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All Site ContentHamletAct 3Scene 2
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Termagant and Herod
Allusion
Act 3,
Scene 2
Lines 1-14

An explanation of the allusion to Termagant and Herod in Act 3, Scene 2 of myShakespeare’s Hamlet.

[Enter Hamlet, and two or three of the Players (actors)]

Hamlet

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to 
you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as
many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had
spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with
your hand, thus, but useuse gently. For in the very torrent,
tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of your passion,
you acquire and beget a temperance that may give
it smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a 
robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to 
tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,
who for the most part are capable of nothing but
inexplicable dumb shows and noise. I could have such a    
fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant. It out-Herods     
Herod. Pray you avoid it.

Termagant, who Christians believed was an Islamic God, and King Herod of Israel were frequently portrayed in medieval religious plays as loud raging tyrants. By Shakespeare’s time, the word “termagant” was used as an adjective to describe any violent or bullying person. Since then, the word has became increasingly associated with women, eventually becoming a synonym for “shrew.”