Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman
| 792 My tables, <my Tables;> meet it is I set it downe | 1.5.107 |
|---|
1625 Bacon
Bacon
792 set it downe] In a note on Bacon (1625, E2v) in “Of Simulation and Dissimulation” (VI. E1-E4, ed. Kiernan), 1985, pp. 20-3, esp. p. 21: “Therfore set it downe; . . . . ,”
Kiernan (1985, p. 190 n. 60) glosses: “i.e. record it as an important maxim; cf.
Hamlet [792].”
1755- mF2FL27
Anon: Garrick on stage
792 set it downe] Anon. (ms. notes in F2Fol27) writes: I have often questioned ye true reading playing of ye Part e [&] think tis not understood by Garrick or any of ’em, for I think when Ham. calls out for his Tables &c. ’tis a fit of Rage, Anger, &c. but yet he writes nothing e [&c.] scarse really scarce knows what he says, as to his making a stop in his action (ye method practiced) e [&c.] pulling out his Tables e [&] writing down I never liked ye manner of it. believe our Author never intended he shd. realy [sic] act so, ’tis absurd to suppose yt Ham actualy stood in need of Tables to refresh his memory upon so affecting an occasion.”
1765 john1
john1
792 tables] Smith (apud ed. 1765, app. Kk2v), re H5 2.3.16-17, “On table-books, silver or steel pens, very sharp-pointed, were formerly, and are still fixed either to the backs or covers. . . . ”
I have double-checked the spellings here. Now I need to check these spellings against those in the summary, above. OK.
1773 v1773
v1773 appendix: see also 783
792 set it downe] 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.’”
v1773- mstv1
mstv1 = Farmer
792 set it downe]
1778 v1778
v1778 = v1773 Farmer +
792 set it downe] Steevens (ed. v1778): “So, in the induction to Webster’s Malcontent, 1604: ‘I tell you I am one that hath seen this play often, and can give them intelligence for their action: I have most of the jests of it here in my table-book.’ Again, in Love’s Sacrifice, 1633: ‘You are one loves courtship: He had some change of words; ‘twere no lost labour To stuff your table-books.’
“Again, in Antonio’s Revenge, 1602: ‘Balurdo draws out his writing-table and writes.’ ‘Retort and obstuse, good words, very good words.’ Again in Every Woman in her Humour, 1609: ‘Let your tables befriend your memory; write &c.’ Steevens.”
1780 mals1
mals1: v1778 [After Farmer’s note Steevens wants to add:]
792 set it downe]
Steevens (
apud Malone (1780, 1:352): “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 the more strongly.’ S
teevens.”
I recorded this also in 783 but it’s better to use it here with the Farmer note. Modern productions don’t care a fig for propriety!]
mals1:
792 set it downe] Malone (1780, 1:352): “See also [2H4 2.4.289. (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.”
This one should probably go in 783 with the other Malone note.I placed it there also.
1785 v1785
v1785 = v1778, Steevens from mals1
792 set it downe]
1787 ann
ann = Steevens in mals1
792 set it downe]
1790 mal
mal: mals1 +
792 set it downe] Malone (1790): “In the church they were filled with short notes of the sermon, and at the theatre with the sparkling sentences of the play. Malone.”
[Malone in MAL thus omits some of the earlier analogues in favor of the MALS material. He om. Farmer.]
1791- mWesley in v1785
Wesley: Farmer
792 My tables] Wesley (1791-, p. 45): “No.”
Re: Farmer’s idea
1791- rann
rann: standard
792 My tables] Rann (ed. 1791-): “My pocket-book.”
I am not sure this is new; that’s always the case with RANN
1793 v1793
v1793 = v1778, mals1, mal
792 set it downe]
Farmer, with his ref to Hall, Steevens disagreeing with Farmer, analogues (from v1778) to The Malcontent 1604 and Love’s Sacrifice (1633), Antonio’s Revenge (1602); and MALS and MAL. In other words, nothing new that I can see but v1793 returns to older texts that Mal omits.
1803 v1803
v1803 = v1793
792 set it downe]
1805 Seymour
Seymour
792 My tables]
Seymour (1805, 2:161): “I once doubted the propriety of
Hamlet’s resorting to his table; for what is to be noted? all that is proposed is trite and superfluous; that ‘a man may smile and smile and be a villain,’ is no more than what every one who ever knew or heard of villany must already be apprised of:—but let us not too hastily condemn the poet; or, proceeding on confined and frigid rules, restrain the liberal scope of his genius. The prince, by the sublime conference, with his father’s ghost, is elevated almost to phrenzy; habituated, as a scholar and philosopher, to note every thing strange and important, he, on this extraordinary occasion, mechanically snatches forth his pocket-book; but, having opened and prepared it, he has nothing to insert, and so concludes carelessly and sarcastically, while his serious thoughts are otherwise employed: ‘Meet it is, I set it down,’ &c.
“This is Shakspeare.”
1807 Douce
Douce: mals1 2H4 // without attribution +
792 set it downe]
Douce (1807, 2:227-9): <p. 227> “It is remarkable that neither public nor private museums should furnish any specimen of these table-books, which seem to have been very common in the time of Shakspeare; nor does any attempt appear to have been made towards ascertaining exactly the materials of which they were composed. Certain it is, however, that they were sometimes made of slate in the form of a small portable book with leaves and clasps. Such a one is fortunately engraved in Gesner’s treatise
De rerum fossilium figuris, &c. Tigur. 1565, 12mo, which is not to be found in the folio collection of his works on natural history. The learned author thus describes it: ‘Pugillaris è laminis saxi nigri fissilis, cum stylo ex eodem.’ His figure of it is here copied. [figure]Douce has a copy of the picture showing slate leaves </p.227> <p.228>
“To such a table-book the Archbishop of York seems thus to allude in [2H4 4.1.199-200 (2068-69)]:
‘And therefore will he wipe his tables clean
And keep no tell-tale to his memory—’
“In the middle ages the leaves of these table-books were made of ivory. Montfaucon has engraved one of them in the third volume of his ‘Antiquities,’ plate cxciv, the subject of which clearly shews that the learned writer has committed an error in ascribing them to remoter times. In Chaucer’s Sompnour’s tale one of the friars is provided with
‘A pair of tables all of ivory,
And a pointel ypolished fetishly,
And wrote alway the names, as he stood,
Of alle folk that yave hem any good.’
“The Roman practice of writing on wax tablets with a stile was continued also during the middle ages. In several of the monastic libraries in France specimens of wooden tables filled with wax and constructed in the fourteenth century were preserved. Some of these contained the household expenses of the sovereigns, &c., and consisted of as many as twenty pages, formed into a book by means of parchment bands glued to the back of the leaves. </p.228> <229> One remaining in the Abbey of St. Germain des préz at Paris, recorded the expenses of Philip le Bel, during a journey that he made in the year 1307, on a visit to Pope Clement V. A single leaf of this table book is exhibited in the Nouveau traité de diplomatique, tom. I. p. 468.” </p.229>
Ed. note: Douce includes an illustration of a table book on 2:227.
1813 v1813
v1813 = v1793
792 set it downe]
1819 cald1
cald1: See n. 783
1821 v1821
v1821 = v1813 [and Douce?] +
792 set it downe]
Boswell (ed. 1821): “I am in possession of three of these
table-books : one printed in 1604, the date of the first edition of
Hamlet: ‘Writing Tables, with a Kalendar for xxxiiii Yeares, &c. The Tables made by Robert Triplet. London. Imprinted for the Companie of Stationers, 1604.’ ”
1832 cald2
cald2 see n. 783
1833 valpy
valpy
792 My Tables] Valpy (ed. 1833): “Memorandums.”
1844 verp
verp
792-847 My Tables]
Verplanck (ed. 1844): “
Hamlet, after the intense and solemn horror of the supernatural visitation, gives way to a wild excitement; first, of bitter passion, and then of frantic gayety, which last is sustained afterwards by his strange appellation of the Ghost, as ‘old true-penny,’ ‘fellow in the cellarage,’ &c. This is certainly not common or obvious nature, yet it impresses me with truth. It resembles the reckless merriment sometimes produced by the excitement of the battle-field—the startling gayety often seen upon the scaffold.”
1845 Hunter
Hunter
792 Hunter (1845, 2: 225): <p. 225> “This expression is the first in which we have any thing like the unsettling of the intellect, and what follows, to the end of the scene, can scarcely be reconciled to an opinion of the perfect sanity of
Hamlet, except on the supposition that even now he began to put on the appearance of madness, which is not likely. At the same time it is to be observed, that the light and sportive sallies which follow are not absolutely out of nature, even if we suppose him sane. . . .” Hunter continues with a vague generalization to the effect that a strong event can produce aberrations until men return to normal. </p. 225>
Hunter
792 My Tables]
Hunter (1845, 2: 225-6): <p. 225> has “two corroborative extracts. Speaking of Sir Philip Sidney, [seventeenth-century antiquarian] Aubrey says, ‘My great-uncle, Mr. T. Browne, remembered him; and said that he was wont to take his
table-book out of his pocket, and write down his notion as they came into his head, when he was writing his Arcadia, as he was hunting on our pleasant plains.’ . . . </p. 225> <p. 226> The next is from an earlier writer . . . [a horse breeder from Derbyshire]. ‘I wyll advise him to ryse be tyme in the morning . . .and to go about hys closes, pastures, feldes, and specially by the hedges. And to have in his purse
a payre of tables, and when he seith any thynge that wolde be amended, to wryte it in his tables; . . . . Fitzherbert’s
Boke of Husbandry, p. 43 b.” </p. 226>
1852 N&Q
Brae: Coleridge +
792-3 B[rae] (1852, pp. 241-2): <p. 241>“This line (which might have suggested to our worthy patron, Captain Cuttle, the posy on our title-page) has, in my opinion, been misapplied and misinterpreted; and, as I am unable to convince myself that the view I take of t, albeit in opposition to all other readers of Shakspeare, is wrong, I venture to remove my light from under the bushel, although in so doing I am surely in dread of its being rudely puffed upon.
[refers to Coleridge and quotes him; see 777 doc., 2nd sentence to end] “This jotting down by
Hamlet, upon a real substantial table, of one of those ‘generalised truths” which he had just excluded from the table of his memory, would be such a
literalising of the metaphor, that it is a great relief to me to feel convinced that Shakespeare never intended it.
“In
Hamlet’s discourse there may be observed an under current of thought that is continually breaking forth in
apostrophe. In the present instance it is directed to his uncle: [quotes 791-95 to
there you are.] </p.241><p. 242> Is not all this
one continued apostrophe? The second line an admirable comment upon the first, and the fourth line, even in the present day, a common exclamation expressive of misdeeds, or intentions, unexpectedly brought to light? But it is not this most trite reflection, in the second line, that
Hamlet wishes to set down. No, it is the all-absorbing
commandment: [quotes 787-789 to
matter].
“[quotes 792] in order that the exact words of the commandment—subsequently quoted to the very letter—may be preserved.
“To suppose that
Hamlet gets forth his tables for the purpose of setting down a common-place truism,
because he has reserved no place for such matters
in the table of his memory, is surely to materialize a fine poetical image by contrasting it with a substantial matter of fact operation.
“And to suppose, with Coleridge, that the very absurdness of the act is a subtle indication of incipient madness, is an over refinement in criticism, as intenable as it is unnecessary.
“
Hamlet evinces no semblance of unsettled mind, real or assumed, until joined by
Horatio and Marcellus . . . .”
“Such is the way I read this scene; and, while I freely admit the difficulty presented in the fact, that, amongst so many acute students of Shakspeare, no one before should have seen any difficulty in the usual interpretation of this passage, I must at the same time declare, that I can perceive no single point in favour of that interpretation, save and except the placing of the “stage direction” where it now is. But this may have arisen from the early printers being misled by the apparent sequence of the word ‘that,’ with which the next line [793] commences: ‘—meet it is I set it down That’ &c.
“It may be observed, however, that such a commencement, to a sentence expressive of wonder or incredulity, was by no means uncommon. As, for example, in the first scene of [Cym. 1.1.63 (73)]: ‘That a king’s children should be so convey’d!’
“I really can perceive little else than this “stage direction” to favour the usual reading, while, in that proposed by me, the sequence of the whole action appears to be the most natural in the world.
“First, ‘My tables, my tables,’ &c.
“Next, the continuation of the interrupted apostrophe, which occupies the time while getting forth and preparing the tables.
“Next, the abrupt exclamation, ‘Now to my word,’
“And finally, the dictating, to the pen, the express words of the last line of the ghost’s speech.
“In point of fact, the best possible stage direction is giving by Shakspeare himself, when he makes
Hamlet exclaim, “
Now to my word” [795], or, now to my
memorandum, reverting to the purpose for which he got his tables forth. In the old reading, Steevens was driven to explain, ‘now to my word’ in this way, “
Hamlet alludes to the watchword given every day in military service’ [see n. 795].
“It is of the more importance that this point, raised by me, should be fairly and impartially examined, because, being in correction of alleged misinterpretation, its decision must have some influence upon a right discrimination of the character of
Hamlet’s madness, as opposed to the deduction drawn by Coleridge. In taking it into consideration, the following alterations in the existing punctuation must be premised:—
“After ‘set it down,’ a full stop; after ‘and be a villain,’ a note of admiration; the stage direction ‘(writing)’ to be removed two lines lower down [after 794, where many editors did place it]. A. E. B. Leeds. ” </p. 242>
</p. 242>
Ed. note: See 814, 777
ser. 1 N&Q 5 (13 March 1852): 241-2.
1854 del2
del2
792 My tables]
Delius (ed. 1854): “Die Fol. setzt
my tables zweimal, wie eben (vgl. Anm. 8)
haste. Damit wird ächt dramatisch, durch die Verstörung zugleich auch metrisch die wirre
Hamlet ausgedrückt, mit der
Hamlet nach seinem Notizenbuche sucht, um das Verbrechen und die Heuchelei seines Oheims darin zu verzeichnen, für den freilich unwahrscheinlicken Fall, dass er Beides vergesses sollte. Der Gebrauch solcher Schreibtafeln, um Denksprüche aus Büchern (
saws of books), Tagesbegebenheiten (
trivial fond records) zur Erinnerung aufzuzeichnen, war zu Sh.’s Zeit sehr verbreitet.” [The folio has
my tables twice, just as it had
haste (see n. 714). . . . . The use of such writing tables for reminders of
saws of books, trivial fond records, was widespread in Sh.’s time.”
[The repetition is dramatically powerful and expresses the mental perturbation of
Hamlet’s mind and the whirr of his thoughts as he looks for his notebook, to remind him to keep his word in the improbable case that he might forget it.]
1856 hud1
hud1 = mCLR
792
See TLN doc. 777.
1857 elze1
elze1
792 My tables]
Elze (ed. 1857,
apud Furness, ed. 1877): “
Hamlet is hereby represented as a thinker and a scholar in opposition to the man of action.”
1859 Werder
Werder
792 Werder (1859, trans. 1907, pp. 82-3, 86)<p. 82> counters the view of Prof. Hebler that
Hamlet exposes his weakness by his ineffectual gesture with the tables. </p. 82><p. 83> On the contrary, says Werder, at this time this is all
Hamlet can do. </p. 83> <p. 86> But Werder does not believe that
Hamlet actually writes the words. At most he takes out his tables and “jabs the point of his pencil into the leaf, just because he cannot pierce the King with his dagger as he would like to do.” </p. 86>
1861 wh1
wh1 standard def + S&A
792 My tables] White (ed. 1861): “Pocket memorandum books, and, indeed, any substance prepared for writing, erasure, and rewriting were called tables. When Zacharias called for a writing table to write the name of his newborn son, afterwards John the Baptists, he mean not a support for that on which he wrote, but a parchment, or waxen tablet. I have mentioned elsewhere my opinion that waxen tables were used as late as the Elizabethan period: as to which see the following passage from the Janua Linguarum, 1650: ‘Once they wrote with a reed: now-a-daies we write with a quill (whose neb or slit is made [fitted to the writer’s hand] with a penknife) either in clean paper (not in blotting, sinking, or cap paper) which is sold by the sheet, quire, ream or in parchment: with a wiring pin in table-books, that it may be cancelled and blotted out by turning the pin the wrong end downwards’—‘inverso stylo.’ Chap. 68 § 731. ‘If you chance upon anie thing, suffer it not to vanish away; but that it slip not from you, note it down out of hand not into waste papers, but into a table book [that may be rased and written on again].’ Idem. Chap. 69, § 742.”
1865 hal
hal = Douce, Steevens, Malone, Boswell +
792 My tables] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “‘Takes care to have his pew plac’d best in sight In hast plucks forth his tables as to write Some sermon-note, mean while does only scrawl Forgotten errands there, or nought at all.’ Tate’s Characters, 1691, p. 18. ‘I’ll leave him at his prayers, and as I heard His last; and Fidus, you and I do know I was his friend, and durst have been his foe, And would be either yet; But he dares be Neither yet. Sleep blots him our and takes in thee. The mind, you know, is like a Table-book, The old unwipt new writing never took.’. Donne’s Poems, p. 141.”
1866 dyce2
dyce2: Brae, Ingleby
792
1868 c&mc
c&mc
792 My tables]
Clarke &
Clarke (ed. 1868): “Here [in contrast to 783] refers to the actual tablets or memorandum-books kept about his person ready for use.”
1872 cln1
cln1≈ wh1 memorandum book without attribution; douce 2H4 without attribution +
792 My tables] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Bacon uses the expression ‘a pair of tables,’ Adv. of Learning. i. 7. § 25.”
1875 Marshall
Marshall
792 Marshall (1875, p. 153) reports that Henry Irving gave “new force” to the last lines of his soliloquy in act 2: “He takes his tablets out of his pocket before speaking the words [quotes ‘Ile have grounds More relatiue than this,’ 1643-4]. The precise meaning of the word ‘this’ and what it refers to never seemed very clear: but this action explains it. In the first Act, after the Ghost has left him, it will be remembered that
Hamlet has written down in his tablets that Claudius was a villain. . . . Can there be any more natural than this, that he should touch these tablets with his other hand, while he says— [quotes the lines again]
i.e., ‘than this record of my uncle’s guilt which I made after the interview with my father’s spirit?’”
In King doc also
1877 v1877
v1877: Farmer, Steevens, Boswell (// 2H4 4.1.201, which belongs to Douce), Douce, Brae, Ingleby, wh1, elze
792 My tables]
1878 Nicholson
Nicholson
792 My tables] Nicholson (letter to Ingleby, 2 May 1878): “Until your query I confess I have never doubted the writing, and now having turned the question about in my mind I must confess myself of the same opinion still.
“It is quite true one does not see why he should wish to put his thoughts down. But first the words the letters seem plainly to indicate this. Secondly the thought is led up to by the previous lines.—‘The table of my memory’ [583] &c. and ‘The book and volume of my brain’ [788].
“Thirdly & here I think is the chief point & one that explains why the previous words are so suggestive—Is
Hamlet rational just now? I dont enter at all into the question whether he is mad or sane—But—Is he at this present moment calm & rational. I think decidedly not. He has just heard the most fearful news given through a most unnatural means; Notice his first words ‘O all &c. [777] then ‘And you my sinews’ [779]& then ‘while memory holds a seat in this distracted globe’ [781-2]. The news has almost paralysed body and mind. And then comes the reaction or [?] of feeling. —This to me shows itself all through he rest of the scene. There is his silence when first called for by his late companions. Then the Hillo ho, ho boy; come bird come [803]—Then his absurd hoax—‘There’s neer a villain &c.’ [814] & then I’ll go pray [824]. Enough to call forth
Horatio’s ‘These are but wild and whirling words my lord’ [825]. After this comes a poor request [835] then that complied with ‘swear it’ [839] that complied with ‘upon my sword’ [842] (i.e. as upon a cross) Lastly his jocular addresses to his father’s ghost from whom he had just heard such fearful tidings of both uncle and mother —ah ah boy [sic, 846] —truepenny [846-7]—Well said old mole—can’st work i the earth so fast—a worthy pioner [859-60].
“Now I dont argue whether this be right or natural—All I say is this is evidently the view Sh. chose to adopt. And
Hamlets seeking for his tables is the first indication of the revulsion or upset of his mind, & most naturally, follows on the thoughts previously occupying his mind, those I mean as to the table of his memory &c.
“I wish I had given myself more time or written it down when it was fresher in my mind. But though I have taken up my pen at the end of an evening & written hurriedly, I think you will sufficiently understand my views and meaning, and knowing the scene so well as you do be able to supply all defects, I cannot help seeing that
Hamlet—over-powered by what he has heard & how he has heard it is not in an unnatural & therefore somewhat unnatural state of mind, the bow having been too tightly strung has lost its natural elasticity & nature, But here is my supper & end of my sheet—goodbye Yours very sincerely B. Nicholson.”
1880 Tanger
Tanger
792 My tables] Tanger (1880, p. 125): F1 variant “what seems to be owing to an interpolation of some Actor ”(“verse too long”).
1881 hud3
hud3 ≈ Malone without attribution; cln1 without attribution
792 My tables] Hudson (ed. 1881): “‘Tables, or books, or registers for memory of things’ were used in Shakespeare’s time by all ranks of persons, and carried in the pocket; what we call memorandum-books.”
hud3 : Werder
792-5 My . . .
are]
Hudson (ed. 1881): “This, I think, has commonly been taken in too literal and formal a way, as if
Hamlet were carefully writing down the axiomatic saying he has just uttered. I prefer Professor Werder’s view of the matter: ‘
Hamlet pulls out his tablets, and jobs the point of his pencil once or twice into the leaf, because he cannot do the same to the King with his sword, as he would like to do.—nothing further; only such marks, such a sign, does he make. That stands for “So, uncle, there you are!” And although he says he must write it down for himself, he does not literally write; that does not accord with his mood and situation.’”
1883 wh2
wh2 : standard
792 tables] White (ed. 1883): “note-book; sometimes called a table-book: from tabula (Lat.) = a thin board covered with wax, for writing.”
1885 Leo
Leo
792 Leo (1885, p. 99): “A moment after the ghost’s report he is brimful of energy and passion of revenge—but only for a moment; in his next words it is already weakened into a witty phrase [quotes 792] and becomes a shallow play with puns, at the end of the scene.”
1885 macd
macd
792 MacDonald (ed. 1885): “It may well seem odd that
Hamlet should be represented as, at such a moment, making a note in his tablets; but without further allusion to the student-habit, I would remark that, in cases where strongest passion is roused, the intellect has yet sometimes an automatic trick of working independently. For instance from Shakspere, see Constance in [
Jn. 3.4.?. (0000)]—how, in her agony over the loss of her son, both her fancy, playing with words, and her imagination, playing with forms, are busy.”
1885 mull
mull: standard
792 tables]
1896 Boas
Boas
792 Boas (1896, p. 397): < p. 397> Instead of writing,
Hamlet should immediately have told his companions, “to rouse the populace, and execute summary justice on Claudius. Nor is he held back as is sometimes suggested, by moral scruples; not only was the duty of private revenge for the blood of a kinsman a maxim in primitive societies (and on this point Shakespeare was faithful to the spirit of the original saga), but
Hamlet [. . . ] in punishing Claudius would have been the organ of the community at large.” What stops him is his “aversion to action.” </ p. 397>
1899 ard1
ard1: standard gloss; // 2H4 2.4.289
792 Dowden (ed. 1899): to relieve tension,
Hamlet writes his thoughts, an act suggested to him by his earlier reference to
table.
1904 ver
ver
792-887 Verity (ed. 1904): “The levity, essentially superficial, of
Hamlet’s bearing, from this point to the end of the scene, represents the necessary escape from the first impression of otherwise insupportable horror.
“And allowance must be made for the fact, that though he might impart to
Horatio the Ghost’s revelation [1928],
Hamlet is loth to confide in Marcellus, and therefore bound to act a part lest he should give a clue to what he has just learnt.
“Moreover, though one cannot at any point of the play call
Hamlet ‘mad,’ yet one feels all through that his assumed ‘madness’ lies very near to his real state after the secret has been made known to him.”
1925 Farjeon
Farjeon: John Barrymore
792 Farjeon (1925, rpt. 1949, p. 150) < p. 150> objects to the real table book: shouldn’t they be imaginary? he asks.
1934 Huntington Library Bulletin
Wright
792 tables] Wright (1934, pp. 87-8) Beaumont & Fletcher’s The Woman Hater, printed by Humphrey Moseley in 1648, says in its prologue: that “if there be any lurking amongst you in Corners, with Tablebookes, who have some hope to find fitt matter to feede his mallice on, let them clapse them up, and slinke away . . . . ”
1935 Wilson
Wilson WHH
792 Wilson (1935, p. 90) refers to Ham. here as exhibiting “unbalanced hilarity,” which quickly vanishes.
1939 kit2
kit2 as director
792 tables]
Kittredge (ed. 1939): "In his excitement,
Hamlet instinctively follows habit and jots down the ’happy thought’ that has occurred to him."
kit2: standard
792 meet] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "fit, proper."
1947 cln2
cln2 ≈ Douce without attribution
792 tables] Rylands (ed. 1947): "ivory tablets for note-taking."
1950 Tilley
Tilley
792-3 meet . . . villaine] Tilley (1950, F 16): “To laugh (smile) in one’s Face and cut one’s throat 1587 Rankins Mirr. Monsters, f. 11v: Beware of such pernitious Gnatonists who taking vs friendlie by the one hand, haue in the other a naked blade to shed our bloud, and smiling in our faces, seeke to betraie our soules.”
1982 ard2
ard2: xref; Evans
792 tables] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “writing-tablets (often made of ivory). Cf. 783 CN. Blakemore Evans (MLN 42: 235-6) cites an emblem by Whitney (1586, p. 100), on hypocrites (’saints in show, with Judas hearts’), which recommends testing the correspondence of a man’s words and deeds by noting them on ’a table.’ ”
1985 cam4
cam4
792 tables] Edwards (ed. 1985): "memorandum book (see [783] above)."
1987 oxf4
oxf4: OED
792 tables] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "small portable tablets for jotting down notes and observations (OED table sb. 2b)."
1988 bev2
bev2: standard
792 tables] Bevington (ed. 1988): “writing tablets.”
bev2: standard
792 meet it is] Bevington (ed. 1988): “it is fitting.”
1992 fol2
fol2: standard
792 meet it is] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “it is appropriate that”
1999 Dessen&Thomson
Dessen&Thomson
792 tables]
Dessen & Thomson(1999) say that a book or tablebook was “a widely used property (roughly 130 examples) linked to (1) contemplation, (2) learning, (3) the supernatural, (4) a study [setting], and sometimes (5) to recording thoughts; a book frequently conveys a state of contemplation, prayer, or melancholy in the figure who enters with it, most famously in
Enter Hamlet reading on a Booke”
F1 1203. See also 1695.
2006 ard3q2
ard3q2: //
792 tables]
Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “
Hamlet now produces a literal writing tablet or notebook (see
1H6 2.4.100, ’I’ll note you in my book of memory’). Earlier editors used to worry about
Hamlet’s apparent naïvety in feeling this trite observation was worth recording . . . .”
Ed. note: Some editors discount an actual notebook here.
ard3q2: standard
792 meet] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “fitting, appropriate (as at [867])”
2008 Stern
Stern
792 My tables . . . downe] Stern (2008, p. 142), in her essay “Watching As Reading,” points out that audiences took notes for their commonplace books at the theater.
Ed. note: It might have struck audiences as amusing that while they were busy scribbling, so was
Hamlet--if he did actually make notes in a notebook.
