Notebookery 6 (1993ish + Hamlet's Tables)

 I think this was originally contemporaneous with the one that looked just like it, but this one got lost. There are a few gap year sketches then, suddenly, evidence of its use as a prop in Hamlet. An important prop too: these were Hamlet's "tables", which apparently means notes, and Hamlet is always setting things down in them. The first thing he does after seeing the ghost of his dead father, for example, is record its last words amd then make a note about his uncle's smile*. We don't often see this in productions however, perhaps because it's seen as weirdly undramatic, but it struck me when I got to play Hamlet that that was the point, and from Act Two through to Act Four my lips, teeth and tongue would be stained corpse-clown black with the ink of the pen I was chewing. Otherwise this book is mainly empty, which I suppose means it's technically still in use. (Click to enlarge.)

 

* "Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unfix'd with baser matter. Yes, by heaven!
O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain!
At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark.
He writes.
So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word.
It is 'adieu, adieu, remember me.'
I have sworn ’t."