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"Hyrcanian beast"
Allusion
Act 2,
Scene 2
Lines 436-456

An explanation of the allusion to the Hyrcanian beast in Act 2, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

Hamlet

but called it an honest method. 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 — 
‘It is not so; it begins with Pyrrhus — 
The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Has now this dread and black complexion smeared
With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot,
Now is he total gules, horridly tricked
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and empasted with the parching streets
That lend a tyrannous and damnèd light
To their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'ersizèd with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Phyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.’
So, proceed you.

The “Hyrcanian beast” refers to a fierce lion, like those said to inhabit the Hyrcanian region on the Caspian Sea in ancient times. Here, Hamlet quotes a line that compares these lions to the Greek leader Pyrrhus.