The theater for Shakespeare is a common subject throughout his plays for obvious reasons. In Hamlet, it covers themes such as remembrance, duality, reason, image vs reality. The Hecuba speech covers a lot of ground. It is supposedly from a play of the real-life fall of Troy. It tells us about a real hard core avenger, Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus' father Achilles was killed by one of King Priam's sons, Paris, who has since been killed himself. Since revenge is not based in reason but is an irrational blood lust (compare to sexual lust in Hamlet), Pyrrhus is out to revenge on the father, King Priam. Two things initially to take note. One is that like Hamlet, Pyrrhus delays in striking down the King (Priam). Second, Hamlet's focus of the play is on the heart-wrenching speech about Hecuba. He completely misses that Pyrrhus is the consummate avenger. One that he supposedly aspires to. But there is a down side for such avengers. In remembrance, history has recorded Pyrrhus as an evil beast. In the Hamlet the play, beasts do not reason; they live in oblivion and are guided by their instincts and lusts. Notice at the very beginning after the Players arrive, Hamlet asks for a speech and then begins himself to recite it. This is a small and brilliant detail by Shakespeare. Notice how Hamlet mis-remembers the opening lines. He gets stuck believing that because Pyrrhus is seen as a Hyrcanian beast that the words are actually in the play. They are not. The line is actually “he whose sable arms black as his purpose...” The play in detail describes the personified image of what one would imagine the Hyrcanian beast to be. This is just another little example of remembrance. And of course actors need to have good memories to remember their lines.
