Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

My favorite things about Ophelia? 1. By obeying her father too much, she demonstrates the failure of over-valued Elizabethan parental [and political] authority, but also displays heroic patience and self-control. 2. She calls out the potential hypocrisy of her brother. 3. She understands (although her father and brother do not) that “almost all the holy vows of heaven” from Hamlet are most probably a marriage betrothal, and that she could be Denmark’s next queen. 4. She reveals her love for Hamlet even while giving back his love poems, obeying her father. 5. She talks back to Hamlet in the nunnery scene and at “The Mousetrap” play, bold to act this way with the prince. 6. She uses coded meanings of flowers to criticize her king and queen. 7. She sings a bawdy song, perhaps mourning her unspent virginity like Jephthah’s daughter, or mourning the loss of Hamlet as lover, expressing disappointment at being denied access to Hamlet by her father, and then by Hamlet as well.    8. S...

According to Gertrude, Ophelia crowned willow branches with coronets (small crowns) of flowers, perhaps in the same spirit her giving away flowers and herbs to the court: QUEEN: There is a willow grows askant the brook That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. Therewith fantastic garlands did she make Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples [....] There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb’ring to hang… 4.7.190-198 Coronets? Why does this detail matter? There are men in Ophelia’s Denmark (Claudius) and from Norway (Fortinbras) who have killed, or are very willing to kill, to keep or grasp at a crown. Claudius is a man willing to kill his own brother and king to gain his crown, willing to kill his nephew, and watch his own wife poison herself without stopping her, just to keep his crown. Fortinbras is willing to enter battle where thousands will die so that he can achieve his victory, and later, he hopes, his crown: HAMLET: Witness this army of s...