Hamlet and Ludi (Commentary on Two Words in Hamlet: Quarto vs Folio)

The texts of the lifetime quartos of Shakespeareʼs Hamlet and the first posthumous folio of 1623 differ significantly. Their analysis and comparisons underlies the researchers’ assumptions and hypotheses about the “authorʼs” manuscripts, “foul papers”, prompt-books, “pirated” editions, the specifics of authorʼs vocabulary, spelling and punctuation, different kinds of emendations: typists’ errors and negligence, “authorʼs” edits, justified and unjustified interventions of editors, etc. But above all they determine our idea of Shakespeareʼs worldview, the laws of life and culture of his time, often relevant today. In modern editions two discrepancies we examined are usually reproduced not from the good quarto of 1604 (Q2, left), but according to the First folio version (F1, right): sanctity – sanitie (II, 2, 207); gamgiuing – gain-giuing (V, 2, 194). Russian translations are also made from it.

A comparative study of the text and the context of these passages led us to the following conclusions. In both cases preference should be given to the “true and perfect” text of the Second quarto (Q2) and proceed from it in reprints and new translations of Hamlet. In scholarly editions of the play both places need detailed commentary, which is important for Shakespearean studies. Gamgiuing requires a correction to gaming with justification of the probable cause of the typo. Both words explain the development of the complex motive of game and gaming in the play, and specifically Hamlet’s attitude towards the game: his penchant for wise play with words and meanings, considered as “madness” by “carnal” men (1Cor 2: 12–15), and his rejection of gambling in the logic of Roger Ascham’s treatise Toxophilus (1545).