Page 402 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

i.2. A D D I T I O N A L N O T E S 295

153. than I to Hercules Travers notes that Ham.
thinks of Hercules rather as the purifier of the world
than as the strong man, and quotes Antonio's Revenge, 5.2:
Thou art another Hercules to us
In ridding huge pollution from our state.
This has the great merit of freeing us from the necessity
of supposing that Ham. regards himself as a weakling—
which he certainly was not.
157. incestuous Trench (pp. 55, 257-60) notes
'that the recent internal history and the existing inter-
national position of Sh.'s England turned largely upon
that very point, the case of Gertrude being precisely
parallel with that of Catherine of Aragon.'

I-3-
12-13. temple.. .service E. E. Kellett, Suggestions,
p. 74, anticipates me here.
74. of a most.. .chief in that (add at end) A fourth,
suggested by Staunton and Ingleby (v. Fumess) is to
read 'cheefe' and 'sheaf ( =set, class). But this merely
repeats 'of the best rank' (1. 73).
113. almost all = even, all, v. G. (add.).
1.4.
8-9. The king...reels (add.) Cf. 1. 2. 125-28,
5.2.273-76. For this Danish custom and contemporary
English opinion upon it v. the account of'The Earle of
Rutland his Ambassage into Denmarke' (June and July,
1603), on the occasion of a royal christening and for the
presentation of the order of the Garter to Christian IV
(King James I's brother-in-law), given in Stow's
Annals (pp. 1433-37) a n d based upon a note supplied
by 'Maister William Segar, Garter King at Armes.'
Two extracts may be quoted:
That afternoone the King [Christian IV] went aboord
the English ship [lying off Elsinore] and had a banket
prepared for him vpon the vpper decks, which were hung
Q.H.-22