What is Hamlet’s objection to ‘The mobled Queen’?
Is it to the word ‘mobled’?
Is he questioning whether the mobled Queen is Hecuba? Or is he investigating his memory of the text?
He has asked the player to come to Hecuba but at no point in this speech is Hecuba actually named.
Is Hamlet, perhaps, not sure this is the part he wanted to hear?

Is Hecuba the next bit of this speech or is Hamlet having the First Player skip to her? There is a remarkable perspective shift from Pyrrhus to Hecuba – from one location to another. It’s an almost filmic transition. Which is why I wonder if there’s a cut in the middle.

Used to be, I couldn’t really hear those compliments. Used to be, I’d brush them off like a fly on pie. I’d blush, I’d look down and wish fervently for the praising to stop.
Now, I eat them up like curly fries.

Is this true? If so, there’s a level of intimacy here in Hamlet’s knowledge of Polonius’ taste. It makes me wonder about all the years previous to the play. How many performances have Hamlet and Polonius watched together? All of them? Did Hamlet the pre-teen laugh at Polonius snoring through Andromache? Did Hamlet the student roll his eyes as Polonius guffawed at a dirty joke or a silly dance? It might be slightly embarrassing watching a bawdy story with your girlfriend’s dad.

Of course, I’m not convinced that this is true of Polonius. He seems quite enamored of his role as Julius Caesar and there’s a level of dignity that he has (or aspires to have, depending on the production) that doesn’t seem to square with jigs or tales of bawdry.

Some people will keep talking until compelled to stop. Others need encouragement to go on. I’m generally one of the latter. You will only catch me rambling in very welcome environments, otherwise, I will do my best to be terse, concise, brief. The friends that are the dearest are the one who encourage me to say more.

From henceforth, I will send things to the barber’s instead of saying they need editing. We still use the word “cutting” when talking about editing text in the theatre. Was there a time when cutting something from a play required scissors? It makes sense, if you’re carrying your paper role, to cut, literally cut, all unnecessary lines like the hairs on your head. Simply crossing them out really might not do. Next time I see a play that has been overwritten, which needs a serious trim, I may call out “To the barber’s with this!”

Punctuation alert! Punctuation alert! Question about this comma here. I’ve almost always heard it spoken as if there were no comma here (and probably there isn’t one in many editions.) The sense is often “continue in this manner.” I see the value of the comma – it shifts the meaning somehow – makes the “so” more of a stalling word than an instruction for how to proceed.
But once we open the Pandora’s box of punctuation (given that punctuation is free game for the editors) it could be: So – proceed you. So could be part of the text about Pyrrhus. In other words, it could be part of the line before. It could be:
“So ———–
Proceed you.
And thereby providing a moment for Hamlet to forget what comes next. It could be: So. Proceed you.
Or
So! Proceed you.
Fun with punctuation.

This passage feels like the language version of sinking teeth into a piece of meat and letting the juice run down the chin. It is somehow crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. If you really think about what you’re eating, it can be disturbing but the pure carnivorous pleasure is ancient.

Shakespeare roasted us up this passage, the way Pyrrhus is roasted in blood (adding so many layers that he’s gone up a couple of sizes) and it is all so juicy.

It takes a special kind of murderer to get himself completely covered in the blood of his victims, especially when his victims are entire families.
He must just hack his way through the town, severing arteries left and right. It must give him a thrill.

Perhaps bathing in your enemies’ blood is a part of the ritual of war for this guy. So much so that with the right heat and humidity, that blood bakes into a new kind of armor, hardening like clay on his skin to help protect him from the next wave of murder ahead of him.

This probably isn’t the moment to mention this but why is the Trojan Horse called the TROJAN horse? It’s more like the GREEK horse when you think about it. The Greeks made it, conceived it, hid inside it and emerged from it. The only thing Trojan about it is that it ended up in (and ended) Troy. Seems a little backward.

But of course, history is told by the victors. That we call th’ominous horse a Trojan one forever associating Troy with trickery and destruction speaks to the Greek columns that hold up our culture.

It is an ominous horse, one that holds warriors and death in its womb. Pyrrhus is not the only warrior with a black purpose. They must lay couchéd in there, feeding their fury, laying fuel on the fire of bitterness and dispassion, preparing themselves to lay waste to a city – preparing for murder, yes, but also rape and sacrifice and the utter destruction of a culture.

As much as I’ve always loved this speech, I never fully understood what it was doing in this play but now, I suddenly see the parallels. Troy falls when Priam falls. And Elsinore too falls not long after its reverend King Hamlet with it. The intertwinement of King and Kingdom, the tower of Ilium falling foreshadowing the fall of the House of Hamlet.