1 PLAYER                   For lo, his sword

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam seemed i’th’ air to stick.

So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood

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

A roused 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.    (2.2.415-430)

This is such a bravura passage, Marlovian pastiche and ventriloquism, and yet so deeply embedded in the psychology of its own moment in Hamlet, for Hamlet. It plays with time, vision, memory: for lo, his—Pyrrhus’s—sword, which was declining on the milky head of reverend Priam—the blow was about to fall, the blade was slicing through the air, nearly at its target, Priam, who is old, old, but his age rendered in that surprising adjective, milky because his hair is white and soft, which makes him also a child, innocent, helpless (which he is)—but because of the noise, Pyrrhus has paused, and so his sword seemed i’th’ air to stick, arrested that suddenly, that totally. Freeze-frame, an eternity. So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood—as still as that, and larger than life, but also, as artificial, a simulacrum, briefly not the mortal thing itself—like a neutral to his will and matter, did nothing. It’s not that Pyrrhus wasn’t going to do it, or that he didn’t want to do it; he just—paused. And the line does too, an extended lightning flash on this terrifying tableau.

But—always a but, and an epic simile, extending the pause in a different mode—as we often see against some storm a silence in the heavens—just before the storm hits, there can be a moment of peace, of stillness—the rack stand still, the bold winds speechless and the orb below as hush as death—the clouds cease to race, the winds drop, cease to howl, and the world is silent, deadly silent, holding its breath, waiting—anon the dreadful thunder doth rend the region. That’s when the thunder booms most fiercely, splitting the sky, tearing it all apart. That’s what comes after the pause.

So after Pyrrhus’ pause, just in that way, a roused vengeance sets him new a-work. He goes at it again, even more savage, even more vengeful. (Firmly in the present tense now, the player reporting as he sees.) And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall on Mars’s armour, forged for proof eterne—the god Vulcan’s monstrous assistants in his smithy, bashing out red-hot steel to arm the god of war for all eternity (violence, heat, darkness, strength and violence both more and less than human)—their hammers fell with less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword now falls on Priam. Now, now, now the blow comes, remorselessly, finally, and the sword is already covered in blood, but now it’s Priam’s blood too.

(server issues yesterday means this is going up a day late…)