Hamlet

affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as434

sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine435. One

speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido436, and

thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam's437

slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line -- let

me see, let me see --

'The rugged Pyrrhus, like th'Hyrcanian beast440'--

It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus:

'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable442 arms,

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couched in the ominous horse444,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared

With heraldry more dismal446: head to foot

Now is he total gules, horridly tricked447

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

Baked and impasted with the parching449 streets

That lend a tyrannous450 and damned light

To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,

And thus o'er-sized with coagulate452 gore,

With eyes like carbuncles453, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire454 Priam seeks.'

So, proceed you.

POLONIUS Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent

and good discretion457.

FIRST PLAYER 'Anon458 he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks: his antique459 sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant461 to command. Unequal matched,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide,

But with the whiff and wind of his fell463 sword