The Anatomy of Melancholy

Andreus Vesalius, from his 1542 publication, De fabrica corporis humani  (the structure of the human body), still invites viewers to unravel the mystery of flesh and spirit. The anatomist will perish, but the vision he shaped in life lives on in inherited memory. Vesalius as a Christian, shares horror and empathy confronting the end of sin: the cadaver revealing the mysteries of anatomy was hanged, perhaps for murder. Vesalius himself himself a sinner works to reveal the workings of mankind.

Horatio

This same skull,

sir, was Yorick's skull, the king's jester.

Hamlet

This?

First Clown

E'en that.

Hamlet

Let me see.

Takes the skull

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath

borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how

abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at

it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know

not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your

gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,

that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one

now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let

her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must

come; make her laugh at that. Prithee, Horatio, tell

me one thing.

Horatio

What's that, my lord?

Hamlet

Dost thou think Alexander looked o' this fashion i'

the earth?

Horatio

E'en so.

Hamlet

And smelt so? pah!

Puts down the skull

Horatio

E'en so, my lord.

Hamlet

To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may

not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander,

till he find it stopping a bung-hole?

Horatio

'Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Hamlet

No, faith, not a jot; but to follow him thither with

modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it: as

thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried,

Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of

earth we make loam; and why of that loam, whereto he

was converted, might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperious Caesar, dead and turn'd to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

Should patch a wall to expel the winter flaw!