The Tragedy of Hamlet

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET THE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET EDITED BY EDWARD DOWDEN n METHUEN AND CO. 36 ESSEX STREET: STRAND LONDON 1899 9 5 7 7 95 —— CONTENTS PAGE Introduction ix The Tragedy of Hamlet i Appendix I. The "Travelling" of the Players. 229 Appendix II.— Some Passages from the Quarto of 1603 231 Appendix III. Addenda 235 INTRODUCTION This edition of Hamlet aims in the first place at giving a trustworthy text. Secondly, it attempts to exhibit the variations from that text which are found in the primary sources—the Quarto of 1604 and the Folio of 1623 — in so far as those variations are of importance towards the ascertainment of the text. Every variation is not recorded, but I have chosen to err on the side of excess rather than on that of defect. Readings from the Quarto of 1603 are occasionally given, and also from the later Quartos and Folios, but to record such readings is not a part of the design of this edition. 1 The letter Q means Quarto 604 ; F means Folio 1623. The dates of the later Quartos are as follows: —Q 3, 1605 161 1 undated 6, For ; Q 4, ; Q 5, ; Q 1637. my few references to these later Quartos I have trusted the Cambridge Shakespeare and Furness's edition of Hamlet. Thirdly, it gives explanatory notes. Here it is inevitable that my task should in the main be that of selection and condensation. But, gleaning after the gleaners, I have perhaps brought together a slender sheaf. Thus, I am not aware that I have been antici- X INTRODUCTION pated in my explanation of Hamlet's question about Alexander's body, in the Churchyard scene (v. i. 218); of his swearing by St. Patrick (i. v. 136); of the name Lamord (iv. vii. 93). I hope I may have done something towards the solution of the " dram of eale " crux (l. iv. 26— 38), and of "stand a comma 'tween their amities" (v. ii. 42). I have noted a curious parallel between Jonson and Shakespeare (ll. ii. 210—214). With the aid of the New English Dictionary I have perhaps removed " any doubt as to the meaning of mortal coil " (ill. i. 6^^, and given its correct sense (though this is doubtful) to "anchor's cheer" (ill. ii. 231). I have perhaps explained why Folonius classes " fencing " with drinking and drab- bing (II. i. 25). I have made what I suppose to be new —perhaps erroneous—suggestions as to " Take this from this" (II. ii. 156) and "tender me a fool" (l. iii. 109). If ingenuities are anywhere pardonable, it is in conjecturing the meaning of Hamlet's riddling speeches ; it was not his cue ever to talk sheer nonsense ; accordingly I have ventured to throw out, doubtfully, suggestions — possibly " " darkening counsel with words—on fishmonger (ll. ii. (ll. ii. 174), "mad . handsaw" 401-403), "suit of sables" (ill. ii. 139), "soul of Nero" (ill. ii. 413), "the body is with the king" (IV. ii. 30), "drink up eisel, eat " a crocodile (V. i. 298). I, very doubtfully, suggest a " " new reading of select and generous (i. iii. 74), and a " modification of Mr. Tovey's emendation of the"Yaughan crux (v. i. 6']'). Occasionally, as in the "Nunnery" scene with Ophelia (ill. i.), I have tried to explain Hamlet's thoughts rather than verbal difficulties. When what is worthless has been sifted away, a little that is a 7: INTRODUCTION xi real addition to our knowledge of Shakespeare may remain. For the earliest references to the legendary Hamlet the reader should consult Mr. Gollancz's interesting volume Hamlet in Iceland (1898). The first in date, he tells us, is found in the second section of Snorri Sturlason's Prose Edda (about 1230): — "The Nine Maids of the Island Mill " (daughters of ^gir, the Ocean-god) " in ages past ground Hamlet's meal." The words occur in a quotation of Snorri from Snaebjorn, who was probably an Arctic adventurer of the tenth century. The name Amhlaide is found yet earlier. In the Ajinals of Ireland by the Four Masters, under the year 9 1 ( = 919), in a fragment of song (having reference to the battle of Ath-Cliath between the Northerners and the Irish) attributed to Queen Gormflaith, appear the words " Niall Glundubh [was slain] by Amhlaide." Mr. Gol- lancz identifies this Amhlaide with Sitric, a Northerner, who first came to Dublin in 888, and hazards the con- jecture that " Gaile," a cognomen applied to Sitric, may mean mad, and that Amhlaide may be a synonym of " Gaile." He believes that in the Scandinavian kingdom of Ireland was developed, in the eleventh century, the Northern tale of Hamlet as we know it from Saxo.^ Probably about the opening of the thirteenth century the Danish writer Saxo Grammaticus told in Latin the " The Ainbales Saga, which Mr. Gollancz prints, is in its present form "a modern production belonging to the sixteenth, or perhaps early seven- teenth century," preserving possibly some elements of the pre-Saxo Ilamlet legend. The Icelandic folk-talc of Brjam (first written down from oral tradition in 1705) is "nothing but a levelling down of the story of Ilamlet, ' " cleverly blended with another folk-tale of the Clever Hans ' type (Gollancz, Introduction, Ixiv and Ixviii). xii INTRODUCTION story of Amlethus in the third and fourth books of his History of the Dajies. The reader will find an English version in Mr. Elton's translation of Saxo. The Northern Hamlet legends, oral or written, are mingled by Saxo with borrowings from the old Roman story of Lucius Junius Brutus. Horwendil and his brother Feng rule Jutland under King Rorik of Denmark. Horwendil slays Roll, king of Norway, and marries Gerutha, the daughter of King Rorik ; their son is Amleth. Feng, jealous of his brother, slays Horwendil, and takes Gerutha to wife. Amleth feigns to be dull of wits and little better than a beast, while secretly planning vengeance. He baffles the courtiers by riddling words, which for them are nonsense, but are really significant. A girl, his foster-sister, is placed in his way, in the hope that his conduct may betray his true state of mind ; his foster- brother warns him of the snare, and he baffles his enemies. A friend of Feng, " more confident than wise," proposes to act as eavesdropper during an interview between Amleth and his mother. Amleth, crowing like a cock, flapping his arms like wings, and leaping hither and thither, discovers the eavesdropper hidden under straw, stabs him and brutally disposes of the body. He explains to his mother that his madness is feigned and that he plans revenge, and he gains her over to his side. His uncle sends Amleth to Britain, with two companions, who bear a letter graven on wood, requesting the king to slay Amleth. The letter is altered by Amleth, and his companions are put to death. His adventures in Britain do not affect Shakespeare's play. He returns, makes the courtiers drunk, nets them in hangings knitted by his INTRODUCTION xiii mother, sets fire to the palace, and slays his uncle with the sword. He harangues the people, and is hailed as Feng's successor. After other adventures of crafty device and daring deed, Amleth dies in battle. Had he lived, favoured by nature and fortune, he would have surpassed Hercules. Sa:>co's History was printed in 15 14. In 1570 Belle- forest—freely rendering Saxo's Latin—told the story of Amleth in French in the fifth volume of his Histoires tragiques. The English translation of Belleforest's story. The Historic of Hamblet, is dated 1608, and may have been called forth by the popularity of Shakespeare's play.^ Here the eavesdropper hides behind the hangings of Geruthe's chamber, and Hamblet cries, " A ! . rat ! a rat " circumstances probably borrowed from Shakespeare. As early as 1589 an English drama on the subject of Hamlet was in existence. It is referred to in that year by Thomas Nash in a printed letter accompanying Greene's MenapJion. VVe know from this passage, and other allusions, that it was a drama written under the influence of Seneca, and that a ghost appeared in it " " crying Revenge ! Henslowe's diary informs us that it was acted, not as a new play, at Newington Butts in June 1594. The suggestion that Thomas Kyd was the author—made long since—was supported with sub- stantial evidence by Mr. Fleay in his Chronicle of the English Drama (i 891), and, in my opinion, was decisively proved by Gregor Sarrazin in the section entitled " Der ^ It may be found in Furness's Hamlet, vol. ii., or in Collier's Shake- speare's Libra)y, vol. i. ; ; xiv INTRODUCTION Ur-Hamlet" of his Thomas Kyd und sein Kreis (1892). It is not improbable that Nash, in the passage where he speaks of Hamlet, puns upon the name Kyd. We may fairly assume that it was a companion piece to Kyd's Spanish Tragedy—itself a play of revenge (a father's revenge for a murdered son, inverting the Hamlet theme) ; of violent passion bordering on distraction including among the dramatis personce a ghost, and pre- senting, like Hamlet, a play within the play. Kyd translated Garnier's Cornelia from the French, and could read the story of Hamlet in Belleforest. English actors had visited Elsinore, and had lately returned to London, bringing their tidings of Denmark. Mr. Corbin, in a very ingenious study. The Elizabethan Hamlet (1895), has conjectured that the lost play by Kyd exhibited a Hamlet resembling the Amleth of Saxo in his being rather a man of resolute action than a man of contemplation, and that his assumption of madness was the occasion of vulgar comedy ; the affliction of insanity was, as we know, often regarded by Elizabethan dramatists from the comic point of view.

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