Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

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 ...

In 2016, Gary Taylor, editor of the New Oxford Shakespeare, explained in a BBC article that Christopher Marlowe was being credited in their latest edition of the plays as co-writer of some of the plays long attributed to Shakespeare alone. But if there's a hint of Marlowe's voice in some of the plays, where does that come from? Marlowe himself? or some other Marlowe-influenced source? Carol Rutter of the University of Warwick thinks it wasn't Christopher Marlowe directly, but Shakespeare's fellow actors and their knowledge of Marlowe's plays from performing them, that influenced the plays: This is an important conversation to have, especially when scholars of Shakespeare are often not playwrights themselves, and with only scholarly knowledge of the creative process rather than first-hand knowledge.