Falstaff in Heaven, Enclosed Commons, Sharp Pen, and "a Table of green fields"

In Shakespeare’s Henry V (F1), "Hostesse" describes the death of Falstaff (2.3.832-847), claiming not that Falstaff is in heaven in the bosom of Abraham (like the beggar Lazarus of Luke 16:19-31), but in the bosom of Arthur.

She also offers: "his Nose was as sharpe as a Pen, and a Table of greene fields." (2.3.838-9)

Adam Roberts [1] notes: 

- Lewis Theobald (1733) "amends Table to babbled, giving us: ‘his nose was as sharp as a pen and [he] babbled of green fields’." 

- Most editions follow Theobold, but Gary Taylor’s Oxford edition considers other options.

Dobson notes that the RSC edition (eds. Bate and Rasmussen) make it ‘for his nose was as sharp as a pen on a table of green fields.’ [2] 

Mark Alcamo offers that "Nose" might have at least a double meaning, both literal and also that his "knows" (his knowing) was sharp at his death [3].

Roberts considers that "table" might also mean "tableau," image.

Roberts and Alcamo mention Arthur's round table in Henry IV Part 2, 2.1.687f (Alcamo: King Arthur's 'Winchester Round Table' painted green and white).

Roberts questions "the idea that ‘making logical sense’ is the Shakespearian criterion — the premise that an editor’s job is to revise and alter Shakespeare until it makes consecutive, logical, semantic sense. [...] The point of Shakespeare is to make poetic sense, not to adhere to some vision of logical consistency."

I would add two things: 

1. Psalm 23 (used in Elizabethan burial services) refers not only to “green pasture" (v.2) but also, "Thou dost prepare a TABLE before me in the sight of mine adversaries" v.5). So "table" and "green fields" could both fit for a Falstaff who babbles on his deathbed..

2. A pen might be more than, or other than, just a writing instrument: Rich landowners were enclosing the (green fields of the) commons [4] with sheep’s pens [5.a, b, c], which would stand out sharply, representing a social wound, like the rich man stealing from the beggar Lazarus. 

My position is closer to Bate and Rasmussen but does not represent scholarly consensus.

NOTES: Quotes from Shakespeare's Henry V (F1) are taken from the Internet Shakespeare Editions website of the University of Victoria unless otherwise noted: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/H5_F1/scene/2.3/index.html

[1] Adam Roberts at Medium: https://medium.com/adams-notebook/a-table-of-green-fields-b0dcce5f72f9

[2] Michael Dobson at London Review of Books: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v29/n09/michael-dobson/for-his-nose-was-as-sharpe-as-a-pen-and-a-table-of-greene-fields

[3] Mark Alcamo at Shaksper.net: 

https://shaksper.net/archive/2011/303-september/28145-henry-v-falstaffs-death#:~:text=The%20Shakespeare%20Conference:%20SHK%2022.0248,thinking%20ourselves%20closer%20to%20Shakespeare.

[4] On the loss of the commons, see Common as Air, by Lewis Hyde. 

For a shorter treatment, see "Fencing off ideas: enclosure & the disappearance of the public domain," published in Daedalus, March 22, 2002, by James Boyle. 

[4.a.] The problem of the loss of the commons began long before Shakespeare, and continued long after. Hyde and Boyle both mention Sir Thomas More's comments about the loss of the commons in his Utopia, and both include what Boyle identifies as a popular folk rhyme (perhaps from the 19th Century or earlier?) that addresses the subject:

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose.

The law demands that we atone

When we take things we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don't escape

If they conspire the law to break;

This must be so but they endure

Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

And geese will still a common lack

Till they go and steal it back.

[5] If Hostesse refers to Falstaff’s nose being sharp as sheep’s pens that stand out sharply against a table of green fields which were formerly commons, note Hyde (ibid) on sheep and commons from Common as Air:

[W]itness the following exchange of letters. The date is 1824, and a commoner complains to his landlord: "Should a poor man take one of your sheep from the common, his life would be forfeited by law. But should you take the common from a hundred poor men's sheep, the law gives no redress." To which the landlord replies: "As your language is studiously offensive I must decline any further communication with you." 

[5.a] See also: “William Shakespeare reaches an agreement with William Replingham to safeguard his income as a leaseholder of the tithes in case of enclosure” October 28,1614: 

https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/william-shakespeare-reaches-agreement-william-replingham-safeguard-his-income#:~:text=opening:%20ER27/3-,View%20online%20bibliographic%20record,William%20Replingham%20of%20Great%20Harborough.

[5.b] See also: Enclosure Acts: Sexuality, Property, and Culture in Early Modern England, 

Richard Burt & John Michael Archer, 1994, Cornell U. Press, review: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvv4174v

[5.c] Shakespeare and/or his family may have hoarded grain in the late 1590s to protect against losses from enclosure. See: 

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1026244/1029497#:~:text=Stratford%20was%20afflicted%20by%20fire,designed%20to%20be%20intentionally%20opaque.

IMAGES 

Left: Screen shot from Henry V (F1) at Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of Victoria: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/H5_F1/scene/2.3/index.html

Right: Falsfaff (1915), Eduard von Grützner (1846–1925). Private collection, public domain via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Falstaff_by_Eduard_von_Gr%C3%BCtzner#/media/File:Eduard_von_Gr%C3%BCtzner_-_Falstaff.jpg

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