Part 53: When a Queen defends Ophelia as saved
The play portrays two main attitudes about suicide:
Christianity condemned it, while “antique Romans” embraced it as an option for honorable death. Hamlet prevents Horatio from drinking poison [1]; some scholars and productions have proposed that Hamlet offers Claudius the poison cup, and he takes it of his own volition.[2]
The play presents gravediggers [3] and a “churlish priest” [4] who assume Ophelia killed herself; before these, no eyewitness accounts, but a queen who asks all to believe that Ophelia’s fall into the brook was not of her own choosing (but due to the crown-envy of a sliver of willow, like the crown envy of Claudius), and that Ophelia accepted her approaching death fearlessly, and in faith.
Significantly, this play was written at the end of Elizabeth’s reign as queen and head of England’s church:
- Gertrude describes Ophelia as generous in giving away crowns (coronets)[5];
- she presents Ophelia not as choosing to enter the brook, but falling in due to crown-envy outside of herself (the envious sliver of willow that breaks) [6];
- she describes Ophelia as fearless in the face of death [7], as if oblivious to danger [8];
- and Ophelia as accepting her approaching death in faith, perhaps mystical joy, singing old “lauds,” sacred hymns [9].
- In other words, Gertrude offers an image of Ophelia as saved according to English religious norms.
Holding a mirror up to Elizabeth I?
The play offers that this is how a queen and head of England’s church should act:
- Generous and merciful in judging suspected suicides, especially those who in apparent madness voiced inconvenient truths.
- Willing to weave merciful fictions to imagine hopeful possibilities, reincorporating the most vulnerable, “the least of these” [10], into the body politic, the body of the faithful, the body of the church.
NOTES: All references to Hamlet (and other Shakespeare plays) are to the Folger Shakespeare Library online versions: https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/hamlet/entire-play/
[1] 5.2.373-384.
[2] In the 1988 issue of Hamlet Studies, David C.H. Morgan proposed this sort of reading of the end of the play, offering an interesting argument in favor of restrained Hamlet, offered cup, and suicidal Claudius who knows he's at a dead end. Patrick Stewart as Claudius in the 2009 Hamlet (dir. Gregory Doran) followed this reading. See Morgan, David C.H. “‘When mercy seasons justice’: How and (Why) Hamlet Does Not Kill Claudius.” Hamlet Studies 10.1-10.2 (1988): 47-78.
http://triggs.djvu.org/global-language.com/ENFOLDED/index.php?page=texts.php?sects=studies
[3] 5.1.1-30.
[4] 5.1.233-253.
[5] 4.7.197-198.
[6] 4.7.198.
[7] 1 John 4:18: (Geneva trans.) There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear: for fear hath painfulness: and he that feareth, is not perfect in love.
[8] 4.7.203.
[9] 4.7.202. We might note that Gertrude not only describes Ophelia's drowning as non-suicidal, and a death in faith, but she also seems to have overruled the coroner's quest's inclination to declare the death a suicide, so that Ophelia would be buried on church grounds, in a church cemetery. This means that her intervention on Ophelia's behalf consisted not only of the words Gertrude speaks to describe Ophelia's drowning in 4.7, but also later actions to overturn the coroner's inquest decision.
[10] Matthew 25:40 (Geneva trans.): “And the king shall answer, and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.”
IMAGES:
Left: Queen Elizabeth I (artist unknown), circa 1585-1590 (“found in a seventeenth-century farmhouse in England in 1890.”). National Portrait Gallery. Public domain, via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Elizabeth_I_of_England_c1585-90.jpg
Right: “Ophelia,” 19th century, Ernest Hébert (1817–1908). Musée Hébert.
Public domain via https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/H%C3%A9bert_Ofelia.jpg
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INDEX OF OPHELIA POSTS:
My 2023 series on Ophelia, and earlier Ophelia posts:
https://pauladrianfried.blogspot.com/2023/10/index-of-ophelia-posts-2023-series-and.html
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Disclaimer: If and when I quote or paraphrase bible passages or mention religion in many of my blog posts, I do not intend to promote any religion over another, nor am I attempting to promote religious belief in general; only to explore how the Bible and religion influenced Shakespeare, his plays, and his age.
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