"Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousell'd, disappointed, unaneld'd."
_Hamlet_, Act I. Sc. 5.
Boucher, in his _Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words_ (art. ANYEAL),
has a note on this passage which seems to me to give so much better an idea
of the word _disappointed_ than any I have met with, that I am induced to
send it you as a Note:--
"The last two words have occasioned considerable difficulty to the
critics. The old copies, it is said, concur in giving _disappointed_,
which Dr. Johnson is willing to understand as meaning _unprepared_; a
sense that might very well suit the context, but will not be easily
confirmed by any other instance of the use of the word _disappointed_.
Dissatisfied, therefore, with this interpretation, some have read
_unanointed_, and some _unappointed_. Not approving of either of these
words, as connected with _unanealed_, Pope, no timid corrector of
texts, reads _unaneld_, which he supposes to signify _unknelled_, or
the having no knell rung. To these emendations and interpretations Mr.
Theobald, whose merit as a commentator of Shakspeare Mr. Pope, with all
his wit and all his poetry, could not bring into dispute, urged many
strong objections. Skinner rightly explains _anealed_ as meaning
_unctus_; from the Teutonic preposition _an_, and _ele_, oil. As
correction of the second word is admitted by all the commentators to be
necessary, it is suggested that a clear and consistent meaning,
consonant with Shakspeare's manner, will be given to the passage, if,
instead of _disappointed_, _unassoiled_, which signifies 'without
absolution,' be substituted.
"The line--
'Unhousell'd, unassoil'd, unaneal'd,'
will then signify 'without receiving the sacrament: without confession
and absolution: and without extreme unction.'
"The _unassoiled_ was no less proper, will appear from due attention to
the word _assoile_, which of course is derived from _absolvo_; and the
transition from _absolve_ into _assoyle_ is demonstrated in the
following passage from Piers Plowman, Vision, p. 3.:
'There preached a pardoner, as he a priest were,
Brought forth a bul, with many a bishop's seales,
And saide, that himself might absoyle hem alle,
Of falshode, of fasting, and of vowes broken.'
As a further confirmation of the propriety of substituting a word
signifying _absolution_, which pre-supposes confession, the following
sentence from _Prince Arthur_ may be adduced: 'She was confessed and
houselled, and then she died,' part ii. p. 108.
"It must be allowed that no instance can be given of the word
_unassoiled_: but neither does any other instance occur to me of the
word _unhouseled_ except the line in _Hamlet_."