An Explication of the Player’s Speech¹

(Hamlet, II, ii, 472-541)

 1  The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
 2  Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
 3  When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
 4  Hath now this dread and black complexion smear’d
 5  With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot
 6  Now is he total gules, horridly trick’d
 7  With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
 8  Bak’d and impasted with the parching streets,
 9  That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
10  To their lord’s murther. Roasted in wrath and fire,
11  And thus o’ersized with coagulate gore,
12  With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
13  Old grandsire Priam seeks.… Anon he finds him,
14  Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,
15  Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
16  Repugnant to command. Unequal match’d,
17  Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;
18  But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
19  Th’unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
20  Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
21  Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
22  Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo! his sword,
23  Which was declining on the milky head
24  Of reverend Priam, seem’d i’ th’ air to stick.
25  So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
26  And, like a neutral to his will and matter,
27  Did nothing.
28  But, as we often see, against some storm,
29  A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
30  The bold winds speechless, and the orb below
31  As hush as death—anon the dreadful thunder
32  Doth rend the region; so, after Pyrrhus’ pause
33  Aroused vengeance sets him new awork;
34  And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall
35  On Mars’s armour, forg’d for proof eterne,
36  With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword
37  Now falls on Priam.
38  Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,
39  In general synod take away her power;
40  Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
41  And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
42  As low as to the fiends! . …
43  But who, 0 who, had seen the mobled queen.…
44  Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames
45  With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
46  Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
47  About her lank and all o’erteemed loins,
48  A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up—
49  Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep’d
50  ’Gainst Fortune’s state would treason have pronounc’d.
51  But if the gods themselves did see her then,
52  When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
53  In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,
54  The instant burst of clamour that she made
55  (Unless things mortal move them not at all)
56  Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven
57  And passion in the gods.