I PLAYER.
What speech, my lord?
HAMLET.
I heard thee speak me a speech once, — but it was never acted;
or if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased
not the million, 'twas caviare to the general; but it was, — as I
received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in
the top of mine, — an excellent play, well digested in the scenes,
set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said
there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury,
nor no matter in the phrase that might indite the author of
affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as
sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it
I chiefly loved: 'twas AEneas' tale to Dido, and thereabout of it
especially where he speaks of Priam's slaughter: if it live in
your memory, begin at this line; — let me see, let me see: —
The rugged Pyrrhus, like th' Hyrcanian beast, —
it is not so: — it begins with Pyrrhus: —
'The rugged Pyrrhus, — he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose,did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse, —
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
Now is be total gules; horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Bak'd and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and a damned light
To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
So, proceed you.
