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Line 2715-17 - 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.

2715-6 Ham. My mother, Father and Mother is man and \| wife, 2715

2716 Man and wife is one flesh, <and> so my mother:

2716-7 Come | for England. Exit.

1773 gent1

gent1

2715-7 My mother . . . England] Gentleman (ed. 1773): “Hamlet supports his feigned madness exceeding well and divertingly; but, in his circumstances, consenting so tamely to depart for England, seems to show him pusillanimous and impolitic.”

1774 gent2

gent2 = gent1 minus “but . . . impolitic.”

1870 rug1

rug1: Eumenides analogue

2715-6 Moberly (ed. 1870): “‘I had a true father, and she was his wife, therefore she must be my mother.’ The argument is like that in the Eumenides, to the effect that the father is really father and mother too.”

1873 rug2

rug2 = rug1

1885 macd

macd

2715-6 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “He will not touch the hand of his father’s murderer.”

1907 Rushton

Rushton: Praeton, Lex Divina analogues

2715-6 Father. . . one flesh] Rushton (1907, pp. 21-2): <p.21> “Vir et uxor sunt quasi unica persona, quia </p.21><p.22> caro una, et sanguis. (Praeton, lib. 5, Tract. 5, cap. 25).

“Man and wife are as one person, because they are one flesh and blood. A man may not grant nor give his tenements to his wife, during her coverture, for that his wife and he be but one person in law (Litt. S. 168).

“If a joint estate be made of land to a husband and wife and to a third person, in this case the husband and wife have in law in their right but the moiety, and the third person have as much as the husband and the wife, viz. the other moiety. And the cause is, for that the husband and wife are but one person in law, and are in like case as if an estate be made to two joint tenants, where the one hath by force of the jointure the one moiety in law, and the other the other moiety (Lit. S. 221): for the husband and wife are accounted to be one person in law, Duæ animæ in carne una (Lex divina, and see 4 Rep. 118).”

1961 SQ

Brown

2715-16 Brown (1961, p. 135): “In reading Hamlet’s farewell to Claudius as he was being sent off to England (IV.iii), the Gielgud Hamlet impishly the King a kiss from half way up the stairs as he called him ’Mother.’ This is a modern cynical touch, in harmony with the prankish mood in which Hamlet has just joked coarsely about the body of Polonius, and more topical than Sir Laurence Olivier’s reading of the lines when he said with a heavy insulting tone, ’Man and wife is one flesh; therefore my mother!’ [TLN 2715-16, IV.iii.51-52] ”

1980 pen2

pen2

2716 Man . . . flesh] Spencer (ed. 1980): “Hamlet ironically uses the language of the marriage service.”

1982 ard2

ard2: Gen., Matt. analogue

2716 man . . . flesh] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “Cf. Genesis ii.24; Matthew xix.5-6.

1993 dent

dent: Genesis, Matthew analogues; xrefs.

2716 Man . . . mother] Andrews (ed. 1993): “Hamlet alludes to the marriage ceremony and to such biblical passages as Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:5-6. Here the reference is a reminder that the ’one Flesh’ created by this incestuous marriage is a grotesque parody of ’holy matrimony’. See the note to [3.3.14 (2287)].

“Therefore it follows that you are my mother. Hamlet implies that it is as appropriate to call Claudius his mother as it is to call him father or his King. Here and in line 49 Mother becomes charged with innuendo that anticipates an Oedipal expletive that entered mainstream culture in the 1960s. Compare [2.2.375-6 (1421-22)].”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2: Genesis, Matthew, Mark

2716 Man. . . flesh] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hamlet alludes to biblical formulations: see Genesis, 2.24, Matthew, 19.5-6, Mark, 10.8.”

ard3q2

2716-17 Come, for England] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “As at the end of 4.2, Hamlet seems to take the initiative, although he has in fact little choice.”