HAMLET                     Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe. Remember thee?

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

Unmixed with baser matter.             (1.5.95-104)

Remember thee? Remember you?! OF COURSE I’ll remember you. Ay, thou poor ghost—Hamlet pities the ghost, a good touch here—I’ll remember you whiles memory holds a seat in this distracted globe. I’ll remember you for as long as I’m capable of remembering anything, for as long as anything is ABLE to be remembered in this crumbling, shattered world, and yes, this distracted globe is his brain, his skull, but also the stage on which he stands, the theatre, a place of memory and remembering, a memory machine. (Yes, I did write a book about this.)

Remember thee? Oh my gracious lord, oh DAD, of course I’ll remember you, and what you’ve just said to me. Yea, from the table of my memory I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records—if my memory is like a wax writing tablet, or another erasable writing surface (both would be utterly familiar to an early modern audience) then I’ll wipe it clean, smooth it out. I’ll obliterate everything else, all the stupid stuff I’ve written or thought or committed to memory as ‘memorable’ or important. And that includes all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past that youth and observation copied there. I’ll erase all my notes! Everything I’ve copied out of books or written down in lectures, good, obedient, well-trained humanist student that I am. All the commonplaces of how to be a man—gone. Everything wiped clean, nothing from the past matters any more. Total reboot, factory settings restored. (Metaphors of memory have always been driven by technology. The wax tablet was originally Plato’s.)

And thy commandment all alone shall live within the book and volume of my brain unmixed with baser matter. ‘Remember me’. That’s all I’m going to do; it’s going to be written on every page of my mind, of my life, from now on, untainted, unadulterated with any other thought or concern. I will remember you.