Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen
| 1983-4 Ham. So long, nay then let the deule weare blacke, | for Ile haue a | |
|---|
| 1984-5 sute of sables; ô heauens, die two mo|nths agoe, and not forgotten yet, | |
|---|
1747 warb
warb
1984 sute of sables] Warburton (ed. 1747): “The conceit of these words is not taken. They are an ironic apology for his mother’s chearful looks: Two months was long enough in conscience to make any dead husband forgotten. But the editors, in their nonsensical blunder, have made Hamlet say just the contrary. That the Devil and he would both go into mourning, tho’ his mother did not. The true reading is this, Nay, then let the Devil wear black, ’FORE I’ll have a suit of sable. ’Fore i.e. before. As much as to say, Let the Devil wear black for me, I’ll have none. The Oxford Editor despises an emendation so easy, and reads it thus, Nay, then let the Devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of ERMINE. And you could expect no less, when such a critic had the dressing of him. But the blunder was a pleasant one. The senseless editors had wrote sables, the fur so called, for sable, black. And the critic only changed this fur for that; by a like figure, the common people say, You rejoice the cockles of my heart, for the muscles of my heart; an unlucky mistake of one shell-fish for another.”
1747-60 mbrowne
mbrown
1984 sute of sables] Browne (1747-60): “Warb. ‘for I’ll have a suit of Sable—let the Devil wear black for me, I’ll wear none—The true sense is not Let the Devil wear black,i.e. call his dress black or [. . .] I’ll call mine by another name, it shall be Sables. The black furs for which I suppose black had the name of Sable—”
c1748 edwards
edwards = warb +
1984 sute of sables] Edwards (1748, pp. 133-4)): “This is, as Mr. Warburton says of Sir Thomas Hanmer... amending with a vengeance. If every passage, which our professed Critic does not understand, must thus be altered; we shall have, indeed a complete edition of Shakespear. In this note, which I have quoted at length, that the reader may see the whole strength of Mr. Warburton’s reasoning; I know not which to admire most: the consistency of his argument, the decency of his language, or the wit of his lenten jest about shell-fish, which makes so proper a conclusion . . . Mr. Warburton acknowledges, that the word sables signifies a fur so called; and every body knows, that they are worn by way of finery in that country. Nay, he himself, in this very play . . . speaking of these same sables, says; “they import, that the wearers are rich burghers and magistrates.” He says, moreover, that the true reading (whatever it be) is as much as to say, Let the Devil wear black for me; I’ll have none. Now I will leave it to any body to judge, whether this true meaning be not expressed in the common reading; and them to determine, whose is the nonsensical blunder, and who is the senseless editor.”
1765 heath
heath
1984 sute of sables] Heath (1765, p. 538): "This emendation of Mr. Warburton’s appears to me to be utterly destitute of meaning. The Devil hath been always represented by the general imagination of mankind as cloathed in black, and Hamlet at the very time he speaks these words is dressed in a suit of sable. So that the sense will amount to this, Let the Devil wear black, which he always doth wear, before I dress myself in sable garments, which I am now actually dressed in. The common reading was, Nay, then let the Devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables. Now it is universally known, from the present practice, as well as from Shakepsear’s authority, that sables are worn by people of the first rank in the northern climates. It is certain also, that among the furrs or sables the blackest are the most highly esteemed, and bear the greatest price. The sense therefore seems to be; If this be the case, let the Devil wear plain black, I’ll get me a suit of sables, which from their colour will have the appearance indeed of mourning, but at the same time will indulge my appetite for finery and ornament to the utmost. In this view, the passage will be understood as a sarcasm of his mother’s mourning, which, he had just before hinted, suited but ill with that gayety and mirth which discovered itself in her countenance. See the Canons of Criticism, p. 94-96."
1765 john1
john1 = warb +
1984 sute of sables] Johnson (ed. 1765): “I know not why our editors should, with such implacable anger, persecute our [corrected to ’their’ 1773] predecessors. [Greek phrase, meaning ’the dead do not bite’], the dead it is true can make no resistance, they may be attacked with great security; but since they can neither feel nor mend, the safety of mauling them seems greater than the pleasure; nor perhaps would it much misbeseem us to remember, amidst our triumphs over the nonsensical and the senseless, that we likewise are men; that debemur morti, and as Swift observed to Burnet, shall soon be among the dead ourselves.
“I cannot find how the common reading is nonsense, nor why Hamlet, when he laid aside his dress of mourning, in a country where it was bitter cold, and the air was nipping and eager, should not have a suit of sables. I suppose it is well enough known, that the fur of sables is not black.”
1773 v1773
v1773 = john +
1984 sute of sables] Steevens (ed. 1773): “A suit of the sables was the richest dress that could be worn in Denmark.”
1773 jen
1984 for...sables]
Jennens (ed. 1773): “
H. reads,
for I’ll have a suit of ermyn.
W. says the true reading is, ‘fore
I’ll have a suit of sable. But if the meaning (according to
W.) be,
Let the devil wear black for me, I’ll have none; why may not the old reading stand,
sables not being mourning, but a rich warm suit worn in that cold country. Vide
Canons, p. 94, and
Revisal, p. 538.”
c.1775 mmal1
1984 sute of sables] Malone (mmal1, BL 30943 f. 54r): “I’ll have a suit of sables This is mentioned in another place in this play as the dress of an old man who is careful of his health.”
1783 ritson
1984 sute of sables] Ritson (1783, p. 203): “That a suit of sables was a very rich dress, and that an equivoque is hardly intended, will appear from the following passage:
‘I had rather,’ says honest Sancho, when he is taking leave of his government, ‘cover my selfe with a double sheepe skinne, .....then be clothed in Sables.’ Shelton, p. 2. p. 359. e. 1620. 4to.”
1785 v1785
v1785= ritson+
1984 sute of sables] Malone (apud. ed. 1785): “That a suit of sables was the magnificent dress of our author’s time, appears from a passage in Ben Jonson’s Discoveries: “Would you not laugh to meet a great councellor of state, in a flat cap, with his trunk-hose, and a hobby-horse cloak, and yond haberdasher and velvet gown trimm’d with sables?”
1786 d.n.
1983-1984 let...sables] N (
Gent. Mag. 56 pt. 1 [May 1786]: 375): <p. 375> “Mr. Urban, This strange speech of Hamlet may, perhaps, receive some elucidation from part of a statute Brazen Nose College, Oxford, which was shewn to me in MS. by a deceased friend. The statutes bear date
primo die Februarii, anno Regis Henrici Octavo tertio-decimo, A.D. 1522. It should seem that sables were reckoned finery in those days, and had nothing to do with mourning.— ‘Statuimus praeterea, quod omnes et singuli praedicti togis longis in parte anteriori confutis infra universitatem utantur, et quod nullus eorum
pelluris pretiosis et sumptuosis, vulgariter dictis
sabills, sive
matrons, pannove de velvet, damasco, satin, aut chamblet, in suis vestibus, internis sive externis, aut earum simbriis sive extremitatibus, vel in eorum liripipiis in universitate quoquo modo utatur.’— Let the Devil mourn for me, I’ll dress gaily,’ is Hamlet’s meaning, and I think this interpretation is countenanced by the quotation. A picture of Richard Gardiner, some time rector of Whitechapel, hangs in the vestry-room there. It was painted in 1617, the 15th of James I. and is an hard, poor picture. Gardiner is represented with sables, which occupy the place at this day filled with the scarf. He was 48 years rector of the parish, and his name appears in the list of benefactors to it. Yours, &c. D. N.” </p. 375>
1790 mal
mal
1984 sute of sables] Malone (ed. 1790): “Nay then, says Hamlet, if my father be so long dead as you say, let the devil wear black; as for me, so far from wearing a mourning dress, I’ll wear the most costly and magnificent suit that can be procured; a suit trimmed with sables.
“Our poet furnished Hamlet with a suit of sables on the present occasion, not, as I conceive, because such a dress was suited to ‘a country where it was bitter cold, and the air was nipping and eager,’ (as Dr. Johnson supposed,) nor because ‘a suit of sables was the richest dress that could be worn in Denmark,’ (as Mr. Steevens has suggested,) of which proably he had no knowledge, but because a suit trimmed with sables was in Shakspeare’s time the richest dress worn by men in England. We have had again and again occasion to observe, that, wherever his scene might happen to be, the customs of his own country were still in his thoughts.
“By the statute of apparel, 24 Henry VIII. c. 13, (article furres,) it is ordained, that none under the degree of an earl may use sables.
“Bishop says in his Blossoms, 1577, speaking of the extravagance of those times, that a thousand ducates were sometimes given for ‘a face of sables.’”
1984 sute of sables] Malone (ed. 1790, 10:685): “Florio in his Italian Dictionary, 1598, thus explains ziblini: ‘The rich furre called fables.’— Sables is the skin of the sable Martin. See cotgrave’s French Dict. 1611. ‘Sebilline. Martre Sebel. The sable Martin; the beast whose skinn we call sables’.”
1791- rann
rann
1983 wear black, for Ill have a suit of sables.] Rann (ed. 1791-): “—plain mourning, I’ll have a furr’d suit, with only the semblance of mourning. Let the devil mourn for me, I’ll dress gaily.”
1807 pye
pye
1984 sute of sables] Pye (1807, p. 320): “Notwithstanding all the reasoning of the commentators on this passage, I think the poem meant to make Hamlet talk incoherently. Though Dr. Johnson tells us in a note that “he supposes it is well enough known that the fur of sables is not black,” he, in his Dictionary, tells us that sable means black, and so it is used as a substantive in this play, where Horatio tells Hamlet the beard of his father was a sable silvered. In the passage quoted here by Dr. Farmer from Massenger, sables must clearly mean mourning.”
1815 becket
becket
1984 sute of sables] Becket (1815, p. 51): “When Johnson thus exclaims against the ‘implacable anger,’ as he calls it, of certain editors, he seems to forsake the cause in which he had engaged, to throw up his brief: in a word, to abandon the poet of nature, to the caprices of ignorance or tasteless temerity. In charging the great and learned commentator with having persecuted his fellows, one might almost be led to imagine, had not Johnson been a lexicographer, that he knew not precisely the meaning of the expression. If by using it, he would speak of an attack on the fame of others, he is manifestly wrong: for it is not in literature as in morals. In the latter case it is known that a man’s good name may often be filched from him with impunity by bringing a censure against him in generals: and to do this when he is deceased, when no longer able to defend himself, is no doubt base and infamous in the highest degree. But in the question of the former it is totally different. The man who publishes his opinions lays himself open to animadversion; nay, he may even be said to challenge attack. Thus the sentiments of either party will be laid before the world, and on their respective merits that world is left to decide:— the point is at issue, and Shakspeare must be given up to the wanton exercise of the injudicious corrector, or the corrector to him. The determination, I believe, will be easily made. But a succeeding Editor may by some, perhaps, be considered as merely hypercritical. If so, the more then must it redound to the honor of him whose idea in the matter has been controverted. He has passed the ordeal, and nothing more remains to be said or done. </p. 51>
<p. 52> Thus much in respect of critics and criticism. But now to our author’s text. The present reading ‘Nay, then let the devil wear, &c.’ is faulty, since the wearing of ‘sables’ seems to follow as a consequence: not that ‘for’ is really used as an illative particle; but I must insist that it might be easily mistaken for such: and as for the ermine of Hanmer, it must not be admitted, since it bears not the smallest resemblance to the word which is found in every copy of the play. With regard to Warburton’s alteration it, likewise, is certainly wrong, for Hamlet, while dressed in his ‘inky coat,’ must not be made to say ‘the Devil may wear black before I will.’ The matter is, that the passage is slightly corrupted: for ‘a suit’ we must read ‘no suit,’ and consider ‘sables,’ as it is very generally taken, not for the fur of the master, but as a mourning dress. ‘Nay then let the Devil wear black, for I’ll have no suit of sables!’ i.e. no mourning suit. By which Hamlet would have it thought for a moment that he means to throw off his then attire, which denoted sorrow, and to join in the pleasures of the court.” </p. 52>
1826 sing1
sing1
1984 sute of sables] Singer (ed. 1826): “i.e. a dress, ornamented with the rich fur of that name, said to be the skin of the sable martin. By the statute of apparel, 24 Hen. VII. c.13, it is ordained that none under the degree of an earl may use sables. Bishop, in his Blossoms, 1577, speaking of extravagance, says, that a thousand ducates were sometimes given for a face of sables. But Hamlet meant to use the word equivocally.”
1839 knt1
knt1
1984 sute of sables] Knight (ed. 1839): “Sir Thomas Hanmer turned ‘I’ll have a suit of sables,’ into ‘I’ll have a suit of ermine;’ and Warburton thinks it extremely absurd that Hamlet and the devil should both go into mourning. Neither Hanmer nor Warburton perceived the latent irony of Hamlet’s reply. Ophelia says his father has been dead ‘twice two months;’ [3.2.138. (1982)] he replies, ‘So long? nay, then let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables,’ [3.2.129-30. (1983-40]. Robes of sable were amongst the most costly articles of dress; and by the Statute of Apparel, 24. Hen. VIII., it was ordained that none under the degree of an earl should use sables. This fur, as is well known, is not black; and it is difficult to know how it became connected with mournful associations, as in Spenser--- ‘grief all in sable sorrowfully clad.’ In heraldry, sable means black; and, according to Peacham, the name thus used is derived from the fur. Sables, then, were costly and magnificent; but not essentially the habiliments of sorrow, though they had some slight association with mournful ideas. If Hamlet had said, ‘Nay, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of ermine,’ he would merely have said, Let the devil be in mourning, for I’ll be fine. But as it is he says, Let the devil wear the real colours of grief, but I’ll be magnificent in a garb that only has a facing of something like grief. Hamlet would wear the suit as Ben Jonson’s haberdasherer wore it: ‘Would you not laugh to meet a great counsellor of state, in a flat cap, with his trunk--hose, and hobby--horse cloak; and yond haberdasher in a velvet gown trimmed with sables?’”
1856 hud1 (1851-6)
1984 sute of sables] Hudson (ed. 1851-6): "Hanmer would read ermine, on the ground that sable is itself a mourning colour. But sables were among the most rich and costly articles of dress; and a statute of the reign of Henry VIII. mafe it unlawful for any one under the rank of an earl to wear them. The meaning is well explained by Knight, thus; ’If Hamlet had said, ’Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of ermine,’ he would merely have said, ’Let the devil wear the real colours of grief, but I’ll be magnificent in a garb that only has a facing of something like grief.’ H."
1857 svh
s.v.h. = john, v1773, mal, kni1 +
1984 sute of sables] H (
N. & Q. 2nd Ser. 4 [1857]: 43): <p. 43> “It seems to me your correspondent’s Query as to the construction of this sentence admits of only one answer,— which must be in the negative, inasmuch as the devil has been in all ages familiarly styled ‘the old gentleman in black;’ how then could Hamlet appropriately exclaim, ‘Nay, then let the devil wear black ‘fore (
before) I’ll have a suit of sables,’ the word
before implying a colour contrary to that of his usual costume? There might have been some reason in supposing the word ‘’fore’ was omitted had Hamlet used
white instead of
black; for then his intention would have clearly conveyed the improbability of
his ever donning the ‘sables,’ as we generally understand that term to signify black. But I am convinced here is the mistake, and I would ask if
Stylites has ever seen the article by Mr. Wightwick in
The Critic, which provoked much discussion at the time; the arguments,
pro and
con, being so evenly balanced that Mr. W. left the matter as a drawn game?
I think if sufficient space can be afforded for the following extract from it, it is well worthy of preservation in ‘N. & Q.,’ and may satisfy many a future querist, as it did myself: S.V.H.
‘We trust in being now enabled to afford the most important correction of a word (as it has heretofore been printed), in one of Hamlet’s sentences in the play scene.‘Ophelia having remarked on Hamlet’s merriment, the dialogue proceeds as follows: [TLN 1979-1984 what...sables]
‘The meaning of the word ‘sables’ has long been a speculation with the commentators. Warburton says:— ‘the senseless editors had written sables, the fur so called, for sable, black. The true reading is ‘let the devil wear black ‘fore I’ll have a suit of sable:’ ‘fore, i.e., before. As much as to say— ‘Let the devil wear black for me; I’ll have none.’
‘Warburton is right in thinking the editors have signified a material, when a colour only was intended; but there we must leave him, as not less amenable to the charge of ‘senselessness’ than those whom he abused.
‘Malone is correct in supposing that a costume of splendid gaiety was intended in opposition to the robe of mourning; but he errs with others in imagining that the fur sables has anything to do with the matter.
‘It has ever been obvious to all simple-minded and common-sense readers that Shakspere intended ‘Hamlet’ to mean thus: ‘Nay, then, let the devil preserve to himself his own black, which custom has adopted as the sign of mourning; I’ll wear the colour, of all others, most oppugnant to sorrow.’ There was no making the word ‘sables’ confirm this meaning, so far as colour was concerned; and therefore it has been ingeniously supposed that the material— the fur— had reference to living pomp, as opposed to sepulchral gloom.
‘But a reference to the third number of the new Retrospective Review for May 1853 will at once set this long-disputed matter perfectly, and most satisfactorily, at rest.
‘In an account of the writings of Henry Peacham (who was contemporary with Shakspere), an extract is made from the author’s ‘directions for painting or colouring of cuts and printed pictures;’ and, in the list of colours (‘some of which,’ says the reviewer, ‘it would puzzle a modern R.A. to make out’), are the following:
‘‘Blanket-colour, i.e. a light watchet. Scarlet, i.e. crimson or stammel. Shammy, a smoakie or rain-colour. Turkie colour, i.e. Venice blue, or, as others will have it, red. Sabell colour, i.e. flame-colour, &c.’
‘Hamlet, then, means to say, ‘Let the devil wear black; I’ll have a suit of sabell!’ (i.e. of flame-colour.)
‘A mis-spelling has doubtless produced all the foregone confusion of the editors in respect to this passage; and we may reasonably conclude that a different pronunciation distinguished the ‘sable’ meaning dark or black, from the ‘sabell’ meaning flame-colour.
‘When, in another part of the play of Hamlet we find the words, ‘He, whose sable arms, black as his purpose,’ &c.,— the word is obviously used as signifying dark. In the description of the beard of Hamlet’s father— ‘a sable-silvered’— it is likened to the fur sable, rendered grey by mixture with the white hairs of advancing age. In the same play we read that ‘youth no less becomes the light and careless livery that it wears, than settled age his sables.’ In the latter case the word has no reference to splendour or gaiety; but simply to comfort and gravity. In the first part of Henry the Fourth is the expression ‘a hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta;’ i.e. sabell taffeta. Hamlet unquestionably meant to contrast with the sober black which sorrow should wear, the flaunting garb of wantonness, a suit of flame-colour.’” </p. 43>
1857 dyce1
dyce1
1984 sute of sables] Dyce(ed. 1857):"A writer in The Critic for 1854, p. 317,—having found, in a review, an extract from a work of Henry Peacham, where "Sabell colour, i. e. flame-colour," is mentioned,—feels assured that we ought to read here "a suit of sabell." Another correspondent in The Critic for the same year, p. 373, observes that "sabell" or "sabelle" is properly a fawn-colour a good deal heightened with red, and that the term came from the French "couleur d’isabelle."-- According to the Dict. de l’Acad. Fr., "isabelle" is a colour "entre le blanc at a le jaune, mais dans lequel le jaune domine. Il se dit surtout du poil des chevaux."
1858 col3
col3
1984 sute of sables] Collier (ed. 1885): “A rich dress, faced with this expensive fur. Mr. W. Williams, of Tiverton, refers s toa statute of Brasenose College, Anno 13. Hen. VIII., where the fellows are forbidden to wear vulgariter dictum sabills, as too expensive and sumptuous. Farmer tells us that Hamlet intends to speak equivocally, since ‘sable’ was also used for mourning.”
1861 wh1
wh1
1984 sute of sables] White (ed. 1861): “‘---’fore I’ll have a suit of sables’:--The 4tos. and the folio have ‘for I’ll have,’ &c.--a trifling variation from the true text; hardly to be called a corruption. The correction was made by Warburton, and has unaccountably been neglected by subsequent editors.”
1865 hal
1984 sute of sables] Halliwell (ed. 1865): “Shakespeare’s intention was most likely to make Hamlet here speak incoherently. If this be not the case, some sort of meaning may be elicited in this way,--nay, then let the devil wear black, for even I will have a suit of mourning; if I wear one, the devil himself may. ‘The colour sables or blacke,’ Cotgrave.”
1866a dyce2
1984 dyce2=dyce1+
1984 sute of sables] Dyce (ed. 1886): “Warburton reads ‘’fore I’ll have a suit of sables;’ which Mr. Grant White adopts without hesitation. (Is what follows worth noticing? ---A writer in The Critic for 1854, p. 317, ---having found, in a review, an extract from a work of Henry Peacham, where ‘Sabell colour, i.e. flame--colour,’ is mentioned,--- feels assured that we ought to read here ‘a suit of sabell.’”
1867 ktlyn
ktlyn
1984 sute of sables] Keightly (1867, p. 292): “‘I’ll not have a suit of sables.’ When the critics shall have proved--which they have not done yet--that a dress trimmed with sable was called ‘a suit of sables,’ I will grant that Hamlet did not mean mourning, and that the negative is not needful. The passsage, as I now give it, answers to the vulgar phrase, ‘The Devil may wear black for me.’”
1877 clns
clns
1984 sute of sables] Neil (ed. 1877): “‘Sable,’ from the French, signifies deep, dull black, and so is applicable to mourning garments; but sable is the fur of the Zibellina. ‘Sable,’ says Peacham, ‘is worn of great personages, and brought out of Russia, being the fur of a little beast of that name, esteemed for the perfectness of the colours of the hairs, which are very black. Hence sables in heraldry, signifies the black colour in gentlemen’s arms’ — quoted in Dr R. G. Latham’s Johnson’s Dictionary.”
1881 hud2
1984 sute of sables] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Sabell is a flame--colour. A writer in The Critic for 1854, p.373, remarks that ‘sabell or sabelle is properly a fawn--colour a good deal heightened with red, and that the term came from the French coleur d’isabelle.’ According to the Dictionary of the French Academy, isabelle is a colour ‘between white and yellow, but with the yellow predominating.’ It is therefore a very showy, flaring colour; as far as possible from mourning.”
1882 elze
1984 sute of sables] Elze (ed. 1882): “In my Notes, No. XCIII, and in The Athenaeum, June 11, 1881, p. 783 I have shown that both in England and Germany for a ‘suit of sables’ preference was given to materials of brightest colour, such as saffron, scarlet, and green. This is corroborated by a passage in Massinger’s Old Law, II, 1 (Works, ed. Hartley Coleridge, in 1 vol., p. 421 b): — ‘a cunning grief, That’s only fac’d with sables for a show, But gawdy-hearted.’
This, I think, proves, that only the skirts of the robe were trimmed with sable, whilst its main part consisted of some gaudy-coloured material. Such robes are frequently seen in old portraits. Compare Harrison’s Description of England, ed. Furnivall, p. 171 seq. Rye, England as seen by Foreigners, p. 71 and 90. Dyce, Glossary, s. Sables.”
1885 macd
macd
11984 sute of sables] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “the fur is sable.”
1899 ard1
1984 sute of sables] Dowden (ed. 1899): “Warburton read, ‘‘fore I’ll have a suit of sable.’ Johnson observed that the fur of sables is not black; a suit trimmed with sables was magnificent, and reads sabell, flame-colour. But Hamlet’s jest lies in the ambiguity of the word; sables, the fur and sable, the black of heraldry. See IV. Vii. 81, whence it appears that sables were the livery of ‘settled age.’ What an age since my father died! I am quite an old gentlemen! (with an ambiguity of apparent self-contradiction in Hamlet’s manner, on the meaning black); I mean to be rich and comfortable, and the devil must be the only personage who always wears black, his accustomed garb.”
1909 subbarau
subbarau
1984 sables] Subbarau (ed. 1909): “Hamlet of course speaks ironically, ‘giving a sarcastic fling at the shameless want of respect shown towards his father’s memory:’ Thank you for the correction, my dear Ophelia. It is so long as ‘twice two months’! Then, my mother may well be cheerful, and I will no more wear these coarse mourning weeds
this ‘inky cloak.’ I will leave it to the devil and will myself wear a suit of sables (i.e., rich robes trimmed with the fur of sables) like the King and the Queen. Robes trimmed with sable were associated with gravity (IV. vii. 79[3078+15/16]) and were evidently used by men of rank as a nominal substitute for mourning garments. The colour of sable no doubt greatly varies, but the black variety seems to be the one most highly prized.”
1934a cam3
1983-4 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Black was, of course, the native colour of the Devil.”
1982 ard2
1984 sute of sables] Jenkins (ed. 1982): "Properly clothes faced or trimmed with sable (fur); and although the word came to be used generically for mourning blacks, it seems here to retain its strict signification too. For I’ll have implies a change from present wear and so the replacement of Hamlet’s customary ’inky cloak’ (I. ii. 77-8) by something more remarkable. The funeral procession in Day’s Parliament of Bees (char. 8)) includes ’the Graces . . . clad in rich sables’. see Hotson, ’Sables for Hamlet’, Time and Tide, 1 Nov. 1952.
“Hamlet’s meaning has, however, been much disputed. The context has often been held to imply that after so long a period as ’twice two months’ it is time to discard mourning, and various attempts have been made to adjust the text or its interpretation to what is thus presupposed. But we must remember the characteristic of Hamlet in his ’idle’ moods to bewilder by defeating expectation. Preferring the expected, Keightley supplied a negative (I’ll not have’) for a reversal of the sense, which Warburton had achieved more neatly by rendering for as ’fore (before). Others have sought to distinguish the suit of sables from the devil’s black and have decided that it signalizes the end of mourning by its richness and display. Yet is Shakespeare had meant that, he could have thought of something gayer; and it is rather absurd for critics from Johnson to Dover Wilson, to have insisted that sables are not black but brown - a view which has the concurrence of OED (sable, sb.2 and a.) but which Hotson with abundance of citation contradicts. It is clear that whatever the scientific fact, sables were always thought of as black; literature betrays no incongruity in the use if the same word for fur, the heraldic colour, and poetic epithet for night. No one has explained why, being conventionally black and a badge of mourning, sables should here denote the end of it. In fact, Hamlet’s suit of sables does not contrast with the devil’s black, but outdoes it. Speedy forgetting makes a man ’merry’ (ll. 123-5), and sables, ’importing . . . graveness’ (IV. vii. 79-80), must presuppose the opposite. So, as the text stands, it is not that a father so long dead had now better be forgotten, but that since he is, remarkably, not forgotten, he shall be remarkably and splendidly mourned. And since one had to be old to wear sables, they give a mocking emphasis to the long time his memory lasts."
1983 1984 1985
