#classical plays

1. Beatrice’s Kill Claudio Monologue, Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

Kill Claudio! You kill me to deny it. Farewell. I am gone, though I am here: there is no love in you: nay, I pray you, let me go. In faith, I will go. You dare easier be friends with me than fight with my enemy. Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands; and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour, – O, God that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place. Talk with a man out a window! A proper saying! Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone. Princes and counties! Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly count, Count Comfect; a sweet gallant surely! O that I were a man for his sake! Or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it. I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

2. Iphigenia’s Monologue to Agamemnon, Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides

If I could speak as well as Orpheus, Father, if I could use words to inspire the rocks around us to rise up and follow me, if I had that same gift of persuasion I would use it. But I have only one talent, my tears. I offer them to you. It is all I can do. I bend before you like a branch bending towards the earth, pressing my body against your knees. This is the body that your wife gave birth to. Don’t send me to an early death. It is sweet to see the sun’s light. Do not force me down into the darkness of the Underworld. I was the first child to call you father, the first you called your child. I was the first to sit upon your knee while you fondly kissed me. You used to say to me, “Will I see you one day, happy in your husband’s house, bringing honor to your family?” And I would say to you, as I pulled upon your beard, the same beard I now caress, “And what about you, Father? Will I welcome you into my house, when you are an old man, and take care of you in thanks for all the years that you took care of me?” I remember every word we said, but you have forgotten them, and now you are planning to end my life. By Pelops, by your father Atreus, by my mother, who suffered the pain of my birth and suffers more pain now, I beg you to spare me. What do I have to do with the marriage of Paris and Helen? Why should I die because of them? Look at me, look me in the eyes and give me a kiss, give me that at least to remember when I die, if you are determined to remain deaf to my pleas.

3. Medea’s Dead Children Monologue, Medea by Euripides