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Line 2452 - 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.”

7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations. Click here for more information about browsing the entries and here for more information about the special symbols used in Hamletworks. Click the question mark icon above to remove this help message.

Notes for lines 2023-2950 ed. Frank N. Clary

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

2452 You cannot call it loue, for at your age	3.4.68

1888 Savage

mPudsey

2452-4 for . . . iudgement] Pudsey (apud Savage, 1888, p. 75): “At yor age the heydaye in ye blood ys tame, & humble, waites vpo ye iudgmt.”

1891 dtn

dtn

2452 You . . . loue] Deighton (ed. 1891): “you cannot say that you were led astray by ardent love.”

1903 p&c

p&c: Hystorie of Hamblet S&A

2452 You . . . loue] Porter & clarke (ed. 1903): “‘It is licentiousnes only that hath made you deface out of your minde the memory of the valor & virtues of the good king . . . although he so well favoured and love you’ (‘Hystorie’).”

1939 kit2

kit2

2452 at your age] Kittredge (ed. 1939): “To Hamlet, a very young man, his mother seems too old to feel passionate love. We should not be misled into exaggerating the Queen’s age. She is in what we should call the prime of life.”

1979 SQ

Charney

2452-54 Charney (1979, p. 399): “The lustful woman as character type, who so much appealed to Beaumont and Fletcher as a way of countering too much courtly elegance, is entirely absent in Shakespeare. Despite a long theatrical tradition of representing Gertrude in Hamlet as menopausal sexpot -- ’at your age/The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,/And waits upon the judgment’ (3.4.69-71 [TLN 2452-54, III.iv.68-70]) -- we must remember that this is only the way Hamlet sees her in his inflamed imagination.”

1979 ShQ

2452 Charney (1979, p. 399): “Despite a long theatrical tradition of representing Gertrude in Hamlet as menopausal sexpot--"at your age/The heyday in the blood is tame, it’s humble,/And waits upon the judgment" (3.4.69-71)--we must remember that this is only the way Hamlet sees her in his inflamed imagination.”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: 2040-4 xref

2452 at your age] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hamlet’s assumption, in all three texts, that his mother is too old to experience sexual desire has been regularly endorsed by (male) editors, who also feel that she must be too old to excite it. Within the play, she is the same age as ’Gonzago’s wife’, whose remarriage is viewed with equanimity by her failing husband at 3.2.167-71 [2040-44].”