sables —
“Let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of,”
HAMLET, iii. 2. 125.
This passage has not a little troubled the commentators. Malone paraphrases it thus:
“If my father be so long dead as you say, let the Devil wear
black; as for me, so far from wearing a mourning dress, I'll wear the most costly and
magnificent suit that can be procured, a suit trimmed with
sables” (Capell had already remarked that“Hamlet's saying he would have a suit of sables, amounts to a declaration—
that he would leave off his blacks since his father was so long dead” ).
According to Farmer,“Here again is an equivoque. In
Massinger's [Middleton's, and W. Rowley's] Old Law [act ii.
sc. 1] we have
‘a cunning grief,
That's only fac'd with sables for a show,
But gawdy-hearted.’;”
‘a cunning grief,
That's only fac'd with sables for a show,
But gawdy-hearted.’;”