Page 340 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

5.1. NOTES 233

38-9. confess thyself-—'and be hanged' is the rest of
the sentence.
43. that frame v. G. 'frame.' The Clown quibbles.
52. unyoke 'after this great effort you may unharness
the team of your wit' (Dowden).
60. get thee to Yaughan, and fetch Qz 'getthee in,
and fetch,' I 'get thee to Yaughan, fetch.' Nicholson
F
suggested that 'Yaughan' was the name of the keeper
of a tavern near the Globe, which he identified with
'deaf John's' dark alehouse spoken of in Jonson's
Alchemist, 1. 1. This, which is plausible prima facie,
assumes that mine host was a German and that
'Yaughan' was an attempt to give a Welsh form to
'Johan' (or 'Yohan' as Jonson renders the name of a
German Jew in E.M.O. 5.6.48). But it is not necessary
to bring in a German at all, seeing that 'Johan' is also
the Danish for John, and that if 'deaf John's' was the
house intended, Sh. would naturally wish to translate it
to Elsinore, just as he gives the Danish name Yorick to
the K.'s jester, and Osric to the fop. Sh. prob. spelt it
'Yohan' as Jonson did, for the form 'Yaughan' belongs
to the corrupt Fl text, while the notion quoted by
Furness that it can be a Welsh name is apparently quite
unfounded. That no name appears in Q2 may be set
down to omission on the part of the compositor.
MSH. pp. 259-60.
S.D. £)2 'Enter Hamlet and Horatio.' (at 1. 64)
Fi 'Enter Hamlet and Horatio a farre off.' (at 1. 55).
It is clear from Ham.'s first words that they have over-
heard the song. Cf. note 3. 2. 290 S.D. and MSH.
p. 184. 'Clad as a sailor' is a suggestion by Mr William
Poel (v. Sh. in the Theatre, pp. 173-74), quoting
'naked (4. 7. 44) and pointing out that the Sexton
does not recognise him and. that he has to declare himself
atl. 251.
61-4. In youth when I etc. The three stanzas of the
sexton's song are a blundering and half-remembered