Ophelia: Chapters 10-17

“By this means I will test the mettle of Cristiana and her two suitors,” I said.

In deference to the glad occasion, his foot kept the rhythm of the dance and his usually stern mien was softened.

In deference to the glad occasion, his foot kept the rhythm of the dance and his usually stern mien was softened.

So Claudius seized Gertrude’s hand, urging her to join the revelry.

“Methinks she preens her feathers just for me,” Guildenstern boasted.

“What? Do you now pity your former enemy?” he asked. “How like a fickle woman,” he teased.

I did not fear her revenge, for I did not think her clever enough to suspect that I had contrived the events of that night.

And loyal confederates, Hamlet and I never revealed that we were authors of this tragicomedy.

I only knew that Hamlet’s absence left me bereft and confused.

It was the sonnets that praised a lady’s fair lips and eyes that made Gertrude wistful.

Because I showed my love to Hamlet, would his ardor diminish?

Let men not censure my name that I call your love, that for which I rise and fall.

Laborers refused to work, merchants cheated their customers, and brigands ran at large.

King Hamlet's body was interred beneath the floor of Elsinore's chapel, near his father's bones and those of his father's father.

Weeks were lost in bringing him to Elsinore, for the messenger who had been dispatched found him not in Wittenberg but traveling in the direction of Italy.

Overlooked by my family, forgotten by Hamlet, and ignored by the queen, I felt as lonely as a leper.

“Truly I have never seen Hamlet in a blacker mood. His thoughts are dire, and it takes all my wit to reason with him.”

As I fixed pearls in her hair and brushed carmine on her pale cheeks, the queen was impassive and did not meet my eye.

The wedding feast was a pretense of celebration.

When I was sure my absence would not be noted, I slipped behind the pillars that girded the hall, keeping to the shadows until I stood beside Hamlet.

“In due season all that lives returns to dust, making the earth fecund with life. Smell how the air tonight is pregnant with the flowers’ blooms and their bee-sought sweetness.”

“You, too, remind me of a divine song, for you are fearfully and wonderfully made, and most curiously wrought.”

I came out from behind the table and reached out in a tentative way, inviting an embrace.

"You know that is a foolish question. Our father will decide whom you will marry and when. Or I will, when he grows infirm.”

He laughed in derision.

He flung out all his favored maxims as if strewing flowers after my brother.

“I hear that you have been most free and bounteous, giving your private time to him. What is between you?”

The hour was almost upon me, so in haste I donned my shepherdess costume.

His was not the manner of a lover intending to spurn me.

“I have quarreled with my father and Laertes, who suspect our love and doubt your good intentions. They have been watching me. I feel like a deer beset by hounds!”

“Then they will tear me to pieces there! My honor sullied, I will be dismissed from court and packed off to a nunnery somewhere, never to marry!”

"This book indeed is most fit for this occasion,” the priest began, “for it expresses Christ’s own espousal of his Church, who promises fidelity to her Lord.”

How aptly the verses suited the forest scene, I thought.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine,” the priest intoned, while Hamlet kissed me most tenderly.

“To the ramparts, Hamlet. It comes! It comes anon!”

I lay like a still and silent effigy on a tomb in the blackness of Hamlet’s chamber while questions coursed through my brain.

“I thought you did not want the crown! Only yesterday, before we wed, you said you would forswear Denmark’s throne.”

I sat on a bench in the arcade beneath the windows and further pondered Elnora’s words.

Since King Hamlet’s burial, the chapel had been little used and dust motes drifted in the light beams.

I watched as the sun dropped toward the horizon and the glass of the sanctuary windows cast beams of blood red and royal blue across the dim nave.

He held up the large calf-bound folio, and I saw by its gilt lettering that it was a book of anatomy by Vesalius.

“In a wicked person, the vital spirit is corrupted, either by a disease of the heart or some disturbance of the organs or humors. And it leaves its mark within—a canker on the liver or a blackened spleen.”

“No! For the deed of killing defies justice, both human and divine,” I argued with a fervor that matched his own.

My own mind was spinning from the ideas we had bandied back and forth so rapidly.

“Yes! We will feign love to hide love. This is a paradox I will act with pleasure,” said Hamlet, leaning in to kiss my throat, where my heartbeat was visible.