Pyrrhus

Hamlet: 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—

Act 2, Scene 2

 

 

Pyrrhus is the son of Achilles. After Achilles is murdered, Pyrrhus goes looking for revenge. He is described as cruel and savage in his revenge--first he kills Priam's son in front of him, then he brutally stabs Priam to death on his own altar. Before he dies, Priam says something about how Achilles was much more of a gentleman about the whole thing, even allowing Priam to take his son Hector's body for a proper burial. He says Achilles would be ashamed of him. Pyrrhus is like, "You can tell my father that yourself when you join him!" And then he cuts his head off. He goes on to kill Priam's infant baby in front of Priam's wife, then he turns his wife into his slave. I think he burns Priam's daughter alive later on, too.

 

I read kind of an interesting article that looks at why Hamlet loves this speech so much. The author suggests that Hamlet loves it because in the theatrical story, everyone is behaving just as they ought to, and without pretense. It is completely different than Hamlet's real-life situation, which is confusing and complex. Hecuba has an appropriate response to her husband's death. Pyrrhus enacts his revenge without hesitation or mercy. "[the story's] function is to emphasize the complexity of the nature of real evil which the play is attempting to explore."

From Virgil's Aeneid: 

 But, inside the palace, groans mingle with sad confusion,

and, deep within, the hollow halls howl

with women’s cries: the clamour strikes the golden stars.

Trembling mothers wander the vast building, clasping

the doorposts, and placing kisses on them. Pyrrhus drives forward,

with his father Achilles’s strength, no barricades nor the guards

themselves can stop him: the door collapses under the ram’s blows,

and the posts collapse, wrenched from their sockets.

Strength makes a road: the Greeks, pour through, force a passage,

slaughter the front ranks, and fill the wide space with their men.

A foaming river is not so furious, when it floods,

bursting its banks, overwhelms the barriers against it,

and rages in a mass through the fields, sweeping cattle and stables

across the whole plain. I saw Pyrrhus myself, on the threshold,

mad with slaughter, and the two sons of Atreus:

I saw Hecuba, her hundred women, and Priam at the altars,

polluting with blood the flames that he himself had sanctified.

Those fifty chambers, the promise of so many offspring,

the doorposts, rich with spoils of barbarian gold,

crash down: the Greeks possess what the fire spares.

And maybe you ask, what was Priam’s fate.

When he saw the end of the captive city, the palace doors

wrenched away, and the enemy among the inner rooms,

the aged man clasped his long-neglected armour

on his old, trembling shoulders, and fastened on his useless sword,

and hurried into the thick of the enemy seeking death.

In the centre of the halls, and under the sky’s naked arch,

was a large altar, with an ancient laurel nearby, that leant

on the altar, and clothed the household gods with shade.

Here Hecuba, and her daughters, like doves driven

by a dark storm, crouched uselessly by the shrines,

huddled together, clutching at the statues of the gods.

And when she saw Priam himself dressed in youthful armour

she cried: “What mad thought, poor husband, urges you

to fasten on these weapons? Where do you run?

The hour demands no such help, nor defences such as these,

not if my own Hector were here himself. Here, I beg you,

this altar will protect us all or we’ll die together.”

So she spoke and drew the old man towards her,

and set him down on the sacred steps.

See, Polites, one of Priam’s sons, escaping Pyrrhus’s slaughter,

runs down the long hallways, through enemies and spears,

and, wounded, crosses the empty courts.

Pyrrhus chases after him, eager to strike him,

and grasps at him now, and now, with his hand, at spear-point.

When finally he reached the eyes and gaze of his parents,

he fell, and poured out his life in a river of blood.

Priam, though even now in death’s clutches,

did not spare his voice at this, or hold back his anger:

“If there is any justice in heaven, that cares about such things,

may the gods repay you with fit thanks, and due reward

for your wickedness, for such acts, you who have

made me see my own son’s death in front of my face,

and defiled a father’s sight with murder.

Yet Achilles, whose son you falsely claim to be, was no

such enemy to Priam: he respected the suppliant’s rights,

and honour, and returned Hector’s bloodless corpse

to its sepulchre, and sent me home to my kingdom.”

So the old man spoke, and threw his ineffectual spear

without strength, which immediately spun from the clanging bronze

and hung uselessly from the centre of the shield’s boss.

Pyrrhus spoke to him: “Then you can be messenger, carry

the news to my father, to Peleus’s son: remember to tell him

of degenerate Pyrrhus, and of my sad actions:

now die.” Saying this he dragged him, trembling,

and slithering in the pool of his son’s blood,  to the very altar,

and twined his left hand in his hair, raised the glittering sword

in his right, and buried it to the hilt in his side.

This was the end of Priam’s life: this was the death that fell to him

by lot, seeing Troy ablaze and its citadel toppled, he who was

once the magnificent ruler of so many Asian lands and peoples.

A once mighty body lies on the shore, the head

shorn from its shoulders, a corpse without a name.