You shall do very well, Montano, to say thus: (905)“I knew the gentleman,” or “know his father,”To inquire the manner of his life, (898.1)As thus; being amongst his acquaintance,You may say, you saw him at such a time, mark you me,At game, or drinking, swearing, or drabbing,You may go so far.
For example, this scene made it sound as though Polonius (Corambis) sent Montano (from Othello?? that doesn’t belong either) to tell his son these things instead of his comrades. This fact alone basically ruins a main venn diagram that Polonius is evil, vindictive, and super twisted. Without that included in the play, he seems like a better person than he actually is.
Another noticeable difference between the version that I have been reading and the first quarto is how shortened all of the scenes are. This takes away from the complexity and the struggles and instead rushes towards the ending of the play. In addition, it also destroys the foreshadowing found throughout the play. Many things that made this play so remarkable are lost in this first quarto which yes is humorous, but also kind of sad. Many of the complex conversations (where is the queen in all of this?) and secrets are either left out, or horribly misinterpreted.
At the end of Act 2, Hamlets soliloquy (just like everything else) is messed up. The first part of his speech doesn’t really make sense in context of what is going on in the play, and the whole main idea of this speech has already been revealed to the audience at this point. The whole quarto is just terrible, it reminds me of the movie Vampires Suck which was created as a parody of all the Twilight movies put into one. It was created as a joke, but also brushed over the main idea of the 4 novels. The first Quarto basically does the exact same thing, except it wasn’t created to be a parody which makes it even worse.
taylornoelle28 