University of Virginia Library

"Sallied Flesh" (Q1, Q2): Hamlet I.ii.129[*]
by
G. V. Monitto

Whether "sallied," "solid" (F), or "sullied" appropriately qualifies Hamlet's "flesh" continues to arouse controversy. Recently, a modern emendation, "sullied," has again been proposed, in an argument including the view that Shakespeare would not have chosen "solid," because flesh in Christian terms is always seen as frail.[1]

"Sallied," however, occurring in both of the texts (Q1, 1603; Q2, 1604/5) nearest to a performance date (1600/1), including the favored basic copy-text

(Q2), has been shown by F.T. Bowers to have already comprised Renaissance meanings equivalent to those proposed in modern emendation.[2]

In Love's Labor's Lost (Q1, 1598), for example, the Princess of France declares her honor is, "pure | As the unsallied lily" (V.ii.352). Moreover, in Patient Grissil (1603), the Marquess of Salucia warns, "Then sally not this morning with foule lookes" (I.i.12).[3] In addition, elsewhere in Hamlet itself, Polonius ascribes to his son Laertes, "slight sallies" (II.i.39), in order to render him, "As 'twere a thing a little soil'd [wi' th'] working" (l. 40).

Further support for "sallied" inclusive of "sullied" exists in dictionaries and a handbook familiar to Shakespeare's audience. "Sallied" may find a cognate relative in salir (variant of sale): "to beray, soile, or foule," cited in Claudius Holliband's (or Claude de Sainliens) A Treasurie of the French Tong (London, 1580), and cited in the same compiler's A Dictionarie French and English (London, 1593).[4] "Sallie," moreover, is an adjective cited in Randle Cotgrave's influential A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues (First edn., London, 1611). "Sallie" comprises the meanings, "fouled," "soyled," "berayed," "begrimed," "slurried," as well as "sullied."

Such further evidence strongly suggests that the range of connotations implied in modern emendation could well have already been included among recognized senses of "sallied" in 1600/1.

Notes