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Line 669 - Commentary Note (CN)

Commentary notes (CN):

1. SMALL CAPS Indicate editions. Notes for each commentator are divided into three parts:

In the 1st two lines of a record, when the name of the source text (the siglum) is printed in SMALL CAPS, the comment comes from an EDITION; when it is in normal font, it is derived from a book, article, ms. record or other source. We occasionally use small caps for ms. sources and for works related to editions. See bibliographies for complete information (in process).

2. How comments are related to predecessors' comments. In the second line of a record, a label "without attribution" indicates that a prior writer made the same or a similar point; such similarities do not usually indicate plagiarism because many writers do not, as a practice, indicate the sources of their glosses. We provide the designation ("standard") to indicate a gloss in common use. We use ≈ for "equivalent to" and = for "exactly alike."

3. Original comment. When the second line is blank after the writer's siglum, we are signaling that we have not seen that writer's gloss prior to that date. We welcome correction on this point.

4. Words from the play under discussion (lemmata). In the third line or lines of a record, the lemmata after the TLN (Through Line Number] are from Q2. When the difference between Q2 and the authors' lemma(ta) is significant, we include the writer's lemma(ta). When the gloss is for a whole line or lines, only the line number(s) appear. Through Line Numbers are numbers straight through a play and include stage directions. Most modern editions still use the system of starting line numbers afresh for every scene and do not assign line numbers to stage directions.

5. Bibliographic information. In the third line of the record, where we record the gloss, we provide concise bibliographic information, expanded in the bibliographies, several of which are in process.

6. References to other lines or other works. For a writer's reference to a passage elsewhere in Ham. we provide, in brackets, Through Line Numbers (TLN) from the Norton F1 (used by permission); we call these xref, i.e., cross references. We call references to Shakespearean plays other than Ham. “parallels” (//) and indicate Riverside act, scene and line number as well as TLN. We call references to non-Shakespearean works “analogues.”

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Notes for lines 0-1017 ed. Bernice W. Kliman

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

669 And makes each petty {arture} <Artire> in this body	1.4.82

1857 dyce1

dyce1

669 arture] Dyce (ed. 1857): “Here (not to mention the spelling in the quartos) the folio has ‘artire’ (and see examples of artire in note on Marlowe’s Works, i, 49): but in [LLL 4.3.302 (1656)] we have “The nimble spirits in the arteries.’”

1860 Bucknill

Bucknill

669 arture] Bucknill (1860, p. 259): “ . . . Shakespeare entertained the medical opinion of his day, that the arteries were used for the transmission of the vital spirits.”

1868 c&mc

c&mc: standard // + in magenta underlined

669 arture] Clarke & Clarke (ed. 1868): “Here Shakespeare distinctly associates the arteries with the nerves. See [LLL 4.3.302(1656), n. 10?].”

1872 cln1

cln1

669 arture] Clark & Wright (ed. 1872): “Compare Drayton’s Elegies, p. 298 (ed. 1631): ‘Shewing the artyre.’ Cotgrave however spells it always ‘artery.’”

1881 hud3

hud3

669 arture] Hudson (ed. 1881): “Artery, nerve, and sinew were used interchangeably in the Poet’s time.”

1883 wh2

wh2

669 arture] White (ed. 1883): “Some notion of the stumbling blocks through which editors of S. pick their way may be gathered from the quarto spelling of this word, arture, that is ar-tur-e.”

1885 macd

macd

669 arture] MacDonald (ed. 1885): “The word artery, invariably substituted by the editors [Since Q5], is without authority. . . . 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 associate 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.’ [779-80]

“Since writing as above, a friend informs me that arture is the exact equivalent of the [Greek] of Colossians [2.19], 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.”

1885 mull

mull = macd

669 arture]

1888 macl

macl

669 arture] Maclachlan (ed. 1888) objects to the modernization of the word, which he believes is so perfectly understandable in its older form that no editor if he kept it would append an explanatory gloss.

1929 trav

trav

669 each petty] Travers (ed. 1929): “even the pettiest.”

1934 Wilson

Wilson MSH

669 arture] Wilson (1934, pp. 287-8) <p. 287> considers many variants to be a matter of taste and thus immaterial, </p. 287> <p. 288> but he prefers artere, which keeps the two-syllable structure, yet is understandable to a modern reader.” </p. 288>

1934 rid1

rid1 ≈ macl without attribution +

669 arture] Ridley (ed. 1934) keeps the Q2 spelling “to mark the less usual use of it as equivalent to ligament.”

1939 kit2

kit2 ≈ hud3

669 arture] Kittredge (ed. 1939): "The same word as artery; here in the sense of ’sinew.’ "

1957 pel1

pel1: standard

669 arture] Farnham (ed. 1957): “artery.”

1970 pel2

pel2 = pel1

669 arture] Farnham (ed. 1970): “artery”

1980 pen2

pen2

669 petty] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(relatively) weak.”

pen2

669 arture] Spencer (ed. 1980): “(two syllables: an alternative form of ’artery’) channel through which flowed the ’vital spirits’ (not the blood).”

1982 ard2

ard2: kit2; standard //

669 arture] Jenkins (ed. 1982): “ = artery. Both the disyllabic form (indicated by the Q and F spellings and corresponding to Fr. artère) and the meaning of ’sinew’ (Kittredge) are paralleled in other writers. The commoner trisyllable (arteries) occurs in LLL 4.3.302.”

1985 cam4

cam4

669 arture] Edwards (ed. 1985): "artery, thought to convey the vital spirits."

1987 oxf4

oxf4

669 arture] Hibbard (ed. 1987): "In Shakespeare’s day the arteries were thought of as conveyors, not of blood, since after death they do not contain any, but of an ethereal fluid known as ‘vital spirits’ or ‘animal spirits’, the source of sensation and motion, of nervous energy, and of courage. Compare [LLL 4.3.301-2 (1656)], ‘universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries.’"

1988 bev2

bev2: standard

669 petty] Bevington (ed. 1988): “weak.”

bev2: standard

669 arture] Bevington (ed. 1988): “(through which the vital spirits were thought to have been conveyed).”

1992 fol2

fol2: standard

669 arture] Mowat & Werstine (ed. 1992): “artery (Arteries were believed to be the veins that carried the body’s invisible ’vital spirits’)”

2006 ard3q2

ard3q2

669 each petty] Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “i.e. even the most insignificant”

ard3q2: macd

669 arture] artery Thompson & Taylor (ed. 2006): “The spellings in all three texts [see TNM] suggest disyllabic pronunciation, probably ’arter’, but the modern form would have to be ’art’ry’. MacDonald defends ’arture’, deriving it from Latin artus (= joint).”