The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 19.0101 Friday, 15 February 2008
[1] From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Thursday, 14 Feb 2008 11:48:30 -0600
Subj: RE: SHK 19.0095 Solid Flesh
[2] From: William Godshalk <
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Date: Thursday, 14 Feb 2008 14:45:20 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0095 Solid Flesh
[3] From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Friday, February 15, 2008
Subj: Re: SHK 19.0095 Solid Fles
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Donald Bloom <
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Date: Thursday, 14 Feb 2008 11:48:30 -0600
Subject: 19.0095 Solid Flesh
Comment: RE: SHK 19.0095 Solid Flesh
I hate to be simplistic, but the reason why "solid" is glossed for
"sallied" is because it makes the best sense. A solid ice cube melts
into something liquid (like "a dew"). The solid flesh of living
organisms also melts away (into a ghastly dew, I might venture), as we
may note from small animals found by the roadside.
Sullied, of course, has connections with the rankness of the "unweeded
garden," and is thus an interesting alternative. But it lacks the
immediacy of "solid-melt. (There is an old theory that it is a
deliberate pun (whose I don't recall) assuming the hearer will catch
both senses.)
In such a case, with two plausible senses, you can opt for A or B or
both, but there is no point in asserting one as absolute. A has it
values (primarily the close proximity of "melt") and B it's (the more
distant proximity of "rank and gross"). Obviously, I pick A because of
this matter of proximity, but I can see the reason for B.
Can we leave it at that?
Cheers,
don
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: William Godshalk <
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Date: Thursday, 14 Feb 2008 14:45:20 -0500
Subject: 19.0095 Solid Flesh
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0095 Solid Flesh
>Gordon Williams in his Dictionary of Sexual Language and
>Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature defines
>"dew" as "sexual emission." Williams defines "flesh"
>(entry 5), as "allusive of erection." I leave "solid flesh"
>to your imagination.
Since suggesting that "solid flesh" has a decidedly sexual undertone, I
have again checked Gordon Williams' dictionary. Surprisingly, he offers
no definition of "melt," but he does cite a series of passages where
"melt" is used in an erotic context. Also in the next scene of Hamlet,
1.3, both Laertes and Polonius are concerned with Hamlet's sexuality and
Ophelia's obvious affection for the young prince. I was tempted to write
"randy young prince," but I won't.
Bill
[3]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Hardy M. Cook <
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Date: Friday, February 15, 2008
Subject: 19.0095 Solid Flesh
Comment: Re: SHK 19.0095 Solid Flesh
I just spent the past several hours getting lost in my library,
gathering infomation that I hope will be of use.
Harold Jenkins reads the crux in I.ii.129 as "sullied" in his Arden
second edition, explaining his choice in a short annotation and in one
of the longest LN (Longer Notes) in the edition:
sullied] LN.
129-30. melt . . . dew] Warhaft (see 1. 129 sullied LN) stresses as the
contrast to 'self-slaughter' (1. 132) the resolving of the baser element
into the higher, whereby Hamlet might return from melancholy to normal
health, or, if to become dew is to die, then from 'misery' to
'felicity'. But there is surely no thought here of being restored to
health or happiness, only of being free of the 'flesh' whether through
its own deliquescence or through suicide. Cf. Paul on the desire to be
dissolved and the necessity of living in the flesh (Philippians i.23-4,
as regularly cited in the Homily on the Fear of Death and elsewhere. Cf.
also 2 Corinthians v.1). To resolve (change into another form or
element) into a dew (moisture) is another synonym for melt and thaw, and
does not imply (as Warhaft would suggest) a further transformation into
vapour.
LONGER NOTE
I.ii. 129. sullied] The most debated reading in the play in recent
years. Earlier editors, with their preference for F, naturally adopted
solid, though Furnivall defended the Q sallied in the sense of
'assailed' and Furness recorded the conjecture sullied, which also
occurred to Tennyson (SQ, xi, 490) and which Dowden thought might 'be
right'. Dover Wilson's establishment of Q2 as the more authoritative
text brought sullied into favour (see MSH, pp. 307-15; Greg, Principles
of Emendation, p. 25; Bowers, SS 9, 44-8). Seven other Shakespearean
instances of the word include two with the 'a' spelling: Ham. II.i.40,
sallies (Q2); LLL V.ii.352, 'pure as the unsallied lily' (Q, F 1). Cf.
also Dekker, etc., Patient Grissill, I.i.12, 'sally not the morning with
foul looks'. So whereas Dover Wilson took sallied as a misreading of
'sullied', it is reasonably regarded, Kokeritz notwithstanding (Studia
Neophilologica, XXX, 3-10), as an alternative form (Crow, Essays and
Studies, n.s. VIII, 8-9; Bowers, loc. cit.). Solid has obvious (too
obvious?) aptness in the context and it too has the support of
Shakespearean usage: 2H4 III.i.48, 'that one might . . . see . . . the
continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea'; Troil.
I.iii.113. S. Weiss found it consistent with Shakespearean patterns of
associated imagery (SQ, X, 219-27), and S. Warhaft related it to the
essential characteristic of the melancholy humour (ELH, XXVIII, 21-30).
Briefly, melancholy is the cold dry humour, and 'of this coldness and
dryness riseth hardness whereof the flesh of melancholy persons is'
(Bright, p. 128). In Shr. (Ind.ii. 129) melancholy is associated with
the congealing of the blood; and 'of the congealing of the blood' the
flesh, according to Burton, is composed (I.i.2(3)). Melancholy among the
humours thus corresponds to earth among the elements, and its remedy is
for the excess of earth to melt into water, which in turn may resolve
into vapour. But see II. 129-30n., resolve; and while all this may
illuminate the passage, its support for solid would be stronger if the
word actually occurred in Warhaft's illustrative quotations. The
significance he attaches to solid is already implicit in flesh. And,
just to show how one may argue either way, the alchemical transmutation
of the baser element (flesh) into the purer (dew) has been held to
support sullied (ES, LIX, 508-9). Though 'too solid flesh' escapes
tautology, sullied enlarges the meaning as solid does not. With the
thought cf. (from the poem in Tottel's Miscellany beginning 'The life is
long, that loathsomely doth last') 'Wherefore with Paul let all men
wish, and pray To be dissolved of this foul fleshy mass' (11. 37-8). The
suggestion of contamination and self-disgust begins an important
dramatic motif (cf. MSH, pp. 313-15). The textual evidence for sullied,
moreover, cannot be dismissed. For sallied is less likely to be a
corruption of solid than the other way about, and though Q2 may have
derived it from Q1, this suggests that solid did not occur in Q2's
manuscript authority, while Q1 is against its having been familiar in
performance (though if Chapman, Revenge of Bussy d'Ambois, V.iv.7-9 is
an echo, if must presently have become so). Further, the fact that Q2
sallied here and sallies at II.i.40 occur in the work of different
compositors argues for a manuscript origin. It is sometimes contended
that Shakespeare would not use too too with a participle; but OED shows
it often used with verbs, and Q1, 'too much grieu'd and sallied', shows
that a participle was in the reporter's recollection. The possibility of
an intended play on both words cannot be ruled out; but what happens
perhaps is that by a natural mental process the word (sullied) which
gives at once the clue to the emotion which the soliloquy will express,
brings to mind its near-homonym (solid), which helps to promote the
imagery of melt, thaw, resolve, dew. Those who accept some F variants as
authentic Shakespearean alternatives (cf. Honigmann, The Stability of
Shakespeare's Text, pp. 70, 134-6) are likely to find an example here.
(But see Intro., p. 43n.)
In the Arden 3, Thompson and Taylor gloss the line as "sallied,"
(following Q2) with this annotation:
129 <B>sallied</B> assailed, besieged. Q1 also reads 'sallied' - 'O
that this too much griev'd and sallied flesh'. F's 'solid' provides a
more specific sense for melt (and see 2H4 3.1.47-9: 'and the continent,
/ Weary of solid firmness, melt itself / Into the sea') but which chimes
unhappily for some readers with Gertrude's later statement that Hamlet
is fat (see 5.2.269n.). Many editors emend sallied to 'sullied', meaning
'contaminated': see the Princess's reference to her 'maiden honour' as
an 'unsullied lily' in LLL 5.2.351-2, where both Q and F texts read
'unsallied'. MacDonald glosses sallied as 'sullied', which, despite his
commitment to F, he thinks 'nearer the depth of Hamlet's mood' than solid.
In the second volume of the Arden 3 _Hamlet_ Thompson and Taylor provide
these annotations to the Q1 and F1 texts:
Q1
<B>55 grieved and sallied</B> Urkowitz ('Basics', 261) notes that this
Q1 reading is an example of hendiadys, used extensively by Shakespeare
in the longer texts of Hamlet (see Wright; and Ard Q2, p. 155).
F1
<B>127 solid</B> MacDonald follows Q2, but Edwards and Hibbard argue for
solid; both readings make sense.
Just for kicks, I checked my library both electronic and print:
Rowe (1709): solid
Johnson (1765): solid
Steevens (1773): solid
Malone (Boswell: 1821): solid
Clark and Wright (Cambridge: 1865): solid
Craig (Oxford: 1914): solid
Wright (Cambridge: 1936): solid
Alexander (1951): solid
Harrison (1952, 1968): solid
Riverside (2nd.: 1997): sallied
New Pelican (Orgel and Braunmuller: Penguin: 2002): sullied
Bevington (5th: 2004): sullied
Wells and Taylor (Oxford, 2nd.: 2005): solid
Bate and Rasmussen (RSC: 2007): solid
Well, you pays your money and you . . .
I had a great deal of fun putting all of this together (I hope it helps
someone, at sometime, in some place; after my semester long sick leave
ends this coming fall, maybe I will retire fairly early, for as much as
I love teaching, I also love scholarly pursuits that have always taken
the back burner throughout my life.
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