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Definition of Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations intended to emphasize a point... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements are usually quite obvious exaggerations... read full definition
Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker exaggerates for the sake of emphasis. Hyperbolic statements... read full definition
Act 1, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Sorrow, Sighs, Tears:
Horatio uses pathos when narrating the death of Andrea to Bel-Imperia, Andrea’s lover and the niece of the King of Spain. When she asks him to tell her the full story of Andrea's death in battle, Horatio states:
I took him up and wound him in mine arms,
And wielding him unto my private tent,
There laid him down, and dewed him with my tears,
And sighed and sorrowed as became a friend.
But neither friendly sorrow, sighs, nor tears
Could win pale Death from his usurped right.
Yet this I did, and less I could not do:
I saw him honored with due funeral;
This scarf I plucked from off his lifeless arm,
And wear it in remembrance of my friend.
In this speech, Horatio expresses his grief and attempts to console Bel-Imperia while also seeking to woo her. His emotional language invokes a strong sense of pathos that renders his story more effective. In Horatio’s account, he “dewed” Andrea with tears, hyperbolically suggesting that Andrea was soaked with tears as thick as morning dew. He further notes that he “sighed and sorrowed” in a manner befitting a close friend of the deceased, taking Andrea’s scarf with him as a “remembrance.”
Horatio wields pathos effectively in this speech, cementing his status in Bel-Imperia’s eyes as the only appropriate suitor following the death of Andrea. Still, he also acknowledges the limits of pathos, concluding that neither “friendly sorrow, sighs, nor tears” would be able to “win pale Death from his usurped right.” In other words, Horatio recognizes that death cannot be argued with, either logically or emotionally.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 7
Explanation and Analysis—Wearied the Earth:
In one of his many soliloquies on the topic of his son’s death, Hieronimo uses hyperbole to express the depths of his mourning. Following the execution of Pedringano, which Hieronimo oversaw in his capacity as a judge, he states:
Where shall I run to breathe abroad my woes,
My woes, whose weight hath wearied the earth?
Or mine exclaims, that have surcharged the air
With ceaseless plaints for my deceased son?
The blust'ring winds, conspiring with my words,
At my lament have moved the leafless trees,
Disrobed the meadows of their flowered green,
Made mountains marsh with spring-tides of my tears
And broken through the brazen gates of hell.
Yet still tormented is my tortured soul
In this soliloquy, he imagines that his woes have “wearied the earth” and even “surcharged the air,” filling the world so completely that there is nowhere left for him to turn that would not remind him of his son’s death. Further, he turns to the natural world, imagining that the “blust’ring winds” have joined him in his mourning and that his sorrow has “disrobed the meadows of their flowered green”—or, in other words, has left the fields barren and leafless. Continuing to invoke nature, he suggests that the mountains have been turned into “marsh” as a result of the “spring-tides of [his] tears,” which have even “broken through the brazen gates of hell” in their force and volume.
Hieronimo’s exaggerated and hyperbolic speech reflects the extent to which his frenzied desire for revenge has impacted his perception. Because he is unable to move on from the murder of Horatio, he sees the world through the filter of his own mourning, even imagining that nature mourns alongside him. This soliloquy marks Hieronimo’s full commitment to seeking revenge. At this point in the play, there is no going back for Hieronimo.
Related Themes:
