14, corresponds exactly with Q2/F1. Those texts add an interpolation missing in Q1:
That’s wormwood(Q2),
Wormwood, wormwood(F1, TLN 2049).
I do believe you, sweet, … speak
Q2 reads
I doe belieue you think what now your speake.F1 reads, less convincingly,
I do beleeue you. Think what now you speak.
But … break
This line is identical in Q1/Q2/F1. The rest of the Duke’s speech here is substantially
shortened in Q1, skipping from TLN 2054 to 2080.
demises
Intentions. Literally, conveyances of transfers of an estate by will or lease (OED).
Q1’s reading is very probably an error for Q2/F1’s
deuises (Deuices).Lines 118-21 is nearly identical in Q1/Q2/F1, except that
endreplaces Q2’s
end’sin line 119 and
thou wiltreplaces Q1’s
you willin line 120.
still
Continually.
Our thoughts … our own
No matter what we intend, the results go astray.
So, think
I.e., (1) So, go ahead and think, or, (2) So, even if you think now that.
Q1/Q2/F1 all provide no comma after
So,but it clarifies the sense for modern readers.
Both … strife
May eternal punishment pursue me in this life and the next.
Q1/Q2/F1 are essentially identical in lines 122-3, except that Q1/F1 read
once a widow (Widdow)for Q2’s
once I be a widdow.
break now
Break her word.
Q2/F1 read
breake it now.
fain
Willingly.
time
Q2/F1 read
day.This passage (lines 125-9) is otherwise essentially identical in Q1/Q2/F1.
protests too much
Offers too many promises and protestations.
Q2/F1 read
doth protest (protests) too (to) much mee thinks (thinkes).In lines 130-45, Q1 is generally quite close to Q2/F1, with a few exceptions as noted below.
argument
Plot.
offense … offense
(with wordplay): something that offends one’s sensibilities … crime.
No … in jest
Q2/F1 read
No, no, they do but iest, poyson in iest, no offence i’th world.
jest
Make believe.
the name of the play?
Q2/F1 read
the play?
Mousetrap
Hamlet’s nickname here for
The Murder of Gonzagohints to the audience at his plan to use the play to
catch the conscience of the King(TLN 1645).
Q2/F1 read
The Mousetrap (Mouse-trap).
Trapically
I.e., Tropically, figuratively, as in a trope or figure of speech; here with wordplay in
Trapicallyon Trap,
Mousetrap,earlier in this same line.
Q2/F1 spell the word
Tropically.
Guiana
I.e., Vienna (?).
Q1’s
guyanamay be an error for Q2/F1’s
Vienna.
Albertus
Q2/F1 read
Gonzago,a name more in keeping with Q2/F1’s name for the play being staged by the players,
The Murder of Gonzago(TLN 1577-8). In the historical account of the murder of the Duke of Urbino in 1538, Luigi Gonzaga is named as one of the murderers. Albertus Magnus or Albert the Great, of Cologne, Dominican theologian and instructor of Thomas Aquinas, was a Catholic saint of the thirteenth century.
the duke’s
I.e., the King’s.
The use here of
Duke’sin Q1/Q2/F1 may suggest Shakespeare’s awareness of a historical incident in which the Duke of Urbino was allegedly murdered by Luigi Gonzaga and others in 1538 (see previous note).
Baptista
The Player Queen’s role is not given a name in Q2/F1.
Father
Hamlet never addresses the King as
fatherin Q2/F1. See line 71 and note above, where Hamlet appears also to address Claudius as
fatherin Q1 but not in Q2/F1.
toucheth
Concerns; injures.
Q2/F1 read
touches.
free
Guiltless, unfettered.
Let … wince
Let the chafed horse wince and kick at being galled by its saddle or harness (i.e.,
only the guilty will be made uncomfortable by this story of a duke who murders in
order to win the wife of his victim).
Q2/F1’s
winchis probably a spelling variant of Q1’s
wince.Those two texts add a phrase missing from Q1:
our withers are vnwrong (vnwrung).
[Enter Lucianus]
This stage direction, omitted in Q1, is supplied here from Q2/F1 and placed as in
Q2.
a chorus
An actor whose function is to introduce forthcoming action on stage, as in Henry V, Pericles, and The Winter’s Tale.
I could … poopies dallying
Hamlet imagines for himself the role of interpreter or chorus for a puppet show, with
the suggestion too of being a go-between in an affair.
Dallyingcontinues the sexual suggestion, as do Hamlet’s quips in the following lines; see notes.
Q2/F1 read
I could interpret betwene (betweene) you and your loue / If I could see the puppets dallying.Q1’s
poopiesis presumably intended to mean
puppets,as in Q2/F1, with sexual suggestion.
very pleasant
Jocular.
Q2/F1 read
keene.
Your only jig-maker
I.e., If you talk of being merry, let me tell you that I’m very best singer and dancer
of jigs (that is, of pointless vulgar merriment) you could hope to find. (Said sardonically.)
Jigs were often tacked on gratuitously at the ends of dramatic performances, for the
diversion of the audience. This speech of Hamlet, Ofelia’s reply, and Hamlet’s reflections
on building churches and on hobby-horses, lines 146-54, are brought forward to their
present location in Q1 from considerably earlier in Q2/F1, TLN 1978-89.
let … sables
I.e., if mourning for my dead father has ceased after only two months, then the devil
can wear mourning black for all I care, while I shift to the dark fur of the sable,
outwardly suitable for remembrance of the dead but in fact quite soft and luxurious.
Q1 here closely corresponds with Q2/F1.
a gentleman’s … memory
The memory of a gentleman may outlive his death.
Q2/F1’s phrasing is clearer:
a great mans memorie may out-liue his life halfe a yeere (yeare).
or else … epitithe
Q1’s
epititheis often modernized or corrected to
Epitaph.
Q2/F1 read
or els shal a (he) suffer not thinking on.Q2/F1 read
Epitaphat TLN 1989.
hobby-horse
A costuming device used in Morris dances and May-game sports in which the dancer is
made up to resemble a horse and its rider by strapping the shape of a horse’s body
around his waist.
Hamlet quotes from a lost ballad, occurring in Love’s Labor’s Lost, 3.1.27-8, lamenting the disappearance of Morris dancing and such folk customs under
pressure from zealous Puritan reformers. Following this line, Q1 omits a substantial
passage found in Q2/F1, containing a dumb show, a prologue, and considerable dialogue
between the Player King and Queen, interspersed with barbed comments by Hamlet.
Your jests … lord
Q2/F1 read
You are keene my lord, you are keene.See line 145 and note above.
keen
Sharp, bitterly satirical (but see next note for Hamlet’s wordplay).
It … off
It would cost you a pregnancy to satiate the keenness of my sexual appetite.
Q2/F1 read
It would cost you a groaning to take off mine (my) edge.
Still … worse
I.e., Witty as always, albeit incorrigibly smutty. (These exchanges are said as playful
banter, not as overt barbs.)
Hamlet plays on the language of the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony in the Book
of Common Prayer bidding bride and groom to take their new partners for better, for worse.
So you must take your husband
That is the marital duty you wives owe a husband.
Q2/F1 read
So you mistake (your) husbands,suggesting a very different and more misogynistic meaning: That’s just the way you women take other men into your beds instead of your husbands.
Murdered
Q1’s
Murdredcould be an aside, referring to Hamlet’s father as the murdered king, but is more probably a printing error for Q2/F1’s
murtherer (Murderer).
A pox
An exclamation of impatience, referring literally to the pock-marks caused by syphilis
and other diseases. Omitted in Q1, in a sentence that is otherwise very close in Q1
to Q2/F1.
leave
Leave off.
damnable faces
Deplorable grimaces.
the croaking … revenge
As Bullough and others editors note, this is a version of two lines from The True Tragedy of Richard III (c. 1591): The screeching Raven sits croaking for revenge. / Whole heads [herds]
of beasts come bellowing for revenge (Bullough, 3.339, 1892-3).
Confederate … seeing
A fitting time, with darkness to hinder discovery of the crime.
Q1/F1 read
Confederate,suggesting a time and occasion conspiring to assist the murderer by providing the secrecy of darkness. Q2’s
Consideratis intelligible, but it may well be a copying error, especially in view of the long s and its resemblance to f in Q2. This speech of Lucianus (in Q2/F1), assigned here to
Murd.,is otherwise very close in Q1 to Q2/F1.
rank
Foul, offensive.
Hecate’s bane
The poison associated with Hecate, goddess of witchcraft.
Q1’s
banefor Q2/F1’s
ban,i.e., “poison,” is a plausible reading.
blasted
Blighted.
infected
Q2 reads
inuected,F1
infected.
dire property
Baleful power or quality.
One
Q2/F1 read
On,which fits well with F1’s
vsurpelater in this same line. See next note.
usurps
Q1/Q2’s
vsurpsfor F1’s
vsurpeis a defensible reading in the declarative mode, but F1’s imperative
usurpseems more appropriate to Lucianus’s murderous intent, and the error in Q1/Q2, if it is an error, would be an easy one. In general, Q1’s version of lines 156-75 is close to that of Q2 and F1. After this sentence, on the other hand, Q1 abbreviates; lines 168-71 in Q1 take the place of TLN 2131-41, in which Hamlet quickly outlines the remainder of the plot of
The Murder of Gonzago,now having been broken off by the King’s rising.
[He pours … ears]
This stage direction, omitted in Q1/Q2, is taken from F1,
Powres the poyson in his eares.
The King rises
This phrase, here assigned to Corambis, is assigned in Q2/F1 to Ophelia.
What … fires
This line, omitted in Q2, is present in F1, reading
firefor Q1’s
fires.
Then … away
Seemingly from an unknown ballad, alluding to the folk tradition of the wounded deer
that retires from company to weep in solitude as it dies. Compare As You Like It, 2.1.33-6. Q1’s
Thenis replaced in Q2/F1 by
Why,and
strickenby Q2’s
strookenand F1’s
strucken.
ungallèd
Unafflicted.
laugh … weep
Q1 provides this opposition of
laughand
weepin place of Q2/F1’s
watchand
sleepe.
Thus … away
That is the way of the world.
Following this line, Q1 omits some eleven lines (TLN 2147-57) in Q2/F1 that include
another stanza seemingly from an unknown ballad.
moved
Distressed, made uneasy.
Here in Q1 Horatio offers this characterization of the King’s behavior on his own
initiative, not, as in Q2/F1, as a way of agreeing with Hamlet (
Did’st perceive?etc.; Arden 3).
Hamlet
The speech heading in Q1,
Hor.,is an erroneous copying of
Hor.directly above it in the previous line. Q2/F1 supply the correct reading,
Ham.
for more … Denmark
Q1 substitutes this phrase for Q2/F1’s
for a thousand pound.
Enter … Gilderstone
In Q2/F1, this entrance occurs after Hamlet declares that he will
take the Ghosts word for a thousand pound(TLN 2158-9) and 3 more lines of further conversation between Hamlet and Horatio (TLN 2160-2).
Now … thus much?
This passage in Q1, lines 179-87, substantially abbreviates Q2/F1, TLN 2146-2221.
An if
Q1’s
And ifcould be modernized as
An ifor
And if; since Q2/F1 read
For if,
An ifseems the more likely choice here.
tragedy
Q1 plausibly substitutes
tragedyfor Q2/F1’s
Comedie.
perdy
A version of the French par dieu, by God.
pleasant
Jocular, as at 9.145 above. Said ironically; Rossencraft asks, in effect, is this
a time for you to be joking in rhyme like this?
distemperature
Disorder.
Compare
distemperancyat 7.7 (TLN 2207-8) and
distemperanceat 8.27 (TLN 1674.4) above.
We … mother
This line in Q1 is essentially identical with Q2/F1, unlike the rest of this passage,
lines 179-87, in which Q1 generally abbreviates and rewords.
this pipe
This recorder.
Because Q1 lacks the stage direction in Q2 calling for the entrance of
the Players with recorders,altered in F1 to
Enter one with a Recorder,Q1 could imply that Hamlet produces the instrument himself. Otherwise, Q1 reproduces the substance of Hamlet’s exchange with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about what it means to play on a recorder (TLN 2216-42).
it is … nothing
It is something requiring hardly any skill all.
Q2/F1 read
It is ('Tis) as easie as lying.
Why … upon me
Q1 is often close to Q2/F1 in these lines, although leaving out some eloquent phrases.
You would seem … upon me
Q2/F1 invert the order here:
you would play vpon mee, you would seeme to know my stops.
Zounds
By God’s blood; a strong oath.
Q1’s
Zownds,
By God’s wounds,is similar to Q2’s
s’bloudand may point to an actor’s improvisation. F1’s
Whyis a characteristic euphemism to meet the demands of censorship.
can fret me
(1) can irritate me; (2) can press down on my
fretsor ridges on the fingerboard of a stringed instrument to guide the fingers in playing various notes.
Q2’s
fret me notmay have inadvertently picked up an unnecessary negative from what follows in this sentence. Q1 agrees with F1’s plausibly authorial
can fret me.
Play upon me
I.e., Get me to play or dance to your tune.
a sponge … storehouse
Hamlet’s acerbic joke is imported to this location from considerably later in Q2/F1,
at TLN 2642-50, after Hamlet has killed Polonius and is tracked down by Rosencraft
and Guildenstern.
Countenance
Favor.
that makes … storehouse
Who provides the liberality on which you rely.
For … swallows you
I.e., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are kept in reserve by the King, always there but
to be used only when it serves the King’s purposes, not theirs.
Q1’s
as an ape doth nuts,line 212, provides a detail not found in Q2/F1, where the King
keeps them [i.e., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern] in the corner of his jaw(TLN 2647-8). Lines 215-16 here in Q1 are close to Q2/F1.
Well … bless you
This elaborated version of Q2/F1’s
God bless you sirreturns the text of this scene to where it was before the insertion of the dialogue about the sponge (lines 206-16), in time for the entrance of Corambis. Q2 omits the exeunt of Rossencraft and Guilderstone here in 218.1.
My lord … by and by
Q1 here is quite close to Q2/F1.
Why … by and by
Hamlet presumably says this to Corambis as he is exiting. In the brief lines that
follow, 227-9, Q1 omits lines and images in Q2/F1.
Nero
Despotic and emotionally unbalanced Roman emperor (37-68 AD) who had his mother Agrippina
put to death. The accusations against her that she had plotted against her paternal
uncle and second husband Claudius to enable her son Nero to succeed to the throne,
and that she had had an incestuous affair with her brother Caligula, suggest intriguing
parallels to the story of Hamlet.
For Q2/F1’s
soule of Nero,Q1 reads
heart of Nero.
soft
Q1’s
softis a possible reading in place of Q2/F1’s
firme.
speak daggers
I.e., speak cuttingly, but without physical harm.
Q2/F1 read
speake dagger (Daggers) to her.
I will … consent
As earlier at the end of scene 6 and 9, and below at the end of scenes 10, 11, 13,
and 15, Q1 ends the scene with a rhymed couplet, thus following the pattern of Q2/F1,
as well as the line of thought, but with different words and different rhymes (here
spentand
consentfor Q2/F1’s
shentand
consent).
Oh … despair
The equivalent scene in Q2/F1 follows a substantial passage that Q1 omits, in which
the King informs Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that they are to accompany Hamlet to
England, whereupon Polonius enters to inform the King that Hamlet is going to his
mother’s
closetand that Polonius will conceal himself there to overhear Hamlet’s conversation with his mother (TLN 2271-2311). Lines 1-13 here follow the substance of Q2/F1, TLN 2312-48, in a shortened paraphrase without much verbal correspondence. It ends, in Q1, in a newly-composed couplet not in Q2/F1, as in so many scene endings in Q1; see 9.233-4 and note above.
this wet
These tears.
fact
Crime.
Pay me
Punish me for.
persever
Persevere.
The Q1 spelling is preserved here to indicate pronunciation with accent on the second
syllable, not the third.
the universal power
God.
Come … weary days
Q1’s version of this scene again follows the substance of its counterpart in Q2/F1,
TLN 2350-73, loosely paraphrased at first and then more closely linked in lines 22-9.
Come … last
Come forth from your sheath, and accomplish your supremely important (and perhaps
last) act. (Said to his sword.)
brim full
I.e., not yet confessed and forgiven.
And … heaven
And what his spiritual state might be in the eyes of heaven.
Q2/F1 read
And how his audit stands who knowes saue heauen.
purging of
Spiritually cleansing.
Q2/F1 here read the same as Q1.
When … drunk
Q2/F1 read
When he is drunke, a sleepe (drunke asleepe): or in his rage.Then two lines later, Q2/F1 read
At game a (At gaming,) swearing, or about some act (acte).Lines 24-9 in Q1 are generally close to Q2/F1, though slightly shortened in Q1 in lines 27-8, and in 29 Q1 reads
wearyfor Q2/F1’s
sickly(TLN 2371).
relish
Trace, hint.
stays
Is waiting.
physic
Medicine (both the King’s being at prayer, and Hamlet’s consequent decision to postpone
the killing).
My words … foe
As earlier at the end of scenes 6 and 9, and below at the end of scenes 11, 13, and
15, Q1 ends the scene with a rhymed couplet, thus following the pattern of Q2/F1,
but with different words and different rhymes. In this present instance, line 30 of
Q1 is similar to that of Q2/F1 (albeit substituting
sinnesfor
thoughts), but the second line of the couplet is quite different.
shroud myself
Q2/F1 read
silence me euen (e’ene) heere.Q1’s
shrowd my selfeis a tempting reading.
Do … lord
Presumably, the Queen says this as Corambis is hiding himself behind the arras or
curtain. The exit SD in Q1 (2.1) is flush right.
[Enter Hamlet]
This stage direction, omitted in Q1, is supplied from F1. Q2 has Hamlet enter some
two lines earlier.
make all safe
Make sure we are not being overheard.
Mother … much offended / What … Help, ho!
Q1 essentially agrees with Q2/F1 in these lines, and the following dialogue is close,
albeit with some omissions and alterations. Q1’s version of lines 1-7 and 10-11 are
reworded and shortened paraphrases of Q/F1.
Mother … much offended / What … Help, ho!
Q1 essentially agrees with Q2/F1 in these lines, and the following dialogue is close,
albeit with some omissions and alterations. Q1’s version of lines 1-7 and 10-11 are
reworded and shortened paraphrases of Q/F1.
Help for the Queen!
Q2 reads
Why how helpe,F1 What hoa, helpe, helpe, helpe.
Thou … better
Q2/F1 read
Thou wretched, rash, intruding foole farwell (farewell), / I tooke thee for thy better (Betters).
Hamlet … Kill a king!
Q1 moves its version of Q2/F1 (TLN 2406-11) to a position following lines 16-17, rather
than preceding as in Q2/F1.
If you … stuff
If your heart still has any sensitivity to feeling and emotion.
Q1’s
youtakes the place of
itin Q2/F1.
Why … this picture
Q1 omits at this point a substantial speech of Hamlet in which he arraigns his mother
of an act
That blurres the grace and blush of modesty,etc. (TLN 2423-34). The next lines in Q1 (27-45, TLN 2437-63) follow Q2/F1 in comparing the dead king to Mars on the one hand and Claudius to Vulcan on the other, considerably reworded, omitting references to Hyperion and Mercury and other telling details.
Mars
The god of war.
front
Forehead, brow.
Whose heart … marriage
This passage is transferred to here from much earlier in Q2/F1, TLN 736-7, where the
Ghost, speaking to Hamlet, describes his love for his wife as
of that dignity, / That it went hand in hand, euen with the Vow / I made to her in Marriage.
Vulcan
The Roman god of fire and of volcanoes, often depicted as a blacksmith, and husband
of Venus. His Greek counterpart is Hephaestus. Q1 substitutes Vulcan as the opposite
type to Mars; Q2/F1 speak of a
Moore(TLN 2451) as opposite to Mars and Mercury.
hanging look
The look of one who deserves to be hanged, or of a hangman.
This metaphor, and indeed all of lines 39-40, vary widely from Q2/F1.
And this same … with this
And this first portrait I am showing you depicts the dead husband that you have left
in exchange for Claudius, shown in this other portrait.
hath cozened … hob-man blind
Has cheated you thus at blindman’s bluff. (Hamlet imagines a diabolical trick in which
the devil, having covered the eyes of Gertrude with a scarf in the children’s game
of blindman’s bluff, has steered her in such a way that she gropingly encountered
Claudius.)
The phrase is identical in the early texts, except that Q1 reads
hob-man blinde,Q2
hodman blind,and F1
hoodman-blinde.
To live … bed
Q2/F1 read, in Hamlet’s next speech to the Queen,
Nay but to liue / In the ranck (ranke) sweat of an inseemed (enseamed) bed.
bare
Bore, possessed.
a king … shreds
A king of rags and tatters.
Q2/F1 read
A King of shreds and patches.
seal
Ensure, confirm as if by a seal, determine irrevocably.
Your blood … it came
At your age, your sexual feelings ought to decline.
Compare Q2/F1, said earlier in those texts:
at your age, / The heyday in the blood is tame(TLN 2452-3).
Oh, throw … the better
Compare F1’s
O throw away the worser part of it, / And liue the purer with the other halfe,said considerably later in this scene, after the Ghost has come and gone. (Q2, perhaps mistakenly, reads
leauefor
liue.) The previous line 58 is essentially identical in all three early texts.
Enter … nightgown
A nightgown is a robe for indoor wear.
Q1 here provides what appears to be an informative stage direction. Q2/F1 (
Enter Ghost) do not specify wear. Q1’s version of Hamlet’s encounter with his father’s ghost follows Q2/F1 in substance and at times in wording. Line 64 is essentially identical.
Oh, do not … to pity
The idea here in Q1, that the Ghost’s pitiful looks might move Hamlet to pity and
compassion presumably for Claudius, departs substantially from the texts of Q2/F1
and indeed seems contradicted by what the Ghost then says in lines 70-2. In Q2/F1,
Hamlet says this to the Ghost after his mother has asked
Whereon do you looke?Q1 rearranges lines in such a way that the Ghost delivers all he has to say in one continuous speech (lines 70-6).
Forgo … powers
Fail to make use of their well-suited capabilities for achieving revenge.
thy
Q1’s
thymay be an error, anticipating
Thyin the next line;
herwould refer more plausibly to Gertrude. But Q1 offers a possible reading if we are to understand that Hamlet is distracted in response to his mother’s
fearfullooks (Arden 3).
That thus you bend
That you direct, focus.
Q1’s reading is close metrically to Q2’s
That you doe bend; both scan better than F1’s
That you bend.Following line 80, Q2 omits the rest of the Queen’s speech in Q2/F1, TLN 2500-5.
habit
Garments.
Lines 85-7 of Q1 follow Q2/F1 closely.
See … portal
The Ghost is presumably starting to leave at this point.
Portalappears to suggest that the Ghost will exit by a stage door, not a trap door in the stage floor.
blazon
Proclaim (as in a display of armorial bearings).
But … murder
This explicit denial on the Queen’s part of any knowledge of the murder does not occur
in Q2/F1 or any other early text.
this
I.e., Hamlet’s insistence that he sees the Ghost.
Idle? … yours
Q2/F1 read
My pulse as yours doth temperately keepe time.
if ever … love
Hamlet echoes what the Ghost has said to him earlier, at TLN 708 in Q2/F1:
If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.
And win … may
I.e., And win yourself, little by little, as much as you can, away from sleeping with
Claudius.
And, mother … devise
No other early text provide what Q1 here offers, Hamlet’s explicitly urging his mother
to aid him in his revenge as a way of purging her own guilt, and her vow of acquiescence
(Arden 3). The phrase
that Majestyin line 103 refers to god.
I’ll … knave
Compare Hamlet’s rhymed exit lines in Q2:
Is now most still, most secret, and most graue, / Who was in life a most foolish prating knaue.F1 reads similarly, albeit deleting the unmetrical
mostin the second line. Q2’s
Exit Hamlet … Lords
Q1/Q2/F1 all specify that Hamlet exits here, Q1/F1 adding that he drags the dead body
of Polonius with him. Q1’s truncated version of the entry stage direction brings on
the King
and Lordes(presumably Rosencrantz and Guildenstern) at the scene’s beginning, thereupon encountering the Queen, who has implicitly remained on stage. Whereas in Q2 the Queen enters with her husband at the start of this scene as though she exited briefly at the end of the previous action, the arrangement in Q1 and F1 keeps the Queen on stage, with no scene break. The traditional marking of Act IV Scene 1 was not introduced until Q6, and has no authority.
Alas … sea
Q2/F1 read
Mad as the sea (Seas) and wind (winde,) when both contend / Which is the mightier.The Queen evidently acts on Hamlet’s plea with her not to tell the King that Hamlet’s madness is a deceptive strategy. She thus, in effect, lies to her husband.
Whenas … fair
When first he came, I spoke to him graciously.
whips me / Out
Whips out. (
Meis an archaic dative.)
Q1 follows Q2/F1 substantively in this speech of the Queen (lines 111-18). Q1 then
omits most of what the King says in reply (TLN 2601-10).
undo our state
Threaten both me and Denmark.
inquire … out
Ask where Corambis’s body is.
presently
At once.
Q1 omits most of TLN 2601-14, in which the King explains how he would have guarded
himself more cautiously toward Hamlet were it not for the King’s tender regard for
the sensibilities of his wife toward her son. Compare line 122 here with TLN 2615-19.
we have sent
I.e., we have arranged to be conveyed.
brother
Fellow monarch.
Haply
Perchance.
The King’s observation here, in lines 127-8, about the English climate, rephrases
what the King has said earlier in F1/Q2 in conversation with Polonius (TLN 1828-9).
Enter … the Lords
Q1 here leaves out nearly all of a brief scene found in Q2/F1 (TLN 2631-2660) in which
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find Hamlet and interrogate him unsuccessfully as to
what he has done with the dead body. Q1 also omits the beginning of the next scene
in Q2/F1, in which the King explains again his reasons for regarding Hamlet as dangerous
as long as he is on the loose (TLN 2662-71).
Now … body?
Q2/F1 read
Now Hamlet, where’s Polonius?The following exchange between Hamlet and the King is verbally close in the early texts.
a certain company of politic worms
Q2’s phrasing here,
a certaine conuacation of politique wormes(F1 omits
politique), is often taken to refer to the Imperial Diet of Worms, a famous convocation or assembly of the Holy Roman Empire convened in Worms, Germany on 28 January 1521, on the authority of the Emperor Charles V, for the purpose of requiring Martin Luther to renounce or recant his heretical views. Pope Leo X had condemned 41 of Luther’s 95 theses or propositions in June 1520, and, after a delay affording Luther time to recant, had excommunicated him on 3 January 1521. The Edict of Worms, issued on 25 May 1521, forbade all loyal Christians to offer any support to Luther, declaring him to be an obstinate heretic. In the light of this seeming allusion,
Not where he eates (eats), but where a (he) is eatenin line 134 (TLN 2685) could refer to the ceremony of the Mass in which the eating of bread signifies the eating of Christ’s body. Politic worms are crafty worms, such as might deal with a crafty spy like Polonius. But Q1’s substitution of
companyfor Q2’s
conuacation(F1,
conuocation) somewhat reduces the cogency of any allusion to the Convocation of Worms in 1521.
variable services
Various dishes or courses served at table. (Worms feed on kings and beggars alike.)
Q2/F1 read
is but variable seruice.
two … mess
I.e., rich and poor alike come at last to serve as food for one grisly emperor, the
worm. (A
messis a quantity of food set on a table at one time. Q2/F1 read
two [to] dishes but to one table.)
Look you … hath caught
Q1 here gives a version of two prose lines in Q2 (
A man may fish with the worme that hath eate of a King, & eate of the fish that hath fedde of that worme) that are omitted in F1.
progress
Royal state journey.
Lines 142-3 in Q1 are identical with Q2/F1 except that Q1’s
Nothing, father, but to tell youreplaces
Nothing but to shew youin Q2/F. Hamlet repeatedly addressed the King as
fatherin Q1, not in Q2/F1.
the other parts below
I.e., hell.
Q2/F1 read
th’ other place.Lines 145-8 of Q1 are generally close to Q2/F1.
nose
Smell.
up the lobby
Up the stairs into the lobby.
Q2/F1 read
vp the stayres (staires) into the Lobby.In lines 150-1 Q1 paraphrases Hamlet’s jest in Q2/F1 (
A [He] will stay till you [ye] come).
The which we price … self
I prize or value your good health just as much as I value my own.
Q1’s
priceis a common spelling variant of prize. The royal plural (
we,
our) here also applies more generally to all persons. In this line and the following passage, Q1 paraphrases Q2/F1.
mind
Intent.
You married … is your wife
Hamlet’s explanation here of his addressing Claudius as
motheris more fully than in Q2/F1. Otherwise, this passage is fairly close in all three texts.
presently
At once.
lose
Q1 prints
loose.
our state is free
Both Denmark and myself are free from this threat.
As earlier at the end of scenes 6, 9, and 10, and below at the end of scenes 13 and
15, Q1 ends the scene with a rhymed couplet, thus following the pattern of Q2/F1,
but with different lines and different rhymes.
Enter … march away
This brief scene corresponds to 4.4 in Q2, which features a long meditative soliloquy
by Hamlet on Fortinbras’s capability for decisive action and the lesson thus offered
to Hamlet; Q2’s scene is thus considerably longer than in Q1/F1.
free pass and conduct
Unhindered passage and safe-conduct.
Hamlet … pacified
Q1 contains here, in lines 1-4, a passage not in Q2/F1, in which the King speaks misleadingly
to his wife about his hopes for
good newsfrom England about Hamlet (privately meaning, for our ears as audience, that the King hopes to hear of Hamlet’s death; see next note), followed in lines 6-13 by a worried conversation about Ophelia and Laertes that in Q2/F1 is substantially longer and takes place after Ophelia’s exit from her first mad scene (TLN 2813-33).
Fare him well
(1) May Hamlet prosper (2) Farewell to Hamlet, I hope, forever. (Claudius’s four-line
speech here is repeatedly ironic in the same way, outwardly expressing hope that things
will turn out well, and secretly (intended only for us as audience) hoping that the
sentence of death on Hamlet will be carried expeditiously so that Claudius can be
content.)
bereft
Deprived of.
on the other side
In addition.
Enter Ofelia … down, singing
This stage direction, found only in Q1, offers what may be an eyewitness account of
Ofelia’s distracted appearance. The hair down has a paradoxical suggestion of virgin
purity and of amorous intimacy. Q1 omits at this point a tortured brief aside by the
Queen, and Ophelia’s addressing her as
the beautious Maiestie (Maiesty) of Denmarke (Denmark)in Q2/F1 (TLN 2767) before Ophelia begins to sing (TLN
How … stone
Ophelia’s first song in Q1 here is quite close to that in Q2/F1, except that stanzas
2 and 3 reverse the order of Q2/F1. As editors have noted, this is a version of a
popular song about a woman whose lover has died.
man
Q2/F1 read
one.
cockle hat
Hat with cockleshell (a mollusk scallop-like shell) stuck in it as a sign (along with
a walking staff and sandals) that the wearer has been a pilgrim to the shrine of Saint
James of Compostella in Spain (often associated with forlorn lovers).
shoon
Shoes. (An archaic plural.)
Q2/F1 follow this first stanza of Ophelia’s song with an interjection by the Queen
(TLN 2771),
Alas sweet Lady, what imports this song?that is omitted in Q1.
Larded
Strewn, bedecked.
F1/Q1 omit Q2’s
allafter
Larded,which may have been deleted intentionally. Before this line in the song, Q2/F1 print a comment by the Queen,
Alas looke heere my Lord(TLN 2779), that is omitted in Q1.
grave
Q1/F1’s
graueis entirely feasible and could be an authorial revision of Q2’s
ground,but could instead be an easy substitution by a copyist.
did not go
This reading, found in Q1/Q2/F1, reverses the expected idea as found in the popular
song, perhaps to reflect Ophelia’s incoherent distress at the idea of her father being
buried in a grave, or of his not being properly mourned (bewept) as he was buried.
true lovers’ showers
I.e., true lovers’ showers.
Q1’s
true louers showersis a minor variation of Q2’s
true loue showersand F1’s
true-loue showres.
At his head … stone
Q1 here corresponds with Q2/F1 except that this is part of stanza 3 in Q1, stsnza
2 in Q2/F1.
How … Ofelia?
Q2/F1 read
How doe you (ye), pretty Lady?
God yield you
May God requite you, reward you.
This conventional phrase is spelled
God yeeld youin Q1,
good dild youin Q2, and
God dil’d youin F1.
It grieves … weep
Compare Q2/F1:
I cannot chuse (choose) but weepe, to thinke they should lay him i’th'cold ground.These lines are moved back from their location in Q2/F1 (TLN 2806-7), after Ofelia has sung two more songs, to here.
And will … on his soul
Q1 reverses the order of Ophelia’s songs as found in Q2/F1, printing here the song
found in Q2/F1 at TLN 2941-8, and printing later at lines 95-102 the stanzas beginning
Tomorrow is saint valentines dayand
By Gis and by Saint Charity(TLN 2790-3, 2796-2803).
All flaxen … poll
His head of hair was as white as flax.
Q2 omits
All.Q1/Q2/F1 all read read
poleas an early modern spelling of
poll.
He is dead, he is gone
Q2/F1 read
He is gone, he is gone.
we … moan
We loudly but unavailingly proclaim our grief.
Christen souls, I pray God
Q1’s
Christen soules I pray Godand F1’s
Christian Soules, I pray Godin place of Q2’s
Christians soulesmay be authorial.
O Time … tomorrow dead
These truisms, not found in Q2/F1, take the place of TLN 2811-50, during which time
in Q2/F1 the King laments the way in which sorrows come
not single spyes (spies), / But in battalians (Battaliaes)and a Messenger enters with the news that Laertes has returned to Denmark
in a riotous head.
Content … bred
Contentment never was (and never is) made to be a certain thing if this life.
How … that?
This line, omitted in Q2, is assigned to the Queen in F1 (TLN 2385) in slightly different
wording (Arden 3).
A noise within. Enter Laertes
This stage business follows
How now, what noyse is that?in Q1. In Q2/F1, this stage business and the entry of Ophelia precede Laertes’s utterance. Because Q1’s shortened version of this scene omits a messenger’s speech warning the King how Laertes is approaching
in a Riotous head,accompanied by a
rabblewho
call him Lord,etc. (TLN 2838-48), the Q1 text implicitly presents Laertes’s angry return from France as prompted by a strong desire for revenge, without political overtones (Arden 3).
Stay there till I come
Q1 omits some further talk between Laertes and his followers as found in Q2/F1 (TLN
2853-7).
vile
The word is
vilde(a common early modern spelling) in Q1/F1. The line is omitted in Q2. Following this line, Q1 partly omits a passage of heated exchange between the King and Laertes (TLN 2859-70), though TLN 2868-70 are moved in substance to lines 55-6 below in Q1. Line 49-52 are close to Q2/F1.
him
The King.
resolved
Satisfied with an answer.
wall
Protect, as if by a wall.
Q2/F1 read
hedge.Lines 55-6 are essentially transposed from some nines lines earlier in Q2/F1 to here.
Being
Corambis being.
This line is omitted in Q2/F1.
gamester
Gambler.
Swoopstake-like
Swooping down upon the gaming table and sweeping up the stakes.
Q2/F1 read
soopstake (Soop-stake).
draw at
Draw your sword upon.
Q2/F1’s
draw bothsuggests instead that friend and foe alike are to be threatened by the gambler’s violence.
lock … heart
The phrase here seems to recall Ophelia’s saying to Hamlet, at TLN 551,
'Tis in my memory locked.Line 62 in Q1 is essentially identical with Q2/F1; lines 63-4 replace with paraphrase the image in Q2 of
the kind life-rendring Pelican(TLN 2896; F1 reads, erroneously,
Politicianfor
Pelican).
will
Will accept.
Why … yourself
Line 65 in Q1 is close to Q2/F1; 66-8 are more a paraphrase.
for
Q1 erroneously reads
for for.
Enter Ofelia as before
Q2 reads:
A noyse within. Enter Ophelia.F1 reads similarly, though it also misleadingly prints
Let her come inin italics, as though part of this stage direction.
life
The word
lifemakes sense, but Q2/F1 read, with better authority,
wits.See next note. Lines 69-70 in Q1 replace several lines in Q2/F1 of poignant outburst by Laertes at seeing his sister mad (TLN 2906-11).
saw
Proverbial saying (of the sort that Corambis/Polonius is famous for).
Q2/F1 read
life.Perhaps the person who devised lines 70-1 in Q1 mistakenly transferred this word
lifeinto the previous line in place of
witsand then provided
sawto take its place in line 71.
Well … thoughts
This passage seems evidently to be prose, as it is rendered in Q2/F1, but the present
Q1 edition follows the print version of the passage, with its own sense of rhythm.
The images are somewhat condensed and rearranged.
God-a-mercy
God have mercy. (A mild oath.)
ha’ been
Q1 reads
a bin.
rue … pansy
rue, a bitter-tasting medicinal plant, betokens remorse and repentance, as indicated
by its popular name, herb of grace; daisy is appropriate to springtime, courtship, and love; Rosemary, used as a symbol of remembrance at weddings and funerals, is aptly suited to Laertes
and to Ophelia herself as wedded offspring of Polonius; pansy for thoughts (compare the French pensees) is appropriate to courtship and love, or to remembering a dead father. In line 77,
With a differenceplays on the meaning of difference in the language of heraldry, serving to differentiate branches of a family tree in a coat of arms.
Arden 2 and 3 cite John Gerard, The Herbal (1597) and William Langham, The Garden of Health (1579). The text is unclear in most instances as to how Ophelia distributes the flowers
to those who are on stage.
document
Object lesson.
Q2/F1’s version of this line is similar:
A document in madnes, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
fennel
Fennel is associated with dissembling and flattery.
violets
Violets signify fidelity.
the owl … daughter
This refers to a folktale about a baker’s daughter who, when Jesus entered a baker’s
shop asking for something to eat, insisted on letting Jesus have only half of the
loaf that the shopowner’s wife had intended to give in full. When the dough nonetheless
swelled to enormous size, the daughter cried
Heugh! heugh!and was transformed into an owl. On the phrase’s proverbial status, see Dent B54.1. In Q2/F1 this story is mentioned considerably earlier than in Q1, at TLN 2784-5, shortly after Ophelia’s first mad entrance. Lines 86-7 in Q1 are similarly moved here from that earlier passage, TLN 2785-6. But line 88 is found in Q2/F1 shortly before Ophelia exits for the last time alive, at TLN 2938.
Thoughts … hell
Q2/F1 read
Thought and afflictions (Affliction), passion, hell it selfe.Q1 omits the next line in Q2/F1,
She turnes to fauour and to prettiness (prettinesse)(TLN 2940).
Nay … now
Q2/F1 read
Pray lets (Pray you let’s) haue no (no more) words of thisfrom earlier in the scene (TLN 2788).
you shall sing … false steward
These snatches of song precede the distributing of flowers in Q2/F1 (at TLN 2923-5).
The story of the false steward is unknown, but false stewards do sometimes steal their
masters’ daughters in romance tales. Perhaps Ophelia is madly fantasizing about her
father’s uneasy fear that Hamlet might in effect steal her away by seducing her.
Tomorrow … more
Q1 reverses the order of Ophelia’s songs as found in Q2/F1, printing here the stanzas
beginning
Tomorrow is saint valentines dayand
By Gis and by Saint Charity(TLN 2790-3, TLN 2796-2803) and printing earlier at 13.30-8 the song found in Q2/F1 at TLN 2941-8.
betime
Early.
The young … clothes
Q2/F1 read
Then vp he rose, and dond (& don’d) his close (clothes).Lines 100-2 are very close verbally to Q2/F1 (TLN 2792-3).
dupped
Did up, unlatched.
By Gis … Charity
By Jesus and in the name of Christian love and fellow feeling (a mild oath).
In Q2/F1, this song comes earlier, at TLN 2796-2803.
Away
Q2/F1 read
alacke (Alacke).
when
Q2/F1 read
if.
By Cock
I.e., By God (a euphemism); with verbal play on the slang term for penis.
to blame
The Q1/Q2/F1 reading,
too blame,could mean “too blameworthy,” but to and too are often interchangeable in early modern English.
If
Q2/F1’s
Andoften signifies An, If (the Q1 reading). This stanza, lines 108-111, is close in Q to Q2/F1, except that at the start of line 110 Q2 inserts
(He answers).
b’w’y’
Be with you.
Printed
bwyin Q1. In Q2, at TLN 2950, Ophelia exits with
God buy you,in F1 with
God buy ye.All are versions of Good-bye. In Q1 line 113,
b’w'y’ you, loveunnecessarily duplicates y and you, both meaning the same thing. Q1 in line 112 does not mention
my Coachas in Q2/F1, TLN 2808-9, before Ophelia’s first mad exit.
b’w’y’
Be with you.
Printed
bwyin Q1. In Q2, at TLN 2950, Ophelia exits with
God buy you,in F1 with
God buy ye.All are versions of
Good-bye.In Q1 line 113,
b’w'y’ you, loveunnecessarily duplicates y and you, both meaning the same thing. Q1 in line 112 does not mention
my Coachas in Q2/F1, TLN 2808-9, before Ophelia’s first mad exit.
Exit Ofelia
Probably the Queen exits here as well; F1’s
Exeunt Opheliasuggests the departure of more than one person. The Queen surely is not intended to hear the ensuing conversation between the King and Laertes; instead, she needs to ready herself for entrance in the next scene. Q2 omits any exit SD here.
Laertes, I must … not dream upon
Q1 here offers an abbreviated paraphrase of the King’s assurances to aid Laertes in
his cause of revenge against Hamlet.
wrought
Did.
the revenge … son
The King seems to reassure Laertes that the revenge for Polonius’s death is as good
as done already, given the pledges that the King and Laertes have made to carry out
the deed.
hapless
Unhappy, unfortunate.
unhearsed
Released from the tomb.
This metaphor of burying grief in a tomb of wrath that is soon to be released is found
only in Q1 (Arden 3).
hear/dear … done/upon
These rhymed couplets, original to Q1, close the scene as at the end previously of
scenes 6, 9, 10, and 11, and below at the end of scene 15.
that
That which.
Enter … Madam, adieu
This conversation between Horatio and the Queen, as Arden 3 notes,
is unique to Q1 and parallels the conspiracy between the King and Laertes in Scene 15 (4.7 in Q2).It corresponds approximately to 4.6, 4.7, and 5.2 in Q2 and F1. It thus manages to dramatize in abridged form the Q2/F1 scenes in which Horatio and Claudius separately receive letters from Hamlet, and Hamlet relates to Horatio the adventures of his sea voyage. In Q2/F1 much of the material in this scene follows the graveyard conversation of Horatio and Hamlet at Yorick’s grave and Hamlet’s struggle with Laertes at Ophelia’s grave (5.1).
Whereas … plotted
Q1 thus makes explicit that the Queen has learned of Claudius’s plotting the death
of her son. Q2/F1 leave this matter uncertain (Arden 3).
Whereasmay be an error for Wherein.
crossed
Frustrated, opposed.
the packet
The packet containing the letters written by the King to the King of England.
convers’ion
Conversation.
his
The King’s.
sugar o’er
Give a deceptive appearance of sweet temper to.
Compare Polonius’s lament (in Q2/F1, TLN 1698-1700) that
with devotion’s visage / And pious action we do sugar o’er / The devil himself.The Queen is here more explicit than in Q2/F1 as to her decision to take her son’s side against Claudius.
jealous
Suspicious.
The Queen’s willingness to deceive her husband is more explicit here in Q1 than in
Q2/F1.
he
Hamlet.
the east … city
The harbor, with its docks, where Hamlet may have landed.
commend … to him
Convey to him my motherly love and concern.
Bid … presence
Bid him to proceed with caution at all times.
that
That which.
Things … mind
Things have not worked out as he (the King) intended.
But … Rossencraft?
Compare what Horatio says to Hamlet in act 5 scene 2 of Q2/F1, TLN 3559. A conversation
on this subject between the Queen and Horatio is quite out if keeping with Q2/F1,
where the Queen evidently learns nothing of this sort.
He … for England
Once Hamlet had been set ashore, Gilderstone and Rossencraft proceeded on to the English
court.
Q1 omits the business in Q2/F1 (4.6) about Hamlet’s getting clear of the ship taking
him to England by boarding a pirate vessel and then being put ashore by the pirates.
The report in Q1 does not make clear where, or by what means, Hamlet was
set ashore(line 28) before Gilderstone and Rossencraft then proceeded on to England, nor does Q1 explain clearly (though it refers obscurely to a packet and to Hamlet’s father’s
sealor sealing ring) the way in which Hamlet managed to substitute their names for his in the document demanding that the English king put the bearers of the document to death. Q2/F1 state clearly that this substitution of names took place at sea on the day before the sea fight with pirates allowed Hamlet to escape (act 5 scene 2, TLN 3556-7).
And in … for him
And in the packet of letters by Claudius intended for the King of England, Hamlet
changed the sentence of death to contain the names of Rossencraft and Guilderstone
instead of his own.
seal
The royal seal used to authenticate documents.
blessing of the Prince
Bestowing its blessing upon Prince Hamlet.
Hamlet … possible
Q1 omits the passage in Q2/F1 in which a messenger brings letters from Hamlet to the
King and Queen making clear how the King learns of Hamlet’s having been set
naked on your kingdom(4.7.37-43, TLN 3047-58).
They are gone
This is Q1’s last mention of Gilderstone and Rossencraft. Q2’s line reads
What should this meane, are all the rest come backe,F1
What should this meane? Are all the rest come backe?This present scene in Q1, including the Queen’s account of the drowning of Ofelia, offers an abbreviated paraphrase of Q2/F1, TLN 3047-3188.
jocund
Joyful.
Q2/F1’s version of this line reads
It warmes the very sicknes (sicknesse) of my hart (heart).
let
Hindrance.
My will … world
Nothing in the world can hinder my desire to be revenged.
Compare earlier, Laertes’s
My will, not all the world’s,in responding to the King’s asking
Who shall stay you?(Q2, 4.5.130-1, and similarly in F1, TLN 2884-5, substituting
worldfor Q2’s worlds).
I have heard … cunning
Q1 here substantially reduces a passage in Q2/F1 in which the King describes to Laertes
the envious admiration of Hamlet for the horsemanship of a Norman gentleman named
Lamord in Q2 and Lamound in F1 (TLN 3078-3102).
Touching your weapon
Concerning your skill and renown in fencing.
wish
Q1’s
whichhere seems manifestly an error for
wish,as the word appears in F1/Q2 at TLN 3101. Q1’s error is corrected in the present text.
tasked … cunning
Given the assignment of challenging your expertise in fencing.
And how for this?
Compare TLN 3104 in Q2/F1:
Why out of this, my Lord?Q1 then omits a passage in Q2/F1 in which the King appeals eloquently to Laertes’s duty to avenge his dead father (TLN 3105-18).
Shall … of him
The description here of the odds that are to be given to Hamlet in a duel with Laertes
may borrow some details from a much later passage, in the play’s final scene, when
Osric comes to Hamlet with the King’s proposal that Hamlet and Laertes fight a duel
(TLN 3630-2).
Shall … the odds
In which wager you will give Hamlet favorable odds.
To try the maistry
To undertake to see who will win.
maistryis an old form of mastery.
that … of him
That in a total of twelve
veniesor individual bouts of fencing you do not outdo him by three out of the twelve.
play
Fencing.
foils
Swords.
Steeped … poison
In Q2/F1, Laertes (rather than the King, as indicated here in Q1) is the one who proposes
the use of a poisoned sword.
Hamlet loved
Loved Hamlet.
The King’s explanation of how the plot of the poisoned sword will free Laertes from
suspicion is omitted in Q1.
say
Suppose.
we’ll … his will
We will credit you with a reputation in duelling so extraordinary that it will persuade
him to agree, however reluctant he might be at first.
The discussion here of how to allay Hamlet’s possible wariness, lines 29-32, is not
in Q2/F1.
I’ll have … happiness
Q1 offers here a paraphrase of TLN 3151-3.
Shall … period
Which will ensure his death.
heavily
Sad, downcast.
This line is omitted in Q2/F1. The Queen’s sad report of Ofelia’s drowning here in
Q1 (39-50) is an 11-line paraphrase of a 20-line more detailed passage in Q2/F1, TLN
3155-75. Q1 omits, among other matters, the names and of the various flowers that
Ophelia was weaving into
fantastique garlands.
envious sprig
Malicious branch.
Compare
enuious sliuerin Q2/F1.
abroad
On all sides of her.
sat
Occupied a place.
’twixt heaven and earth
(1) with the sky above her and a watery grave beneath; (2) on the verge of death.
Chanting … distress
Q2/F1 read
she chaunted snatches of old laudes (tunes), / As one incapable of her owne distresse.
uncapable
Incapable of understanding her own peril.
sweet wretch
Sweet, unhappy person (said with affectionate pity).
Q2/F1 read
poore wretch.
Too much … tears
Q1 is close to Q2/F1 here, except that line 53 in those texts reads
And therefore I forbid my teares; but yet.
relief … grief
As earlier at the end of scenes 6, 9, 10, 11, and 13, Q1 ends the scene with a rhymed
couplet, thus following the pattern of Q2/F1, but with different lines and different
rhymes. This couplet takes the place in Q2/F1 of a four-line passage in which the
King frets that Laertes’s rage will be rekindled by what he has just heard of Ophelia’s
drowning.
Clown
The stage name for a fool or jester; here, a gravedigger.
2 Clown
The Gravedigger’s assistant is identified simply as
2in Q1 in this scene, but Q2/F1 both indicate the entrance at the beginning of the scene of
two Clownes.Their conversation here paraphrases and condenses the material in Q2/F1, omitting, among other matters, the discussion about Adam as
the first that euer bore Armes.
Ergo
Therefore.
Q2/F1 print
argall (Argall).
Y’are gone
You have lost the argument.
great
Of high social standing.
great
Of high social standing.
Marry … people
Q1 is close to Q2/F1, which read
the more pitty that great folke should haue countnaunce (countenance) in this world to drowne or hang themselues, more then theyr (their) euen Christen (Christian).
stoup
Tankard.
Spelled
stopein Q1,
soopein Q2,
stoupein F1. The First Gravediggger’s request for liquor is borrowed here from TLN 3250; it is repeated in Q1 there; see line 29 below.
who builds strongest … long
This riddling discussion in Q1 paraphrases a longer quibbling passage in Q2/F1, TLN
3230-49. The punch line is
graue-makerin Q2/F1 but
a Carpenterin Q1, since a carpenter is one who
buildes the gallowes(line 24).
The gallows … do ill
Q2/F1 read
the gallows (Gallowes) dooes (does) well, but howe (how) dooes (does) it well? It dooes (does) well to those that do (doe) ill.
And if anyone … Doomsday
Q2/F1 read
and when you are askt (ask’t) this question next, say a graue-digger (Graue-maker), the houses hee (that he) makes lasts till Doomesday.
Enter … Horatio
Q1 brings on Hamlet and Horatio in time to overhear the beginning of the Gravedigger’s
singing, as in F1, but earlier than in Q2.
A pick-ax … meet
This stanza, repeated with variations in Q1 at lines 38-41 below, rings comic changes
on
The Aged Lover Renounceth Love,a poem attributed to Thomas Lord Vaux in Tottel’s Miscellany, a popular anthology of 1557 (Arden 2). The text of this stanza in Q1 is close to the First Gravedigger’s third stanza in Q2/F1 at TLN 3285—8. The text of Q1 here at 3252-5 is thus quite different from Q2/F1’s first stanza, though ending with the same rhyme word,
meet.Q1 also omits a stanza appearing in Q2/F1 at TLN 3263-6; Q1 has two stanzas instead of three, and its second stanza is essentially a variation on stanza 1.
for … winding sheet
I.e., along with a shroud in which to enwrap the corpse.
Q2/F1 read
for and a shrowding-Sheete.
shovel
Q1’s
shouelmay be a misprint for skull, especially in view of Hamlet’s
jowls their heads against the earthin line 36 and
Look you, there’s anotherin line 42. Perhaps shouel was suggested here by the singing about pick-axe and spade. The stage direction is missing in Q2/F1.
meet
Suitable.
feeling of himself
I.e., sense of how he should be have in a given situation.
Compare Q2/F1’s
feeling of his busines (businesse),TLN 3256. Q1 considerably shortens and compresses the discussion in Q2/F1 about Cain’s jawbone, the
pate of a pollitician,and Lady Worm.
My lord, custom … nothing
Q2/F1 read
Custome hath made it in him a propertie of easines (property of easinesse).
Why … lawyer?
Q2/F1 read
why may (might) not that be (bee) the skull (Scull) of a Lawyer.What follows in Q! is looser as a paraphrase of Q2/F1, where Hamlet inveighs against
his quiddities (Quiddits) now, his quillites (Quillets), his cases, his tenurs (Tenures), and his tricks(TLN 3290-1).
indict … battery
Bring legal action against the Gravedigger for assault.
Q1 reads
inditefor
indict.
the pate with’s shovel
The head with his shovel.
Q2/F1 read
the sconce with a dirty shouell.
Quirks and quillets
Quibbles and legal niceties.
leases … tenements
Legal terms concerning property rights.
Not mentioned in Q2/F1.
conveyance
Legal documents specifying the terms governing the transfer of property.
The honor
I.e., his honor, his legal reputation.
Q1 here may be an error for
the owner,or perhaps
his honor.Q2/F1 read
must th’inheritor himselfe haue no more.
Is … skins too
Q1 is close here to Q2/F1:
Is not Parchment made of sheepe-skinnes (Sheep-skinnes)? / I my Lord, and of Calues-skinnes to (too).
they
Any persons.
with them … in them
With lawyers and legal documents.
that praised … beg him
Who heaped extravagant praise on a horse belonging to a noble lord with the hope that
such praise would result in the horse’s being presented as a gift to the flatterer.
Compare Timon of Athens, 2.1.7-10. This phrase is brought forward from TLN 3275-6, where Q2/F1 read
that praised (prais’d) my lord such a ones horse when a (he) went to beg (begge) it.
must lie
Is to be buried.
Q2/F1 read
is to be buried.
lie in my throat
Compare the Gravedigger’s pun on
liehere with Hamlet’s
gives me the lie i’th'throat(TLN 1614; in Q2/F1, not in Q1). This attempt at witticism in Q1 is a refashioning of Q2/F1’s
Mine sirin response to Hamlet’s question,
Whose graue’s this sirra?The quibbling about
No manand
No woman neitheris close in Q1 to Q2/F1.
seven years
An approximate or general number.
Q2/F1 read
three yeeres (yeares).
the toe … kibe
I.e., the world today has become so fastidious and refined that the lower classes
ape their social betters, following so closely at their heels as to chafe their
kibesor chilblains.
Q2/F1 make this passage clearer by prefacing it with
The age is growne so picked, that.
pocky corses
Diseased, rotten corpses; literally, riddled with the pox or syphilis.
How long … he rots?
Q1 skips over temporarily some 13 lines of dialogue in Q2/F1 between Hamlet and the
First Gravedigger about Hamlet’s being sent into England because of his madness; this
emerges later in Q1, at lines 86-98 below. It picks up the conversation quite closely
to Q2/F1 about rotting in the earth.
before / He be laid in
Q2/F1 read
before a (he) die.
will last you
Will last. (The
youis colloquial here and in line 82:
your dead body.)
This idiom appears also in Q2/F1.
will last you
Will last. (The
youis colloquial here and in line 82:
your dead body.)
This idiom appears also in Q2/F1.
And why a tanner?
Q2/F1 read
Why he more then another?
parlous
Perilous, fearful.
soaker
Drainer, exhauster (OED 1). Or the Gravedigger may mean that water provides a moist environment, thereby
enhancing the process of decay.
Compare Q2/F1:
your water is a sore decayer of your whorson (horson) dead body.
this dozen year
In Q2, the figure is
23,printed in F1 as
three & twenty.Those two texts provide the information that the Gravedigger has been sexton
thirty yeeres (yeares)and that he began gravemaking
that day our last king Hamlet ouercame Fortenbrassein the same year that young Hamlet was born (TLN 3333-62), thereby implying that Hamlet is thirty. Q1’s
this dozen yearin place of
23might suggest on the other hand an age nearer nineteen for Hamlet, but the information is more scant and imprecise. Q1 does not state that Hamlet was born on the same day that his father slew Fortinbras. Perhaps the discrepancy between
23and
this dozen yearsuggests that the Gravedigger was none too precise about dates. Compare also the phrases
young Hamletand
young Prince Hamletelsewhere in Q1 at 1.129, 6.58 and 16.85.
He that’s … as mad as he
Q1 moves this conversation here, in slightly different wording and order, from its
earlier place in Q2/F1; see note 16.74 above.
losing
Q1/Q2/F1 all spell this
loosing.
ground
Cause, reason. (But the Clown/Gravedigger answers punningly in line 90 in the sense
of
land,
country.)
The punning is also present in Q2/F1.
have
Recover.
Q2/F1 read
recouer.
Rhenish of
Rhenish wine on.
Q2/F1 read
Rhenish on.Compare 4.8 above,
And as he dreams, his draughts of Rhenish down.
Alas … Horatio
Q2/F1 read identically the same, and the rest of Hamlet’s speech her is close in all
three texts.
now they abhor me
Now I am abhorred as I think of them.
Q2 reads
and now how abhorred in my imagination it is,F1
And how my Imagination is.
paint herself
Apply cosmetics to her face.
Q2/F1 read
paint.
looked thus?
Q2/F1 read
lookt a this (o’this) fashion i’th earth?
And smelt thus?
Q2/F1 read
And smelt so pah (Puh).
Ay … no otherwise
Q2/F1 read
Een (E’ene) so my Lord.
bunghole
Hole in a cask or barrel for filling or emptying.
Q1’s version of line 109 is close in spirit to Q2/F1 but worded differently.
Imperious
Imperial).
F1 reads
Imperiall.Q2, like Q1, reads
Imperious.Otherwise, lines 110-11 are identical in the early texts, although Q1 then omits another couplet in Q2/F1:
O that the earth which kept the world in awe, / Should patch a wall t’expell the waters (winters) flaw.Six more lines spoken by Hamlet about the approaching procession are also omitted in Q1.
Enter … coffin
The Priest, named here in Q1’s entry SD, is certainly needed in Q2/F1 as well, where
he has a speaking role and is assigned the speech prefix
Doct.in Q2 and
Priestin F1, but is unnamed in the entry SD for those texts. F1 mentions the
coffinfound also in Q1’s SD; Q2 omits this detail, but does speak of the
corseof Ophelia. No provision is made in any of the early texts for the exit of the Gravedigger. In productions he sometimes exits through the trap, or leaves the stage at this point, or else remains throughout the remainder of the scene to perform the burial.
Stand by awhile
Q2/F1 read
Couch we a while and marke (mark).
Priest
Q2 reads
Doct.,F1
Priest,as at note 16.111.1 above. Q2/F1 give this cleric two speeches, Q1 only one. The sentiment expressed is similar, but reworded.
but for favor of
Were it not for the special consideration that had to be paid to.
Q2/F1 read
And but that great commaund (Command) ore-swayes ('o’re-swaies) the order.
Where
Whereas.
howling
Howling in torment in hell.
Q2/F1 use this same term, following a passage, omitted in Q1, in which Laertes prays
that violets may spring from Ophelia’s
faire and vnpolluted flesh.
Sweets … farewell
This famous line is identical in the early texts. For the remainder of the Queen’s
speech here, lines 125-6, Q1 follows Q2/F1 in substance.
to o’ertop old Pelion
I.e., to tower above Greece’s highest mountains, including Olympus, the reputed home
of the Olympian gods. In Greek mythological legends, the rebellious Titans attempted
to scale Mount Olympus by piling still another mountain, Ossa (mentioned at TLN 3480),
on top of Pelion.
Q1 shortens Q2/F1’s report of Laertes’s speech, lines 127-9.
Hamlet … Laertes
This stage direction appears only in Q1. A ballad
Elegy on Burbage,published in Gentleman’s Magazine, 1825, offers the observation,
Oft have I seen him leap into a grave,thereby seeming to confirm the stage direction of Q1 at this point. The trap door would presumably have afforded little room for a fight between Hamlet and Laertes. Perhaps the struggle spilled out onto the stage.
What’s he … the Dane
Q1 here gives, in two lines, an abbreviated version of four lines in Q2/F1, TLN 3449-53.
conjures
I.e., rants.
This line is assigned in Q1 to Laertes as a continuation of what he has said in lines
128-9, but evidently in error; Q2/F1’s assignment of it to Hamlet is necessary, and
the error in Q1 is easy to explain.
I prithee … throat
Q2/F1 read
I prethee (prythee) take thy fingers from my throat.Q1 then omits the next line in Q2/F1:
For though I am not spleenatiue rash (Spleenatiue, and rash).
Hold off thy hand!
Q2 reads
hold off thy hand,F1
Away thy hand.Q1 then omits some four lines in Q2/F1 in which Laertes and Hamlet struggle with each other (TLN 3460-4).
twenty brothers
Q2/F1 speak of forty thousand brothers. Q1 then omits TLN 3469-71.
Wilt drink up vessels?
I.e., Will you undertake to proclaim your manliness by quaffing huge quantities of
drink?
Q2/F1 more plausibly read
Woo’t drinke vp Esill (Esile),i.e., vinegar. Lines 138-45 in Q1 follow Q2/F1 in substance, but reworded.
Make Oosell as a wart
Make the tall mountain Ossa (see note 129 above) seems as puny as a wart by comparison.
Q1’s
Ossellas seemingly a misprint for Ossa may recall
Esillor
Esilein Q2/F1; see previous note.
Forbear … scope
The King speaks similarly in F1 at TLN 3469 and 3482-6; in Q2, these are more plausibly
the Queen’s sentiments. She attests to Hamlet’s being truly mad, as he has asked her
to do, and as she continues to do in lines 152-3 below.
Forbear … scope
The King speaks similarly in F1 at TLN 3469 and 3482-6; in Q2, these are more plausibly
the Queen’s sentiments. She attests to Hamlet’s being truly mad, as he has asked her
to do, and as she continues to do in lines 152-3 below.
A cat … day
Hamlet’s parting observation his essentially the same here as in Q2/F1. Line 149 is
also close to Q2/F1; line 150 is more paraphrase.
send to him
I.e., send to Hamlet Laertes’s challenge to a duel.
Lines 154-6 in Q1 are a paraphrase of TLN 3492-8.
friends and lovers
Loving friends.
In Q1, the King speaks hypocritically to his wife as though his intent toward Hamlet
is charitable and loving. In Q2/F1 he merely says,
Good Gertrard (Gertrude) set some watch ouer your sonne(TLN 3495).
tender us
Value and honor me as their king.
Believe me … wrong
These lines of Q1 offer a paraphrase of F1, TLN 3579-82 — a passage omitted from Q2.
They occur in Q1 after that text has omitted a considerable portion of the opening
of this scene as reported in Q2/F1, including Hamlet’s account of his changing his
name for that of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the commission to the King of England
requesting that Hamlet be beheaded, and how Hamlet had in his purse a model of the
Danish seal with which to seal up the packet and thereby conceal the forgery, along
with Hamlet’s justification of his having condemned them to death (TLN 3499-3579).
by myself
Judging Laertes’s situation from the perspective of my own.
Compare F1:
For by the image of my Cause.
Though … wrong
Although our situations of being wronged, though alike in ways, are also different.
Enter a Braggart Gentleman
Q2 provides a similarly generic title:
Enter a Courtier.F1 names him:
Enter young Osricke.The F1 name is presumably authorial.
water-fly
I.e., a giddy, superficial person.
This jibe is in Q2/F1, but generally Q1 shortens the opening of this episode.
The Court … not the Court
I.e., He is known notoriously as a fool by the other courtiers, but he himself has
no self-knowledge enabling him to understand what is proper behavior at court.
This witty turn of phrase is unique to Q1.
musk-cod
I.e., a scented fop.
This metaphor is unique to Q1 and appears nowhere else in Shakespeare’s writing.
with an embassage
On an ambassadorial assignment, with a message.
’tis very cold … ’Tis hot
Q2/F1 make it clearer that Hamlet is teasing the gentleman, Osric, about his foppish
way of doffing his hat. In those texts, it is the courtier who first protests that
it is very hot.
swoltery hot
Swelteringly and oppressively hot.
Compare Q2’s
sully,and
soulteryin the next speech, and F1’s
soultry.
hath laid … rapiers
Has given odds that you will win: he has bet six Arabian horses (originally from the
Barbary region of northern Africa) against six rapiers on the other side.
Q1 omits a 24-line passage in Q2, as does F1, in which Osric praises Laertes and is
mocked by Hamlet for his use of stilted courtly language (TLN 3610.1-24).
hath laid … rapiers
Has given odds that you will win: he has bet six Arabian horses (originally from the
Barbary region of northern Africa) against six rapiers on the other side.
Q1 omits a 24-line passage in Q2, as does F1, in which Osric praises Laertes and is
mocked by Hamlet for his use of stilted courtly language (TLN 3610.1-24).
o’the carriages
Pertaining to the hangers (as in line 20), the straps on the sword belt from which
the sword hung.
Q1’s discussion of the carriages, the girdles, the hangers, etc., is reasonably close
to Q2/F1.
curiously wrought
Delicately and elaborately fashioned.
girdles
Sword belts.
cousin-german
Closely related.
Q2/F1 read
Ierman (Germaine),i.e., germane. Q1’s version of the rest of Osric’s encounter with Hamlet and Horatio is a paraphrase of Q2/F1.
how’s
What is.
venies
Hits or thrusts in fencing.
The term is also used above at 15.18. The singular of the noun is veny. Compare Q2’s
cunnings(4.7.151) and F1’s
commings(TLN 3147); F1’s word could be a translation of the French
venies.
laid
Wagered.
skull
Q1’s
skullis possible as a reading, but more probably an easy misprint for
skill.
presently
Immediately.
the rest … judgment
The rest of those who have best taste and judgment.
the outward palace
I.e., some public place in the palace (where Hamlet and Horatio currently are; in
Q2/F1 Hamlet says that he will wait
here (heere) in the hall,TLN 3638).
You may … fool
I.e., Who could better deliver a
sweetanswer than one who is so heavily perfumed that anyone in court who is not completely deprived of a sense of smell could make him out to be a fool? (Said with heavy irony to the departing Gentleman as he is leaving; he may or not hear this.)
He … inquiry
He, the Gentleman, will show what sort of thing he is without even being asked.
my heart … all hereabout
Compare Q2,
how ill all’s heere about my hartand F1,
how all heere about my heart(TLN 3661-2). Prior to Hamlet’s saying this, Q1 omits some 13 lines in Q2 (F1 omits them also) in which a lord enters to ask if Hamlet is still willing to duel with Laertes, and the Queen sends word that she desires Hamlet to
vse some gentle entertainment to Laertes, before you fall to play(TLN 3657.1-13).
forbear
Refuse.
If danger be now … sparrow
Compare Q2/F1’s more complete version of this famous passage, in which
speciall prouidence in the fall of a sparrowprecedes Hamlet’s three changes on
If it be now, ’tis not to come.Q1 omits
the readiness is all,and what follows in Q2/F1.
Enter … Lords
The stage directions in Q2/F1 provide variously for a table with a flagon of wine
on it, drums, officers with cushions, foils (fencing swords) and daggers, and gauntlets
(gloves worn to protect hands and wrists).
have laid … head
Have betted you will win.
And make … best
And fully expect to win.
Your majesty … side
Compare Q2/F1’s
Your grace has (hath) layd (laide) the ods (oddes) a’th weeker (a’th'weaker) side.In Q2/F1 the equivalent of lines 42-4 follow Hamlet’s protestations to Laertes of his never having intended to wrong him, and Laertes’s reply, here presented in lines 46-58.
We doubt it not
I have no fears on that score.
Compare Q2/F1,
I doe (do) not feare it.
First … be satisfied
Q1 here reads as a shortened paraphrase of Q2/F1. See note 17.44 above.
brother
Q1’s
brotherconfirms the reading of Q2. F1 reads, probably in error,
Mother.
I am satisfied in nature
Q1 here conforms exactly to the reading of Q2/F1.
stand aloof
Hold back from any formal reconciliation.
Lines 55-7 in Q1 here are close to Q2/F1.
will
Desire, will allow.
masters of our time
I.e., gentlemen of the court who are to preside over the duel and judge who wins.
I may be satisfied
As Q2/F1 make clearer, Laertes wishes to await the outcome of the duel as determining
whether the wrong Hamlet has done him is vindicated or condemned, in the manner of
a medieval trial by combat.
foil
Hamlet puns on the term. Literally, a foil is a thin metal background used to set
off and enhance the brilliance of a jewel. Hamlet modestly suggests that he will make
Laertes look good in fencing by means of a contrasting comparison of the two.
Q2/F1 reads
Ile be your foile,as does Q1. In Q2/F1 it precedes
Giue them the foiles,at line 59 in Q1.
length
Q1’s
laughtis presumably an error for
length,the Q2/F1 reading. Following this moment, Q1 omits a 13-line speech in which the King orders the trumpeters and cannoneers to celebrate Hamlet’s success in duelling while the King drinks to Hamlet (TLN 3727-40).
play
Duel. (Also in line 65.1.)
a hit
This phrase is in italics in Q1, as though marking it as a stage direction, but in
Q2/F1 it is spoken.
Judgment?
Hamlet, challenging Laertes’s insistence that he has not been hit with Hamlet’s sword,
calls for a decision vindicating his claim that he did in fact score a hit. Hamlet
does so again in line 66 below.
wipe thy face
Q2/F1 read
rub thy browes.See next note.
Set it by … first
Q2/F1 read
Ile play this bout first, set it by a while (a-while).In Q2/F1 Hamlet says this several lines before the Queen says, in Q2,
Heere Hamlet take my napkin rub thy browes,in F1
Heere’s a Napkin, rub thy browes.
anon
Soon.
She drinks
This Q1 stage direction is missing from Q2/F1, but the action is clearly implied.
In both Q2 and F1, the King says
Gertrard (Gertrude), doe not drinkebefore the Queen says
I will my Lord, I pray you pardon me.In Q1, she drinks before the King implores her not to; probably on stage the actions are more or less synonymous.
pass … play
Duel with all the skill you can muster.
Compare Q2/F1,
passe [i.e., duel] with your best violence.
I’ll hit you now
In Q2/F1, Laertes says privately to the King,
Ile hit him now,to which the King replies,
I doe not think’t (thinke’t)(omitted in Q1), at which point Laertes’s
And yet it is ('tis) almost against ('gainst) my conscienceis presumably said as an aside, as it must be also in Q1, but in a different sense as something Laertes chooses to keep to himself rather than as something he is simply saying to himself.
They catch … dies
Compare F1’s simpler stage direction,
In scuffling they change Rapiers.Q2 has no stage direction here. Although Q1 specifies that the Queen
falls down and dieshere at 80.1, she must remain alive through her last utterance in 82. The stage business is intelligible theatrically: the Queen falls, afflicted by the poison, and is visibly dying.
Look to the Queen!
This cry of alarm is uttered by Osric in Q2/F1. Following this, Q1 omits several lines
of dialogue in Q2/F1.
Oh … the drink!
Q1’s version is eloquent. Compare Q2/F1,
No, no, the drinke, the drinke, ô (Oh) my deare (deere) Hamlet.
Keep the gates
Lock and secure the gates (to prevent anyone from leaving).
Q2/F1 read
let the doore be lock’t (lock’d).
How is’t
How it with you, how are you.
as a coxcomb should
As befits a conceited, foolish person (named for the jester’s traditional cap adorned
with a rooster’s red comb).
Compare Q1 here with Q2/F1’s
Why as a woodcock (Woodcocke) to mine owne sprindge (To mine Sprindge).The rest of Laertes’s speech in Q1 is similarly paraphrased.
the fatal … envenomed
Q1 reads much like Q2/F1, except that those texts read
treacherousfor Q1’s
fatal; also, Q1’s
thyconfirms the F1 reading, against Q2’s
my.Following this phrase, Q1 omits two lines in Q2/F1.
Then venom … venom
Then poison, do what your poisonous nature enables you to do.
Compare Q2/F1,
then venome to thy worke.Q1’s second
venomemay be a compositor’s erroneous repetition.
Here lies … here
Here is your marriage now (in death).
Compare F1’s
Is thy Vnion heere?and Q2’s
is the Onixe heere?
The King dies
Omitted in Q2. F1 reads
King Dyes.
he is justly served
Q1 is identical to Q2/F1 here. The rest of Laertes’s speech, lines 94-6, is a paraphrase.
withal
With it.
Laertes dies
Omitted in Q2. F1 reads
Dyes.
I am dead, Horatio
Q1 is identical to Q2/F1 here. Q1 hereupon omits some 7 lines in Q2/F1, TLN 3817-24.
antique Roman
I.e., one who embraces death, if necessary by suicide, before dishonor.
Compare Brutus and Titinius in Act 5 of Julius Caesar, or Eros in 4.14 of Antony and Cleopatra, who takes his own life rather than outlive his noble master Antony. The word antique is rendered
antickein Q2,
antikein Q1,
Antikein F1.
an if
If.
The word
anis spelled
andin Q1. Q1 shortens and paraphrases in lines 100-6.
scandal
Risk of injury to my reputation.
Compare Q2/F1
wounded name.
Hamlet dies
The SD is omitted but clearly implied in Q2. In Q2/F1, Hamlet lives long enough to
prophesy that
th’ellection (th’election)will light on Fortinbras, who is about to arrive;
he has (h’as) my dying voice (voyce).Q1 says nothing of this.
bloody sight
Q2/F1 read
sight,and follow with Horatio’s line omitted in Q1:
What is it you (ye) would see?What follows in lines 107-16 of Q1 is a shortened and paraphrased version of TLN 3854-81 in Q2/F1, in which Horatio speaks of his intent to tell Hamlet’s tragic story to the
yet vnknowing world.
at one draught
At a single drawing of a bow.
Compare Q2’s
at a shotand F1’s
at a shoote.
most most
The repetition of
mostmay well be a printing error.
ground
Origin, beginning.
scaffold
Platform.
Compare Q2/F1’s
stage.
the state
The statesmen.
told … unfold
On this couplet, unique to F1, compare notes on the ends of scenes 9, 10, 11, 13,
and 15 above.
I have … invite me
Q1 follows Q2/F1 quite closely in these two lines, while also omitting six lines that
follow in Q2/F1 at TLN 3988-94. Q2/F1 read
vantagefor Q’s
leisurein line 122.
to his grave
Q2/F1 read
to the stage (Stage).
had he lived
Q2/F1 read
had he beene put on.
fields
Q2/F1 read
field.Q1 omits some three preceding lines in Q2/F1, TLN 3899-3901, and also the final line of the play in Q2/F1: Goe (Go,) bid the souldiers shoote. Q1 lacks a final stage direction, which reads
Exeuntin Q2,
Exeunt Marching: after the which, a Peale of Ordenance are shot offin F1.
Prosopography
David Bevington
David Bevington was the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus
in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. His books include From
Mankindto Marlowe (1962), Tudor Drama and Politics (1968), Action Is Eloquence (1985), Shakespeare: The Seven Ages of Human Experience (2005), This Wide and Universal Theater: Shakespeare in Performance, Then and Now (2007), Shakespeare’s Ideas (2008), Shakespeare and Biography (2010), and Murder Most Foul: Hamlet Through the Ages (2011). He was the editor of Medieval Drama (1975), The Bantam Shakespeare, and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The latter was published in a seventh edition in 2014. He was a senior editor of the Revels Student Editions, the Revels Plays, The Norton Anthology of Renaissance Drama, and The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (2012). Professor Bevington passed away on August 2, 2019.
Donald Bailey
Eric Rasmussen
Eric Rasmussen is Regents Teaching Professor and Foundation Professor of English at
the University of Nevada. He is co-editor with Sir Jonathan Bate of the RSC William Shakespeare Complete Works and general editor, with Paul Werstine, of the New Variorum Shakespeare. He has received the Falstaff Award from PlayShakespeare.com for Best Shakespearean Book of the Year in 2007, 2012, and 2013.
James D. Mardock
James Mardock is Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Associate
General Editor for the Internet Shakespeare Editions, and a dramaturge for the Lake
Tahoe Shakespeare Festival and Reno Little Theater. In addition to editing quarto
and folio Henry V for the ISE, he has published essays on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Renaissance
literature in The Seventeenth Century, Ben Jonson Journal, Borrowers and Lenders, and contributed to the collections Representing the Plague in Early Modern England (Routledge 2010) and Shakespeare Beyond Doubt (Cambridge 2013). His book Our Scene is London (Routledge 2008) examines Jonson’s representation of urban space as an element in
his strategy of self-definition. With Kathryn McPherson, he edited Stages of Engagement (Duquesne 2013), a collection of essays on drama in post-Reformation England, and
he is currently at work on a monograph on Calvinism and metatheatrical awareness in
early modern English drama.
Janelle Jenstad
Janelle Jenstad is a Professor of English at the University of Victoria, Director
of The Map of Early Modern London, and Director of Linked Early Modern Drama Online. With Jennifer Roberts-Smith and Mark Beatrice Kaethler, she co-edited Shakespeare’s Language in Digital Media: Old Words, New Tools (Routledge). She has edited John Stow’s A Survey of London (1598 text) for MoEML and is currently editing The Merchant of Venice (with Stephen Wittek) and Heywood’s 2 If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody for DRE. Her articles have appeared in Digital Humanities Quarterly, Elizabethan Theatre, Early Modern Literary Studies, Shakespeare Bulletin, Renaissance and Reformation, and The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies. She contributed chapters to Approaches to Teaching Othello (MLA); Teaching Early Modern Literature from the Archives (MLA); Institutional Culture in Early Modern England (Brill); Shakespeare, Language, and the Stage (Arden); Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate); New Directions in the Geohumanities (Routledge); Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (Iter); Placing Names: Enriching and Integrating Gazetteers (Indiana); Making Things and Drawing Boundaries (Minnesota); Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Audiences, Authors, and Digital Technologies (Routledge); and Civic Performance: Pageantry and Entertainments in Early Modern London (Routledge). For more details, see janellejenstad.com.
Joey Takeda
Joey Takeda is LEMDO’s Consulting Programmer and Designer, a role he assumed in 2020
after three years as the Lead Developer on LEMDO.
Kate LeBere
Project Manager, 2020–2021. Assistant Project Manager, 2019–2020. Textual Remediator
and Encoder, 2019–2021. Kate LeBere completed her BA (Hons.) in History and English
at the University of Victoria in 2020. During her degree she published papers in The Corvette (2018), The Albatross (2019), and PLVS VLTRA (2020) and presented at the English Undergraduate Conference (2019), Qualicum History
Conference (2020), and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute’s Project Management
in the Humanities Conference (2021). While her primary research focus was sixteenth
and seventeenth century England, she completed her honours thesis on Soviet ballet
during the Russian Cultural Revolution. She is currently a student at the University
of British Columbia’s iSchool, working on her masters in library and information science.
Martin Holmes
Martin Holmes has worked as a developer in the UVic’s Humanities Computing and Media
Centre for over two decades, and has been involved with dozens of Digital Humanities
projects. He has served on the TEI Technical Council and as Managing Editor of the
Journal of the TEI. He took over from Joey Takeda as lead developer on LEMDO in 2020.
He is a collaborator on the SSHRC Partnership Grant led by Janelle Jenstad.
Michael Best
Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He is the Founding
Editor of the Internet Shakespeare Editions, of which he was the Coordinating Editor
until 2017. In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and
huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on
Electronic Shakespeares,and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.
Navarra Houldin
Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual
remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major
in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary
research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They
are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice
Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.
Rae S. Rostron
Rae is studying a BA in English Literature at Durham University. She is particularly
interested in representations of grief and trauma in literature and is currently researching
femicide in the novel. Rae has interned for Creative Media Agency (NYC) and is an
acting student researcher for King College London’s Psychology Department exploring
loneliness in students.
Tracey El Hajj
Junior Programmer 2019–2020. Research Associate 2020–2021. Tracey received her PhD
from the Department of English at the University of Victoria in the field of Science
and Technology Studies. Her research focuses on the algorhythmics of networked communications. She was a 2019–2020 President’s Fellow in Research-Enriched
Teaching at UVic, where she taught an advanced course on
Artificial Intelligence and Everyday Life.Tracey was also a member of the Map of Early Modern London team, between 2018 and 2021. Between 2020 and 2021, she was a fellow in residence at the Praxis Studio for Comparative Media Studies, where she investigated the relationships between artificial intelligence, creativity, health, and justice. As of July 2021, Tracey has moved into the alt-ac world for a term position, while also teaching in the English Department at the University of Victoria.
William Shakespeare
Orgography
LEMDO Team (LEMD1)
The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project
director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators,
encoders, and remediating editors.
University of Victoria (UVIC1)
https://www.uvic.ca/Metadata
| Authority title | Hamlet, Quarto 1 |
| Type of text | Primary Source Text |
| Publisher | University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform |
| Series | |
| Source |
This file has been converted from IML, the SGML markup language of the Internet Shakespeare
Editions platform. IML files do not indicate the copy or copytext transcribed. LEMDO
acknowledges that we are not the main source of transcription, and that we do not
know the witness transcribed in this transcription. As time permits, we will compare
this transcription to an open-access digital surrogate and align the transcription
that surrogate. If you have worked on ISE and/or may have an idea as to the source
of this file, please contact lemdo@uvic.ca.
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| Editorial declaration | No editorial declaration available at this time. |
| Edition | |
| Encoding description | |
| Document status | IML-TEI |
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