"Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain / Full charactered with lasting memory"
— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Thomas Thorpe
Date
1609
Metaphor
"Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain / Full charactered with lasting memory"
Metaphor in Context
Thy gift, thy tables, are within my brain
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date, even to eternity;
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist,
Till each to rased oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more.
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
Full charactered with lasting memory,
Which shall above that idle rank remain
Beyond all date, even to eternity;
Or, at the least, so long as brain and heart
Have faculty by nature to subsist,
Till each to rased oblivion yield his part
Of thee, thy record never can be missed.
That poor retention could not so much hold,
Nor need I tallies thy dear love to score;
Therefore to give them from me was I bold,
To trust those tables that receive thee more.
To keep an adjunct to remember thee
Were to import forgetfulness in me.
Categories
Provenance
Reading H. R. Woudhuysen's "Writing-Tables and Table-Books"
Citation
See Shake-speares Sonnets. Neuer Before Imprinted. (London: By G. Eld for T. T., 1609. <Link to Folger copy in EEBO-TCP> <Link to Huntington copy in EEBO-TCP>
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Reading Helen Vendler, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets (Cambridge and London: Harvard UP, 1997).
Date of Entry
03/26/2005
