Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 783 Yea, from the table of my memory | 1.5.98 |
|---|
1565 Gesner
Gesner
583-4 table . . . wipe away] Gesner (1565, p. 101) has illustrations of memorandum books, apparently made of hard, erasable materials. The Latin description(as near as I can make it out) seems to suggest using water or olive oil and cotton to remove writing; the illustration shows one type in a box and another in a book with leaves, with an attached stylus. The leaves are not sewn together but clipped in two places to fold out as facing pages. Smeaton (ed. 1904) in his glossary has a representation of the latter.
1729-30 mtheo2
mtheo2
783 table . . . memory] Theobald (14 Mar. 1730, fol. 57v; Nichol’s Illus. 2: 560) recalls the same “form of expression” in AEscylus: Eumen. ver. 275 [quotes] and Prometh. ver. 788 [quotes].”
letter to WW:In ed. 1733 (omitted in ed. 1740), he again quotes from the Greek verses and amplifies: “Æscylus, I remember, twice uses this very Metaphor; considering the Mind or Memory, as a Tablet, or Writing-book, on which we are to engrave Things worthy of Remembrance,” quoting again but without mentioning the verse ref: Eumen. v. 275 and Prometh. v. 788. What does this indicate? In writing, he expects WW to look it up, perhaps, but does not expect his readers to be that interested? No note in THEO2.
1733 theo1
theo1 ≈ theol, metaphor (not in theon)
783 table . . . memory] Theobald (ed. 1733): “AEscylus, I remember, twice uses this very Metaphor; considering the Mind or Memory, as a Tablet, or Writing-book, on which we are to engrave Things worthy of Remembrance. ‘[quotes Greek ].’ Prometh. ‘[quotes Greek].’ Eumenid.”
1746 Upton
Upton: theo1 +
783 table . . . memory] Upton (1746, p. 219): “Prov. [3. 3]. ‘Write them upon the table of thine heart.’ So Aeschylus in suppl. 187. [quotes Greek]. ‘I advise thee to keep my words written on the tables of thy memory.’”
1773 v1773
v1773 Appendix
783 table . . . memory] Farmer (in Steevens, ed. 1773, 10: [Qq5r]): “This is a ridicule of the practice of the time.
“Hall says, in his character of the Hypocrite, ‘He will ever sit where he may be seene best, and in the midst of the sermon pulles out his Tables in haste, as if he feared to loose that note,’ &c.”
1773- mstv1
mstv1 = Farmer + ?
783 table . . . memory]
Needs checking, or cut
1778 v1778
v1778 = v1773 + (see n. 792)
783 table . . . memory]
1780 mals1
mals1
783 table . . . memory] Malone (1780, 1:352): “This expression is used by Sir Philip Sydney in his Defence of Poesie. Malone. . . . See also [2H4 a.s.l. (2068-69)]: ‘And therefore will he wipe his tables clean, And keep no tell tale to his memory.’ York is here speaking of the king. Table-books in the time of our author appear to have been used by all ranks of people. Malone.”
See also TLN 292; I am not sure where the best place is to put these. Malone sandwiches his note around Steevens’, beginning and ending with his own. The 1st is the Sidney ref, and the second begins with the 2H4 ref.
mals1: Upton +
783 table . . . memory] Steevens (apud Malone, 1780, 1:352) “After Farmer’s note, add]] No ridicule on the practice of the time could with propriety be introduced on this occasion. Hamlet avails himself of the same caution observed by the doctor in the fifth act of Macbeth: “I will set down what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance more strongly.’ Steevens.”
This mac. ref. is presumably what Upton has in 1748.
mals1
783 table of my memory] malone (1780, 1:678 n.1) connects this passage from 783-8 to Son. 122.1-2, “Thy gifts, thy tables, are within my brain, Full character’d with lasting memory.”
1785 v1785
v1785 = mals1
783 table . . . memory]
1787 ANN
ANN = v1785
783 table . . . memory]
1790 mal
mal = v1785 (no Farmer).
783 table . . . memory]
1793 v1793
v1793 = mal, Farmer
783 table . . . memory]
1793- mSteevens
mSteevens as in v1803
783 the table . . . memory] Steevens (1793-): “This phrase will remind the reader of Chæria’s exclamation in the Eunuck of Terence: [quotes Greek] [O, I may create a beautiful one! I destroy all women thence from my mind.]. Steevens.”
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793 +
783 table . . . memory] Steevens (ed. 1803): “This phrase will remind the reader of Chæria’s exclamation in the Eunuch of Terence: —[quotes Greek].”
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1803
783 table . . . memory]
1819 cald1
cald1: v1813 + in magenta underlined
783 table . . . memory] Caldecott (ed. 1820): “Tables were books, which it was fashionable to carry for the purpose of minuting any thing that occurred. Mr. Steevens instances the Induction to the Malcontent, 1604 [see n. 292]. ‘I tell you I am one that hath seen this play often, and give them intelligence for their action: I have most of the jests of it here in my table-book.’ In Antonio’s Revenge, Balurdo draws out his writing tables and writes, ‘Retort and obtuse, good words, very good words.’ [Sir Andrew Aguecheek says something similar.]
“And Dr. Farmer, ‘He will ever sit where he may be seene best, and in the midst of the sermon pulles out his tables in haste, as if he feared to loose that note.’ Hall’s Character of the Hypocrite.’ And see [2H4 4.1] Archb.”
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1793 + a Malone note:
783 table . . . memory] Malone (ed. 1821): “So, in Golding’s Translation of Abraham’s Sacrifice, by Beza: ‘Let not this trew and noble storie part Out of the mind and tables of your heart.’ Malone.”
1826 sing1
sing1: v1813 on 2H4 +
783 table . . . memory] Singer (ed. 1826): “Tables or books, or registers for memorie of things, were then used by all ranks, and contained prepared leaves from which what was written with a silver style could easily be effaced.”
1832 cald2
cald2 = cald1, Malone from v1821 on Abraham’s sacrifice
1832- mLewes or mEliot
mLewes or mEliot
783 table] “Aschy. Prometheus v.771”
1853- mEliot
mEliot1: Upton? without attribution
783 table] Eliot (1853 -) : “[Greek]”
1853- mEliot
mEliot2: Upton?
783 Eliot (Middlemarch journals, p. 176): “ {Greek] = “tablet of memory” —Hamlet.”
Ed. note: The editors’ note, p. 249 n. 2: “The Greek phrase is from Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, l. 789. Cf. Hamlet, [783-5].
1856 hud1
hud1 = sing1 without attribution
783 table . . . memory]
1856 sing2
sing2 = sing1
783 table . . . memory]
1861 wh1
wh1 has a CN about tables in 792
783 table . . . memory]
1865 hal
hal
783 table of my memory] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “This was not an unusual imagery. and perhaps originated from Proverbs, iii.3,—‘write them upon the table of thine heart.’ ‘I figured on the table of my hart The goodliest shape that this worlds eye admires.’ Poems added to Sydney’s Astrophel and Stella, ed. 1591.
“‘They so deeply graved the same in the table of their mindes, that to this day it could never be raced out, like to a remembrance set in a marble stone, which continueth time out of minde.’—Deloney’s Pleasant History of the Gentle Craft, 1598.
“‘I have wiped away from the table of my remembrance all formes and effigies, that first, middle, and last, at all times, and above all thinges, I might prescribe fresh in my memorie your faithfull favours, so liberally and so freelye expended uppon mee.’—Melton’s Sixe-Fold Politician, 1609.”
1868 c&mc
c&mc ≈ sing2 without attribution
783 table]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “In figurative reference to the tablets or table-books used for keeping memorandums in which were temporarily inscribed, and could be readily effaced. See [
2H4 4. (2068-69), n. 39].” Cp. their note for 792, where they think Hamlet refers to actual tables.
1872 cln1
cln1: standard gloss + // in magenta underlined
783 table] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “tablet. Compare [AWW 1.1.106 (97-99)]: ‘To sit and draw His arched brows, his hawking eye, his curls, In our heart’s table.’”
1872 hud2
hud2 = hud1
783 table
1877 v1877
v1877 = cln1
783 table]
1885 macd
macd: standard + in magenta underlined
783-9 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “
The whole speech is that of a 
student, accustomed to books, to take notes, and to fix things in his memory. ‘Table,’
tablet.”
1899 ard1
ard1: standard gloss; // in TGV 2.7.3; analogue:
783 table] Dowden (ed. 1899): Massinger The Emperor of the East: “Writ in the table of my memory.”
1902 Reed
Reed: claims Bacon is Shakespeare, supported by Promus notebooks begun Dec. 1594.
783 table . . . memory] Reed (1902, § 119) quotes Bacon Redargutio Philosophiarum undated: “Tables of the mind differ from common tables; . . . you will scarcely wipe out the former records unless you shall have inscribed the new.”
1904 dent
Smeaton
783-4 table . . . wipe away] Smeaton (ed. 1904, Glossary, p. lxix) illustration from Gesner of the type of memorandum book with leaves.
1929 trav
trav
783 Yea]
Travers (ed. 1929): “emphatic.”
1938 parc
parc
783 table] Parrott & Craig (ed. 1938): “tablet.”
1939 kit2
kit2: standard
783 table] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "tablet. Small ivory tablets were used for memoranda. Cf. [792]."
1947 cln2
cln2: standard
783 table] Rylands (ed. 1947): "tablet."
1957 pel1
pel1: standard
783 table] Farnham (ed. 1957): “writing tablet, record book.”
1957 pen1b
pen1b: standard + xref
783 table] Harrison (ed. 1957): “note book. Intellectual young gentleman carried ’tables’ with them to take down good sayings, sermons, speeches and anecdotes. See note on [1886-7].”
1960 Knights
Knights
783-5 all] Knights (1960, p. 48) notes the repetitions of all: Hamlet’s preoccupation solely with evil is the cause of his paralysis.
1970 pel2
pel2 = pel1
783 table] Farnham (ed. 1970): “writing tablet, record book”
1980 pen2
pen2
783 the . . . memory] Spencer (ed. 1980): “my memory, which is now like a memorandum tablet on which experience writes. The table was generally made of thin leaves of ivory or slate, from which one could wipe away previous records or notes. The customary contents of such notebooks are listed in lines 99-101.”
1982 ard2
ard2: standard
783 table] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “tablet; a flat surface bearing, or designed to bear, an inscription, effigy, etc. Cf. 792 CN. Theobald shows that the metaphor is as old as Aeschylus. Cf. Signey, Apology, ’Let Aeneas be worn in the tablet of your memory’, and the injunction of Proverbs (3: 3; 7: 3) for a ’son’ to write ’commandments’ ’upon the tables of thine heart’. The allusion is not, as often supposed, specifically to the ’tables’ carried by gentlemen for noting down memoranda. Yet it evidently brought such writing-tablets into Shakespeare’s mind (cf. saws, copied [785-6]) and suggested the business of 792. Cf. the conceit of Son. 122.”
1985 cam4
cam4
783 table] Edwards (ed. 1985): "tablet, slate."
1987 oxf4
oxf4
783 table] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "tablet on which things could be inscribe and from which they could, if necessary, be erased."
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
782 globe] Bevington (ed. 1988): “(1) head (2) world.”
1992 fol2
fol2: Stallybrass et al. 2004
783 table] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992, note added after 2004): “While a table could be a table-book or slate, it has been suggested by Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier that the reference here is to one of the erasable pages that were popular in the Renaissance, e.g., bound together with printed almanacs. (Hamlet wants to wipe his memory clean as one would wipe such a page with a moistened finger or cloth. Later [792-4] Hamlet seems to write in such an almanac with the stylus bound with the book.)”
Ed. note: See Peter Stallybrass, Roger Chartier, Heather Wolfe, and John Franklin Mowery, "Hamlet’s Tables and the Technologies of Writing in Renaissance England," SQ 55.4 (2004): 379-419.
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: xref; //
783 table] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “Hamlet envisages his memory as a wax writing tablet on which items can be inscribed or erased (see [792] and Son. 122).”
2008 Crystal
Crystal
783-91 Crystal (2008, pp. 109-110): <p. 109> “It is when we are lulled into a sense of auditory security by hearing one rhythm, and then are brought up short with another, that we realize soemthing powerful is going on [quotes F1 783-91]. </p. 109> <p. 110> The predictable rhythm of the first six lines sets up an auditory expectation that the seventh [Vnmixt with baser matter; yes, yes, by Heauen, 789] is going to be the same; but it is not. The rhythm stops short. half way through. The new rhythm in the second half of the line is a warning shot that something is about to happen. The explosion happens in the next line [Oh most pernicious woman! 790], two beats shorter than anything before it. And then the rhythmical guns start to pound.” </p. 110>
