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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 16, 2013.
Folger Shakespeare Library, Twelfth Night. To Jun. 9, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, The Duchess of Malfi. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
American Shakespeare Center, Return to the Forbidden Planet. To Dec. 1, 2013.
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Hamlet (Quarto 2, 1604)

Author: William Shakespeare
Not Peer Reviewed
The Tragedie of Hamlet
beast, tis not so, it beginnes with Pirrhus, the rugged Pirrhus, he whose
sable Armes,
1495Black as his purpose did the night resemble,
When he lay couched in th'omynous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complection smeard,
With heraldy more dismall head to foote,
Now is he totall Gules horridly trickt
1500With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sonnes,
Bak'd and empasted with the parching streetes
That lend a tirranus and a damned light
To their Lords murther, rosted in wrath and fire,
And thus ore-cised with coagulate gore,
1505With eyes like Carbunkles, the hellish Phirrhus
Old grandsire Priam seekes; so proceede you.
Pol. Foregod my Lord well spoken, with good accent and good
Play. Anon he finds him,
1510Striking too short at Greekes, his anticke sword
Rebellious to his arme, lies where it fals,
Repugnant to commaund; vnequall matcht,
Pirrhus at Priam driues, in rage strikes wide,
But with the whiffe and winde of his fell sword,
1515Th'vnnerued father fals:
Seeming to feele this blowe, with flaming top
Stoopes to his base; and with a hiddious crash
Takes prisoner Pirrhus eare, for loe his sword
Which was declining on the milkie head
1520Of reuerent Priam, seem'd i'th ayre to stick,
So as a painted tirant Pirrhus stood
Like a newtrall to his will and matter,
Did nothing:
But as we often see against some storme,
A silence in the heauens, the racke stand still,
1525The bold winds speechlesse, and the orbe belowe
As hush as death, anon the dreadfull thunder
Doth rend the region, so after Pirrhus pause,
A rowsed vengeance sets him new a worke,
And neuer did the Cyclops hammers fall,
1530On Marses Armor forg'd for proofe eterne,
With lesse remorse then Pirrhus bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
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