First Player's Speech from Hamlet

Audio Performance by Bob Gonzalez, rhapsode

A troupe of traveling players have come to Hamlet's castle at Elsinore. Prince Hamlet greets them with gusto, even beginning to recite a speech of Aeneas' tale to Dido he once heard the head of the troupe perform. After delivering a handful of lines with vigor, Hamlet then asks the First Player to continue from where he left off.

Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2, lines1542-1592

First Player

    'Anon he finds him

    Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,

    Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

    Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,

    Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

    But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

    The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

    Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

    Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

    Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,

    Which was declining on the milky head

    Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:

    So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

    And like a neutral to his will and matter,

    Did nothing.

    But, as we often see, against some storm,

    A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

    The bold winds speechless and the orb below

    As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

    Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,

    Arouséd vengeance sets him new a-work;

    And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall

    On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne

    With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword

    Now falls on Priam.

    Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,

    In general synod  - take away her power;  [council]

    Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

    And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

    As low as to the fiends!'

...

    'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--'

...

First Player

    'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames

    With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head [“blinding tears”][bandage]

    Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,

    About her lank and all o'er-teeméd loins, [slender]

    A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;//

    Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,

    'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have

    pronounced:

    But if the gods themselves did see her then

    When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

    In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,

    The instant burst of clamour that she made,

    Unless things mortal move them not at all,

    Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven, [yielding milk]

    And passion in the gods.'

This performance was created for an unabridged audio production of Hamlet now in progress on LibriVox.org.