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