IV.vii. Ophelia's Death

The tail end of Scene 7 is Gertrude's description of Ophelia's suicide, which immediately asks the question: Did Gertrude watch the girl die and do nothing? Is she instead recounting news as related to her, and who is the original witness who failed to intervene? Even more choices are open to film director who may, unlike stage productions, actually show the event, perhaps without even the benefit of Shakespeare's words supporting the images. This is why I've chosen to isolate such a short sequence. Before heading into the various adaptations, let's take a look at the language itself. As usual, the Bard is in italics, and I use normal script to break in.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE

CLAUDIUS: How now, sweet queen!
QUEEN GERTRUDE: One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
So fast they follow; your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
LAERTES: Drown'd! O, where?

A strange question. Not "how", but "where". The "why" is self-evident, and so perhaps is the "how". Laertes may assume it's a suicide and not an accident, from what he's seen of his sister's madness, and only wants to go to her.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream;
There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them:

The vegetable imagery, already associated with Ophelia, is here distinctly melancholy. The scene takes place by a "weeping" willow, and dead men's fingers are at once a reference to her dead father and through their grosser name (usually dogstones, but there's a selection of testicular nicknames that might be appropriate), to the question of sexuality and whether or not she slept with Hamlet. The two ideas intermingled in her mad rants.

There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds

With "coronet" we get the image of a flowery crown, a parody of the crown she might have worn had she become Hamlet's queen. Like Hamlet, her royal destiny has been aborted by Court intrigue.

Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

The mermaid image takes us to the sea on which Hamlet has recently sailed. Like her, his life has been saved by that sea, but only temporarily. For Ophelia, death comes swiftly. Hamlet gets another Act, but no more.

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
LAERTES: Alas, then, she is drown'd?
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Drown'd, drown'd.
LAERTES: Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears: but yet
It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
Let shame say what it will: when these are gone,
The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord:
I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze,
But that this folly douts it.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS: Let's follow, Gertrude:
How much I had to do to calm his rage!
Now fear I this will give it start again;
Therefore let's follow.

Exeunt

In reality, Claudius fears Laertes' rage will be smothered by this new grief, though he says the opposite. We'll see how the acting and staging impacts the sequence in the weeks to come.