Item 38 - Letter from J. H. Helweg to R. W. Chambers

1 single sheet

10 Southwood Lane, Highgate Village, London, N.6.—Suggests that certain names in Hamlet have a Danish origin.

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Transcript

10 Southwood Lane, Highgate Village, London, N.6
16 June 1932.

Dear Chambers,

Why not the Danish: Valdemar, (Saxo: Waldemarus)?

I don’t know whether Belleforest included other tales from Saxo in his Histoires tragiques, but if he did he could hardly have avoided the name Valdemar, by far the most frequent in Saxo.

I believe that there is every reason to think that S. purposely added to the local colour, not only by the obvious Rosenkrantz and Gyldenstjerne but by two other names, which have not been recognized as Danish. Several years ago Dr. Perret drew my attention to the name Yaughan in the grave-digger scene, which looks suspiciously like an English phonetic transcription of Danish: Johan.—Also Yorick must be Danish. Perret suggested Erik, and I think he is right when we bear in mind that the Jutland form of the name is Jerrik, pronounced exactly like Yorick. I consider that far more likely than Jørg(en), which I believe Dowden mentions on the authority of Magnússon {1}.

Doesn’t it look as if, of the 6 Danish names in ‘Hamlet’, Shakespeare had got the 2: Rosenkrantz and Gyldenstjerne right from often seeing them written or printed, (of all the Danish ambassadors to the English court in those days every second is sure to have been a Rosenkrantz and every third a Gyldenstjerne); that Voltimand or Valtemand is a scribe’s or printer’s error for Valdemar(us), while in the case of Johan and Erik S. had his knowledge by hearsay from Burbage and the rest who returned from Helsingør in 1585?—Where the H in Hamlet comes from I have never been told. Who was the cockney that could not leave the good Danish name alone? The Frenchman couldn’t possibly have been the culprit.

Yours sincerely,
J. H. Helweg.

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Typed, except the signature and a few corrections.

{1} See Edward Dowden’s edition of Hamlet (1899), p. 195, note.

Sent to Greg with 1/12. Formerly inserted in Greg's copy of 'Principles of Emendation in Shakespeare' (not in the Library).

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2020.