The Botany of Shakespeare 215 



note that we have here to do with an effect; the means 

 of producing it need not be too closely questioned. Be- 

 fore the rush of action, the weird setting, the voice of 

 an apparition, the excited audience cares not what the 

 mysterious vial may contain ebony, henbane, yew, or 

 whether it were entirely empty. "What is called for is a 

 speedy and mysterious taking off. Had the scene been 

 laid in Italy, the effect had been reached by the fateful 

 prick of a jeweled pin, some ring upon a Borgian finger 

 whose pressure was the paralysis of death. But the king 

 died of no such curari. Note the symptoms : 



"The leperous distilment; whose effect 

 Holds such enmity with blood of man 

 That swift as quicksilver it courses through 

 The natural gates and alleys of the body, 

 And with a sudden vigour it doth posset 

 And curd, like eager droppings into milk, 

 The thin and wholesome blood; so did it mine; 

 And a most instant tetter barked about, 

 Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust, 

 All my smooth body." Hamlet, i: v, 64-73. 



These are the symptoms of blood-poisoning, vividly por- 

 trayed; of some contagion, communicable by infection. 

 In foul old London, Shakespeare had doubtless seen en- 

 demic, zymotic diseases of every description, and drew 

 his picture from the life. Royal blood is notoriously un- 

 sound, royal habit leaves the porches of royal ears espe- 

 cially exposed. On our supposition the vial need not 

 have contained very much, not even " ebony. " The 

 dramatist had plenty of mystery ready to his hand, and 

 the "hebona" is perhaps intentionally ambiguous. 



