NOTES

N.E.D. New English Dictionary.

ACT I, SCENE I. 2. me is emphatic.

3. Long live the king! This is the watchword. 13. rivals, partners: its earlier sense.

'Rivales' meant at first those

who lived by the same 'rivus' or stream, and went shares in its water. Because of the natural disputes that followed, it came to mean what it 'Rivality' partnership occurs in Antony and Cleopatra,

means now.

III. V. 8.

15. the Dane, the king of the Danes.

16. Give you good-night, i. e. God give you good-night.

25. of, by.

29. approve our eyes, confirm the evidence of them.

36. yond, yon: the two words were used indifferently. 37. illume, illumine.

42. It was believed that the best way of exorcising a spirit was to speak Latin to it. Horatio was a scholar and therefore knew Latin. 45. It would be spoke to, it wishes to be spoken to. It was believed that a ghost could not take the first word.

48. Denmark, i. e. King of Denmark. So 'Norway', 1. 61, &c. 56. I might not this believe, I could not believe this. May' and 'might' were frequently used with the sense of 'can' and 'could'.

57. avouch, avouchment. Shakespeare has taken the verb and made a noun of it without change of form. Cp. 1. 75 ('impress '), III. i. 175 ('hatch,' 'disclose '), &c.

61. Norway. Cp. l. 48 n.

62. parle, parley.

63. the sledded Polacks, the Poles with their sledges. With 'Polack

cp. Fr. Polaque.

65. jump, pat. Cp. v. ii. 389.

67. In what particular thought, &c., what particular line of thought to follow out I know not.

68. in the gross and scope of my opinion, to give a round judgement ('gross') so far as my mind can reach ('scope').

70. Good now is short for 'My good Horatio, now'. Cp. Tempest, I. i. 3: Good, speak to the mariners,' where 'good' = good boatswain. 72. toils the subject of the land, makes the subject population toil. This collective form, 'the subject,' occurs also in 1. ii. 33. Cp. 'the general', II. ii. 466.

74. mart, marketing.

75. impress, impressment, i. e. enforced service. Cp. 1. 57 n.

77. toward, on foot.

83. emulate, emulous.

89. seiz'd of, possessed of: a legal term.

90-1. a moiety competent Was gaged, a portion sufficient was pledged.

Strictly a 'moiety' is a half (Fr. moitié), but it was used freely for any portion.

94. carriage of the article designed, bearing or purport of the article drawn up.

96. unimproved. Either (1) untutored, undisciplined; or (2) not yet turned to advantage.

98. Shark'd up a list of lawless resolutes, snapped up indiscriminately and enrolled a band of lawless desperadoes.

100. That hath a stomach in't, that needs stomach or courage.

106. head, the chief mover or director.

107. romage, rummage, bustle.

108. I think it be no other but e'en so, I think it is possibly no otherwise than as you say. The subjunctive' be' indicates indecision.

109. Well may it sort. The full meaning is: it sorts well with these things if these things be so.

111. the question of these wars, i. e. the subject of them.

113 f. This passage is a vivid reminiscence of Julius Caesar, 1. iii. 10– 32, and II. ii.~17-24. Shakespeare had just finished writing Julius Caesar when he set to work on Hamlet.

116-18. Something has dropped out between 11. 116 and 117, and we cannot restore the syntax.

118. Disasters (Fr. désastre, Lat. astrum, star) is used with a strong sense of its original meaning, 'an unfavourable aspect of a star or planet.'

the moist star is the moon.

121. precurse, forerunning (formed literally from Lat. prae- and cursus).

123. the omen is here used for the ominous event itself. 125. climatures, regions.

Climature' is a variation on ‘climate',

which was used as we still use 'clime'.

127. I'll cross it, though it blast me. To cross the path of a ghost, it was believed, brought one under its influence.

134. happily, haply. Both forms are common. Cp. II. ii. 412. 140. partisan, a sort of halbert, a staff with an axe and hook or spike at the top.

154. extravagant and erring, vagrant and wandering. Both words are used in their original Latin sense, the first from extra-vagari, to roam out of bounds, the second from errare, to wander.

155. confine, place of confinement. Usually it means simply' bound', 'limit'. Cp. II. ii. 255–6.

156. probation, proof.

158. 'gainst that season comes: in preparation for its coming.

162. strike. Planets were thought sometimes to strike and blast. Cp. the next note.

163. takes, strikes with infection. Cp. He blasts the tree and takes the cattle' (Merry Wives of Windsor, īv. iv. 32); 'Whirlwinds, star. blasting, and taking' (Lear, II. iv. 61).

164. gracious, full of divine grace.

166. russet, grey, ash-coloured. In Midsummer-Night's Dream it is used to describe the colour of a jackdaw's head: 'russet-pated choughs ' (III. ii. 21).

173. loves. We should say 'love', thinking of the love of all together. Shakespeare says 'loves', thinking of the love of each. Cp. I. ii. 250, 253 ('loves'); II. ii. 14 ('companies').

ACT I, SCENE II. 9. The imperial jointress is the queen dowager.

10. defeated, disfigured, defaced, spoiled (OFr. defeit, defait, p. part. of defaire, to undo, mar, destroy). Cp. I. ii. 606, and Othello, I. iii. 346 : 'Defeat thy favour with an usurp'd beard' (i. e. disfigure your appearance with a false beard).

11. With one auspicious and one dropping eye, with one eye telling of good fortune, the other dropping tears.

14-15. barr'd Your better wisdoms, i. e. excluded them, forbidden them expression.

17. that you know, that (which) you know.

20. disjoint and out of frame, disjointed and out of gear.

21. Colleagued with the dream of his advantage, taking this dream of his superiority for his colleague or ally. 'Colleagued' is here trisyllabic. 24. bands, bonds. They are the same word.

31. gait, proceeding.

32. full proportions means the full numbers proportionate to his needs, i. e. the full numbers necessary. Cp. Henry V, 1. ii. 136-7: 'We must... lay down our proportions to defend Against the Scot.'

33. subject. Cp. 1. i. 72.

38. delated articles, the articles or heads of instruction transferred or handed over to them.

allow should be 'allows', after the subject scope'. Shakespeare's ear was guided by the intervening plural, 'articles'. This is a very common mistake both in speech and writing. Cp. Julius Caesar, v. i. 33: The posture of your blows are yet unknown.”

6

45. lose your voice, speak in vain. Cp. 1. 118.

47. more native to the heart: more allied by nature to it.

56. pardon here almost means 'consent'. Cp. III. ii. 336. 62. Take thy fair hour, enjoy life while you are young.

63. thy best graces spend it at thy will, spend the time as you will, in the exercise of your best graces or accomplishments.

64. cousin here means nephew. It was used loosely of all those relationships which involve cousinship in the strict sense, i. e. uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, &c.

65. A little more than kin, and less than kind. His mother's marriage with his uncle had made him more than a mere kinsman; and 'less than kind', because he hated his uncle-father. This pun on 'kin' and 'kind' is a favourite with Shakespeare, and more natural than most. For 'kind' comes from 'kin', and originally describes the feeling of one kinsman for another. In Elizabethan English it was used to mean 'true to the natural feelings of kinship', especially 'filial', and on that sense Hamlet plays. Cp. II. ii. 617 ('kindless ').

67. sun. He puns on sun' and 'son', again alluding to his new relationship to his uncle.

68. nighted, black as night.

70. vailed, lowered (Fr. avaler).

81. haviour, deportment, demeanour. Haviour', which originally

meant possession' (Fr. avoir), was gradually assimilated to the meaning of ' behaviour'.

90. bound, i.e. was bound. For this ellipse, natural in compressed speech, cp. III. iii. 62, &c.

92. obsequious sorrow, such sorrow as one offers in obsequies of the dead.

persever. 'Persevere ' is in Shakespeare always persever',

accented on the second syllable.

93. condolement does not mean consolation, but mourning, grief. Cp. Bottom in Midsummer-Night's Dream, 1. ii. 29: if I do it, let the audience look to their eyes; I will move storms, I will condole in some measure.'

95. incorrect to heaven, unchastened or unsubdued to the will of heaven. Cp. 1. 101.

99. As any the most vulgar thing to sense, as any of the things most common or obvious to the senses. This is the original sense of vulgar' (Lat. vulgaris, common). Cp. I. iii. 61.

107. unprevailing, unavailing.

110-12. impart has no object as the lines stand. Perhaps Shakespeare meant like a kind father to his son and heir do I offer you your share of my position.

113. Wittenberg: a University town in Germany, well known in Shakespeare's time as the place where Luther began his battle with the Roman Church, and as the scene of the story of Faustus.

115. bend you to remain, bend or incline your will to remain.

124. Sits smiling to my heart.

means 'sits close to my heart'.

127. rouse, bumper. So I. iv. 8, II. i. 58. The firing of cannon on such occasions was a well-known Danish custom.

bruit, loudly report (Fr. bruit).

134. uses, usages.

137. merely, absolutely: the original sense (Lat. merus, pure, undiluted).

139-40. that was, to this, Hyperion to a satyr, that was, compared to this king, Hyperion compared to a satyr. For this use of to', cp. I. v. 52, III. i. 52, 53. Hyperion is the sun-god (lit. 'the traveller overhead'). 'Satyrs' were sylvan deities, half-man half-goat. 141. might not beteem. 'Might' means 'could', and means' permit'. For this sense of 'might', cp. I. i. 56.

beteem '

149. Niobe was a woman of Greece. She wept herself to a stone for

her seven sons and daughters, all slain by Apollo and Diana, the children of Leto. The reason for the massacre was simple.

of having finer children than Leto.

She had boasted

150. discourse of reason, the faculty of reasoning. 'Discourse' is the motion or progress of the mind from one judgement to another (Lat. discursus). Cp. IV. iv. 36.

155. flushing, redness.

157. It is not nor it cannot come to good. The negatives are repeated for emphasis.

163. I'll change that name with you. He means: 'I'll be your servant, and you my friend.'