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Line 322 - Commentary Note (CN)

Commentary notes (CN):

1. SMALL CAPS Indicate editions. Notes for each commentator are divided into three parts:

In the 1st two lines of a record, when the name of the source text (the siglum) is printed in SMALL CAPS, the comment comes from an EDITION; when it is in normal font, it is derived from a book, article, ms. record or other source. We occasionally use small caps for ms. sources and for works related to editions. See bibliographies for complete information (in process).

2. How comments are related to predecessors' comments. In the second line of a record, a label "without attribution" indicates that a prior writer made the same or a similar point; such similarities do not usually indicate plagiarism because many writers do not, as a practice, indicate the sources of their glosses. We provide the designation ("standard") to indicate a gloss in common use. We use ≈ for "equivalent to" and = for "exactly alike."

3. Original comment. When the second line is blank after the writer's siglum, we are signaling that we have not seen that writer's gloss prior to that date. We welcome correction on this point.

4. Words from the play under discussion (lemmata). In the third line or lines of a record, the lemmata after the TLN (Through Line Number] are from Q2. When the difference between Q2 and the authors' lemma(ta) is significant, we include the writer's lemma(ta). When the gloss is for a whole line or lines, only the line number(s) appear. Through Line Numbers are numbers straight through a play and include stage directions. Most modern editions still use the system of starting line numbers afresh for every scene and do not assign line numbers to stage directions.

5. Bibliographic information. In the third line of the record, where we record the gloss, we provide concise bibliographic information, expanded in the bibliographies, several of which are in process.

6. References to other lines or other works. For a writer's reference to a passage elsewhere in Ham. we provide, in brackets, Through Line Numbers (TLN) from the Norton F1 (used by permission); we call these xref, i.e., cross references. We call references to Shakespearean plays other than Ham. “parallels” (//) and indicate Riverside act, scene and line number as well as TLN. We call references to non-Shakespearean works “analogues.”

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Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

322 But two months dead, nay not so much, not two, {C1v}

1752 Dodd

Dodd ≈Tatler n. 321

322 Dodd (1752, 1: 218): “It is, I think, observed in the Tatlers or Spectators, how greatly Hamlet exaggerates his mother’s offence by continually lessening the time she stayed before her second marriage. ’Tis at first two months—then immediately not so much as two—presently after ‘tis within a month; that is again lessened—‘twas not only within a month, but within a little month—nay, even before her eyes were dry, and no longer galled with her most unrighteous tears.”

1874 Malleson

Malleson

322-30, 790-1 Malleson (1874, p. 470): “Even before he had learnt from the Ghost the full measure of his mother’s guilt, he had said in his anguish at her marriage within a month—‘a little month’—after his father’s death, ‘Fraity thy name is, woman;’ and when the Ghost has left him he first apostrophises her, ‘O most pernicious woman,’ and puts the murderer, ‘the smiling damed villain,’ in the second place. His mother has destroyed his faith in every woman . . . .”

1875 Marshall

Marshall

322 nay not so much, not two] Marshall (1875, p. 125): “What art, and what nature, in that hasty correction of his own words . . . .”

1885 macd

macd

322 two months] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “Two months at the present moment.”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2

322 two months] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Ophelia claims it is twice two months since the death of Hamlet’s father at [1982]: in the light of Hamlet’s reduction of the time to A little month at [331], it is easier to suppose that he is being deliberately inaccurate here in order to exaggerate how quickly his father has been forgotten than to suppose that there is a two-month gap between these scenes.”