#16: Hamlet Blog Post 4: Ophelia's Flowers

Having been told the most tragic news about our poor maiden Ophelia. The water of the brook that “Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death” are cursed indeed—Nothing can be understood (4.7.179-180). She was, of course “incapable of her own distress,” Singing songs to my husband and I about such promiscuity and doling flowers of varying hues at us, but alas is tragic she is “drowned, drowned” (4.7.176). I do remember our last encounter with Ophelia before the tragedy. At the time, I had assumed her references to the “beauteous Majesty of Denmark” referred to the late Hamlet—so dearly missed—or myself (4.5.20). But after hearing news of her drowning and personals, my opinion on the matter has since shifted. It seems to me, her claims of “he is dead and gone” highlight her understanding of much greater implications (4.5.26). She is mad because of my son’s banishment to England and what I fear to be the “death of Hamlet” at the hands of my husband (4.3.67). This banishment, “The nightmare delusion which assails the poor girl’s mind is, in fact, the very reality which Claudius has intended” (Seng 219). In fact, in retrospect, even more is understood about the nature of my son’s expulsion from Denmark from Ophelia’s words. We once believed Hamlet’s actions to be in anger, anything but love. But Ophelia herself has her “true-love tears” in this act of seeming lunacy, making it clear that Hamlet must have an “equally open declaration (Seng 219-222). Was it ever the fault of mine, though? Even Laertes and Polonius feared a lack of love and one of lust—that “no one is to be taken at face value” (Seng 220). Alas, I mourn the girl’s death, though the circumstances surrounding have indeed taught me more about my son than when she was live. She, like my son, deserve not to die, and this matter of something rotten in England shall have to be examined and corrected, if necessary.