Page 411 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

3<>4 CORRECTION S AN D 3-s-

so great an empire: many times misfortunes doe chaunce,
that fill them full of sundrie passions, the which Pericles
alone could finely steere and goveme with two principall
rudders, feare and hope... .Wherein he manifestly proved,
that rethorike and eloquence (as Plato sayeth) is an arte
•which quickeneth mens spirites at her pleasure, and her
chiefest skill is, to knowe howe to move passions and affec-
tions throughly, which are as stoppes andsoundes of the smile,
that <would be played upon ixith a fine fingered hand of a
conning master.
The italics are mine. Cf. add. notes 1. 68 above, and
2.2. 562-63.
361. fingers and thumb It does not 'take two thumbs
to play a recorder' as I asserted in my 'ignorance and
conceit' (cf. MSH. ii. 296, 333—25). Several corre-
spondents have written to point out the error, which I
might have avoided had I known before of Ch. Welch's
fascinating Six Lectures on the Recorder (Oxford, .1911),
v. especially Lect. iii, 'Hamlet and the Recorder.'
The intrusive V in g2's 'the vmber,' which led me
astray, must now be attributed to misplaced ingenuity
in the printing-house. I have corrected the text.
397. The soul of Nero Dowden notes that Agrippina,
Nero's mother, was not only the wife of a Claudius, but
was accused of poisoning a husband and of living in
incest with a brother. If Sh. knew all this, perhaps it
accounts for his choice of Claudius as the name for his
king of Denmark.

3-3-
7. brows In the 2nd ed. I suggested 'braves' as a
likely emendation for the Qz 'browes.' The sense,
'impudent or defiant threats,' would suit the context
well, and it would be easier than 'brawls' graphically.
But it is safer to retain 'brows' in view of O.E.D.
which cites late 17th century examples of 'brow' in
the figurative sense of'an unabashed brow, effrontery.'
80. Cf. note (add.) 1. 5. 11 above.