The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Part 13

_Ham._ Hold off your hand. [Sidenote: hands]

_Hor._ Be rul'd, you shall not goe.

_Ham._ My fate cries out, And makes each petty Artire[4] in this body, [Sidenote: arture[4]]

As hardy as the Nemian Lions nerue: Still am I cal'd? Vnhand me Gentlemen: By Heau'n, Ile make a Ghost of him that lets me: I say away, goe on, Ile follow thee.

_Exeunt Ghost & Hamlet._

_Hor._ He waxes desperate with imagination.[5] [Sidenote: imagion]

_Mar._ Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.

_Hor._ Haue after, to what issue will this come?

_Mar._ Something is rotten in the State of Denmarke.

_Hor._ Heauen will direct it.

_Mar._ Nay, let's follow him. _Exeunt._

_Enter Ghost and Hamlet._

_Ham._ Where wilt thou lead me? speak; Ile go no further.

[Sidenote: Whether]

_Gho._ Marke me.

_Ham._ I will.

[Footnote A: _Here in the Quarto_:--

The very place puts toyes of desperation Without more motiue, into euery braine That lookes so many fadoms to the sea And heares it rore beneath.]

[Footnote 1: _1st Q_. 'beckles'--perhaps for _buckles--bends_.]

[Footnote 2: Note the unbelief in the Ghost.]

[Footnote 3: sovereignty--_soul_: so in _Romeo and Juliet_, act v. sc.

1, l. 3:--

My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne.]

[Footnote 4: The word _artery_, invariably subst.i.tuted by the editors, is without authority. In the first Quarto, the word is _Artiue_; in the second (see margin) _arture_. This latter I take to be the right one--corrupted into _Artire_ in the Folio. It seems to have troubled the printers, and possibly the editors. The third Q. has followed the second; the fourth has _artyre_; the fifth Q. and the fourth F. have _attire_; the second and third Folios follow the first. Not until the sixth Q. does _artery_ appear. See _Cambridge Shakespeare. Arture_ was to all concerned, and to the language itself, a new word. That _artery_ was not Shakspere's intention might be concluded from its unfitness: what propriety could there be in _making an artery hardy_? The sole, imperfect justification I was able to think of for such use of the word arose from the fact that, before the discovery of the circulation of the blood (published in 1628), it was believed that the arteries (found empty after death) served for the movements of the animal spirits: this might vaguely _a.s.sociate_ the arteries with _courage_. But the sight of the word _arture_ in the second Quarto at once relieved me.

I do not know if a list has ever been gathered of the words _made_ by Shakspere: here is one of them--_arture_, from the same root as _artus, a joint--arcere, to hold together_, adjective _arctus, tight. Arture_, then, stands for _juncture_. This perfectly fits. In terror the weakest parts are the joints, for their _artures_ are not _hardy_. 'And you, my sinews, ... bear me stiffly up.' 55, 56.

Since writing as above, a friend informs me that _arture_ is the exact equivalent of the [Greek: haphae] of Colossians ii. 19, as interpreted by Bishop Lightfoot--'the relation between contiguous limbs, not the parts of the limbs themselves in the neighbourhood of contact,'--for which relation 'there is no word in our language in common use.']

[Footnote 5: 'with the things he imagines.']

[Page 50]

_Gho._ My hower is almost come,[1]

When I to sulphurous and tormenting Flames Must render vp my selfe.

_Ham._ Alas poore Ghost.

_Gho._ Pitty me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall vnfold.

_Ham._ Speake, I am bound to heare.

_Gho._ So art thou to reuenge, when thou shalt heare.

_Ham._ What?

_Gho._ I am thy Fathers Spirit, Doom'd for a certaine terme to walke the night;[2]

And for the day confin'd to fast in Fiers,[3]

Till the foule crimes done in my dayes of Nature Are burnt and purg'd away? But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my Prison-House; I could a Tale vnfold, whose lightest word[4]

Would harrow vp thy soule, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like Starres, start from their Spheres, Thy knotty and combined locks to part, [Sidenote: knotted]

And each particular haire to stand an end,[5]

Like Quilles vpon the fretfull[6] Porpentine [Sidenote: fearefull[6]]

But this eternall blason[7] must not be To eares of flesh and bloud; list _Hamlet_, oh list, [Sidenote: blood, list, o list;]

If thou didst euer thy deare Father loue.

_Ham._ Oh Heauen![8] [Sidenote: G.o.d]

_Gho._ Reuenge his foule and most vnnaturall Murther.[9]

_Ham._ Murther?

_Ghost._ Murther most foule, as in the best it is; But this most foule, strange, and vnnaturall.

_Ham._ Hast, hast me to know it, [Sidenote: Hast me to know't,]

That with wings as swift

[Footnote 1: The night is the Ghost's day.]

[Footnote 2: To walk the night, and see how things go, without being able to put a finger to them, is part of his cleansing.]

[Footnote 3: More horror yet for Hamlet.]

[Footnote 4: He would have him think of life and its doings as of awful import. He gives his son what warning he may.]

[Footnote 5: _An end_ is like _agape, an hungred_. 71, 175.]

[Footnote 6: The word in the Q. suggests _fretfull_ a misprint for _frightful_. It is _fretfull_ in the 1st Q. as well.]

[Footnote 7: To _blason_ is to read off in proper heraldic terms the arms blasoned upon a shield. _A blason_ is such a reading, but is here used for a picture in words of other objects.]