Ophelia's Burial: Exceptions for People with the Right Connections

['Ophelia', Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, 1851-2]

Gertrude describes an accident by which a branch breaks: Ophelia falls into the water and then doesn't struggle to survive. The gravediggers talk of suicides and proper burial, noting that an exception was probably made for Ophelia due to her connections. This inspires some to research suicidal women, stories of which Shakespeare may have known.

This may take things too literally. In a way, this is about people with powerful connections receiving special treatment.

If you asked people in 1603 England what was the most famous example of a person with powerful connections having exceptions made by religious authorities, they probably would have said Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine: They received special permission to marry in spite of Katherine having been the widow of Henry’s brother Arthur. Later, Henry split from Rome to obtain his desired annulment from her.

Kings and beggars may all be equal in the eyes of God, but in these instances, Henry arranged for treatment that the common people were unable to obtain.

Hamlet is about the end of the Tudor dynasty and its legacy.
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This is not to say the point of the gravedigger's remarks is only about Henry VIII: People of the time (including Shakespeare) may have been disappointed regarding Christian leaders that preached a gospel which said "judge not that ye be not judged," but then judged suicides to be unworthy of full burial rites.

Among Shakespeare's most-quoted bible verses was "Measure for Measure": Don't try to take the mote of dust from another's eye before taking the plank or beam from your own, and don't judge lest you be not judged, for the measure you use to judge others will be used to judge you (measure for measure). This basic idea was also at the heart of the Lord's Prayer, the most frequent prayer used in church services, before communion, or for liturgy of the hours: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. This obliges us to be forgiving and merciful to others if we expect God to be merciful with us.

Church attitudes regarding burial of apparent suicides were not so merciful. For this reason, Laertes’ complaints about the “churlish priest” ring true: Ophelia may be a ministering angel (in heaven like Lazarus) while the Churlish priest may lie howling (in hell, like the rich man in the gospel parable).

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Many years ago, some Shakespeare scholars claimed that Polonius is a stand-in for William Cecil, because his name in the First Quarto was "Corambis" (double-hearted), a joke based on his motto. (Many still note this.)

- This might make Ophelia seem like a stand-in for Anne Cecil, who married Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Oxford had been a ward of the Cecils after his father's death, and the arranged marriage was clearly perhaps less than idea: It feels something akin to incest, to adopt a boy as a ward, and then arrange for him to marry your daughter because he comes with a title and land.

- Oxford was traveling in Europe, returned and claimed that the child Anne was carrying was not his, and they were estranged for a time, then reunited.

- Anne died in her early thirties of unexplained causes, supposedly a fever, but she was perhaps distraught by her difficulties with her husband, as Ophelia was distraught by her difficulties with Hamlet. She was buried in Westminster next to her mother.

- Ophelia, of course, can and does mean much more than Anne Cecil, but it's not unlike Shakespeare to incorporate references to recent events, but to elevate them so that they resonate with larger meanings.



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