One speech[a 1] in it I chiefly loved; 'twas Æneas'
tale[a 2] to Dido; and thereabout of it especially,
where[a 3] he speaks of Priam's slaughter. If it
live in your memory, begin at this line: let
me see, let me see;— 480
The rugged Pyrrhus,[b 1] like th' Hyrcanian beast,[b 2]—
'tis not so;[a 4] 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,— 485
Hath now this[a 5] dread and black complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot[a 6]
Now is he total gules;[b 3] horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets, 490
That lend a tyrannous and a[a 7] damned light
To their lords' murder;[a 8] roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
- ↑ 476. speech] Q, cheefe speech F.
- ↑ 477. tale] Q 1, F; talke Q.
- ↑ 478. where] Q 1, F; when Q.
- ↑ 482. 'tis not so;] Qq 2, 3 (later Qq omit so);It is not so: F.
- ↑ 486. this] his Q 1, Q 6.
- ↑ 487. dismal; head to foot] F, dismall head to foote, Q.
- ↑ 491. and a] Q, and F.
- ↑ 492. their lords' murder] Capell, their Lords murther Q, their vilde murthers F, their lord's murder Steevens.
- ↑ 481. The rugged Pyrrhus] This tale of Æneas to Dido is made to stand out from the general movement of the play by being written in the tragic style of Shakespeare's early contemporaries. Dido, Queen of Carthage, says Fleay, was written by Marlowe and Nash. The narrative of Priam's death he ascribed to Nash (and afterwards to Marlowe). He supposed that this scene was written by Shakespeare in 1594, in competition with the scene in Dido, and was introduced about 1601 into the first draught of Hamlet. This is conjecture; what is certain is that Shakespeare reproduces, without any intention of burlesque, a style which he had left far behind him.
- ↑ 481. Hyrcanian beast] the tiger; see Macbeth, III. iv. 101.
- ↑ 488. gules] heraldic for red, as in Timon of Athens, IV. iii. 59. "Trick'd" may also be the heraldic term, meaning to describe in drawing.
