Page 248 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

N O T E S 141

deliberately altered (for reasons unknown) at some stage
in the history of the text. Cf. F. G. Stokes, Dictionary
of Characters etc. in Shakespeare, (i) Claudius. Not
named in the dialogue; appears in S.D. at head of 1. 2.
and in prefix to his first speech, but everywhere else in
Q2 described as 'King.' Possibly the name was spoken
in the sixteenth-century version of the play, (ii) Hamlet.
The traditional name, found in many variant forms, of
the hero of the old saga (v. Introd. pp. xii-xiii). It is
perhaps an accident that the name was current in
Warwickshire and that Shakespeare's own son (b. 1585)
was christened Hamnet, a variant of it. (iii) Polonius.
Called 'Corambis' in Cji and 'Corambus' in the
Brudermord (cf. Introd. p. xxv). Until recently if
was assumed that 'Corambus' was the original name,
altered to 'Polonius' in Shakespeare's latest revision;
Chambers {Will. Skak. i. 417-18) challenges this,
I think unnecessarily. For the name Polonius and a
possible reference to Burleigh, v. Gollancz, Book of
Homage, pp. 173-77. Rowe described Polonius as
'Lord Chamberlain,' and Chambers (Sh.Eng. i. 85)
endorses this. But he is the most important person in the
state of Denmark after the royal family, and it appears
from 2. 2. 166 ('assistant for a state') and 1. 2. that he
is the chief of the King's Councillors, i.e. a statesman
and not a ceremonial official like the Lord Chamberlain.
I have little doubt that Shakespeare regarded him as
corresponding with the Principal Secretary of State
under Elizabeth and James I, a post held first by
Burleigh and later by his son Robert Cecil, (iv) Horatio.
Also the name of the murdered son of Hieronimo
in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (c. 158^) and perhaps
borrowed from there, (v) Laertes. The name of the
father of Ulysses, referred to in Ovid, Metam. xiii. 48,
and in Tit. And. 1. 1. 380. (vi) Valtemand. The sp.
'Voltimand' (F2) has been universally adopted by edd.
I follow Q2, though this is, as Greg (Aspects, p. 198)