HAMLET                     What may this mean

That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel,

Revisits thus the glimpses of the moon,

Making night hideous, and we fools of nature

So horridly to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

[ GHOST ] beckons.

HORATIO        It beckons you to go away with it

As if it some impartment did desire

To you alone.                          (1.4.51-60)

What may this mean: well, well may you ask, Hamlet. He’s asking and asking, but mostly, still, MAKING the Ghost, the atmosphere, the shock, the fear, in his description. What does it mean, what can it mean, that thou, dead corpse—not to put too fine a point on it, but, tautology—again in complete steel, wearing all of your armour, from head to foot—you’re here? And you revisit thus the glimpses of the moon, making night hideous—the suggestion is that the Ghost in its armour is once again being seen on earth, in the sight of the moon, in the sublunary world—but glimpses of the moon also makes it restless, fitful, as if the moon itself is being glimpsed through scudding clouds, a partial, sporadic light, not a steady, illuminating beam. Hideous alright, it’s really scary. It makes us fools of nature (part of the uncanniness here is the weird grammar and syntax, as if Hamlet is barely keeping himself together at the level of the sentence), weak and pathetic, so horridly to shake our disposition with thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls. We’re totally rattled by this! We don’t understand! We’re terrified! What’s going on, what does this all MEAN? Say why is this? Wherefore? What should we do?

Ghost beckons. Oh GOOD. And, as Hamlet draws breath, Horatio helpfully interprets: it beckons you to go away with it as if it some impartment did desire to you alone. I think it wants to tell you something? Just you, in private?