In one of the play’s most notable soliloquies, Hieronimo bitterly mourns the murder of his son, Horatio. Standing alone outside the steps of the palace, Hieronimo states:
Oh eyes, no eyes, but fountains fraught with tears;
Oh life, no life, but lively form of death;
Oh world, no world, but mass of public wrongs,
Confused and filled with murder and misdeeds!
Oh sacred heavens, if this unhallowed deed,
If this inhuman and barbarous attempt,
If this incomparable murder thus
Of mine—but now no more my son—
Shall unrevealed and unrevenged pass,
How should we term your dealings to be just,
If you unjustly deal with those, that in your justice trust?
In his deeply emotional speech, Hieronimo moves from personal tragedy to broad societal disorder. In a metaphor, he describes his eyes as “fountains fraught with tears” and dismisses the concept of “life,” paradoxically, as a “lively form of death,” or in other words, the mere appearance of life in a world of death. Next, he turns his attention to the society that he feels enabled this tragedy, one that is “no world, but mass of public wrongs.”
Society, he suggests, is nothing but an accumulation of crimes—and in particular, murder. Last, he addresses the “sacred heavens” that have permitted this “unhallowed deed” to occur, arguing that the gods “unjustly deal” with their followers, undermining religious faith altogether. This soliloquy marks the severity of Hieronimo’s mourning and also his growing skepticism of both his society and religion.
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.
