And so the hungry sheep looks up and is not fed. Again, he finds—
"He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice,"
turns to the note, and reads:—
"Polacks. The quartos have 'pollax,' the two earliest folios read 'Pollax,' the third 'Polax,' the fourth 'Poleaxe.' Pope read 'Polack' and Malone 'Polacks.' The word occurs four times in Hamlet. For 'the sledded Polacks' Molke reads 'his leaded pole-axe.' But this would be an anticlimax, and the poet, having mentioned 'Norway' in the first clause, would certainly have told us with whom the 'parle' was held."
The poet Young noted how
"Commentators each dark passage shun,
And hold their farthing candles to the sun."
The Clarendon Press editors are certainly adepts in these accomplishments. Take one out of a myriad illustrations. The line in Act i. sc. 2, "The dead vast and middle of the night," is the signal for a note extending to twelve closely printed lines. "'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart," says Francisco. If any note were needed here, it might have been devoted to pointing out to tiros the fine subjective touch. The note is this:—
"Bitter cold. Here bitter is used adverbially to qualify the adjective 'cold.' So we have 'daring hardy' in Richard II. i. 3. 43. When the combination is likely to be misunderstood, modern editors generally put a hyphen between the two words. Sick at heart. So Macbeth v. 3. 19, 'I am sick at heart.' We have also in Love's Labour's Lost ii. 1. 185, 'sick at the heart,' and Romeo and Juliet iii. 3. 72, 'heart-sick groans.'"
Now let us see how the poor student fares when real difficulties occur. Every reader of Shakespeare is familiar with the corrupt passage, Act iv. sc. 1:—