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The sentence is:

共に謀つて復讐せんと約する

Am I correct to believe that this is the verb 謀つ (はかりごつ)followed by つ (て)but that since this is written sometime around 1933, the form has gone from 謀ちて to 謀つて ?

Edit: The full sentence is quite long, but is as follows:

其他、有名なる獨白 “To be or not to be” 及びオフィリヤに對する「尼寺云々」の問答が、第一版にては、ポローニヤスがハムレットの艶書を讀む條及び「魚商云々」の問答の條と同じ場となりをれる、或ひは劍に毒を塗ることを發案せるはレヤーチーズにあらずして王なること、及び妃ガーツルードが先王の毒殺に關しては全く與り知らず、ハムレットの苦諫を聽きて後に、共に謀つて復讐せんと約する條及びホレーショーと妃とが内々にてハムレットが不意の歸國に關して協議する條の添はりをれるなど、何れも注意すべき相違󠄂の點なり。

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    「[謀]{はか}って<[謀]{はか}る」か「[謀]{たばか}って<[謀]{たばか}る」という可能性は無いんでしょうか・・・?
    – chocolate
    Commented Jun 20 at 10:53
  • As @chocolate points out, context is important. Could you update your post with more of the surrounding text? Commented Jun 20 at 16:17
  • Updated to show the full sentence.
    – ロビン
    Commented Jun 21 at 3:14
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    Related: japanese.stackexchange.com/q/567/7810 Commented Jun 21 at 5:49
  • Was it around 1933? If it is a quote from 坪内逍遥, I believe he wrote it much earlier than that. Commented Jun 23 at 5:19

2 Answers 2

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It seems likely it was つ for sokuon printed or written in the normal size, where you would write a small つ now. That would make the word hakatte or tabakatte (謀って). 謀ちて and 謀つて are visually a bit too dissimilar to cause a typo.

The hiragana size confusion was common in early modern Japanese printing. (In fact, if I recall it correctly, the "confusion" was more of a standard rather than an error and it was up to the reader to disambiguate.)

I don't know which version you are reading, but in the Meiji 42 version, it is not an isolated example. It seems clear that the typesetter didn't have/use small hiragana for the body text. In other parts of the book, you can see し and 何者ぢ in it. They used ruby text and small katakana (as in ッ in ハムレット), though.

cropped page from Tsubouchi's translation of Hamlet https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873484/1/13

cropped page from Tsubouchi's translation of Hamlet https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/873484/1/11

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I think this is likely はかって or たばかって, the 口語 te-form of はかる or たばかる, but written with a full-size tsu. In historical kana orthography, the small-tsu was not small (see Notes here). While the classical (文語) grammar is basically used and ハムレット is written with a small-tsu in your excerpt, considering this was written around 1933, accidental mixture of styles might not have been uncommon.

On the other hand, はかりごつ is a yodan-verb, and its te-form is はかりごちて even in modern Japanese (similarly, the te-form of ひとりごつ is usually ひとりごちて, not ひとりごって). A native speaker is far less likely to make this kind of mistake.

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