The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0020 Monday, 11 January 2010
[1] From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Thursday, 07 Jan 2010 22:35:22 -0500
Subj: Re: SHK 21.0011 Falstaff in Arthur's Bosom
[2] From: Gabriel Egan <
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Date: Friday, 08 Jan 2010 12:43:49 +0000
Subj: Re: SHK 21.0011 Falstaff in Arthur's Bosom
[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Larry Weiss <
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Date: Thursday, 07 Jan 2010 22:35:22 -0500
Subject: 21.0011 Falstaff in Arthur's Bosom
Comment: Re: SHK 21.0011 Falstaff in Arthur's Bosom
Duncan Salkind's acceptance of Gary Taylor's challenge to make
convincing sense of the Folio's "table of green fields" by reference to
backgammon terminology is intriguing.
Here is a more far-fetched notion of my own:
Suppose that <table>refers to a writing tablet (tabula not mensa) and
<and>should be <[on]>(a plausible misreading), then the image of a pen
upon a table is apt if some sense can be made of <green fields>. Suppose
that should be <[Greenfield's]>(also plausible in light of WS's light
pointing and possible tendency to break up words [cf. Hand D in Sir
Thomas More]), and that some person named Greenfield was a seller or
manufacturer of writing tablets; then there might be a topical joke here
at the expense of the hypothesized merchant. If Greenfield's tables were
of such a poor quality (inadequately treated ["sized"]) that they caused
pens to wear out more quickly than usual, the joke is about Falstaff's
nose becoming dull, or edematous, which I suppose is more plausible than
a dying man's nose becoming sharper. This fits the common picture of
Falstaff with a bulbous nose. Or, if <nose>means "penis," dullness
rather than sharpness is even funnier; and the image of a pen becoming
flaccid after use is easier to evoke than the contrary. I concocted this
conjecture as a playful exercise in satirical pedantry, and then I began
to be charmed by it. Fortunately (or not) the remote possibility
postulated appears to have been dashed, as Taylor cites Elizabethan
authority, including medical authority, for the popular idea that a
dying person's nose becomes sharper, not duller. Can I save the
conjecture by hypothesizing that Greenfield's writing tablets caused the
writer's pen to sharpen?
[2]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: Gabriel Egan <
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Date: Friday, 08 Jan 2010 12:43:49 +0000
Subject: 21.0011 Falstaff in Arthur's Bosom
Comment: Re: SHK 21.0011 Falstaff in Arthur's Bosom
Duncan Salkeld gives the nub of his defence of F's "his Nose was as
sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields" (Henry 5, 2.3.16-7).
The word "table", he says, means a point upon a backgammon table. The
note offering the full version of the argument appeared as "Falstaff's
Nose" in Notes & Queries 249 (2004): 284-5. I think we can all agree
that it's possible for Shakespeare to contract the image of "a point
upon a table" to just "a table". The tricky bit is convincing people
that unemended "table" makes better sense and is more likely than Lewis
Theobald's "babbled".
Salkeld makes an argument from grammar: "The Folio capitalizes
exclusively proper nouns in Hostess Quickly's speech, and the emended
word was therefore itself originally more likely to have been a noun
(so, 'Table') than a verb (as in 'babeld')." (p. 285).
But the Folio doesn't do that, does it Duncan? That is, the Folio also
capitalizes the common (not proper) nouns "Nose", "Pen", and "Table" in
this speech. Moreover, it capitalizes the adjective "Christome" (meaning
innocent).
I can't see anything else in the note that goes beyond asserting that
"Table" is possibly correct because it agrees with the dramatic context,
and I think everyone will accept that. But remove from your note the
error about parts of speech and there remains nothing to tip the balance
of probabilities in your favour. Of course, an editor straining to
retain "convincing" Folio readings should stick to "table" if she finds
your note convincing.
Gabriel Egan
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