First off – my mistake: it’s Act 4 Scene 5, not scene one. And it opens thusly (lines that merit attention are bolded):
QUEEN GERTRUDE: I will not speak with her.
Gentleman: She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: What would she have?
Gentleman: She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There’s tricks i’ the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures
yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.
A bit later, Ophelia comes in, singing. Not of flowers, yet, but alternating between a mourning song, and a very bawdy song that a young noble lady of sixteen years should not be singing in public, just in time for Claudius to hear her.
KING CLAUDIUS: Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA: Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they
ask you what it means, say you this: [translation: You want to know what it means? I’ll tell you what it means!]
Sings
To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
KING CLAUDIUS: Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA: Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t: [Let me finish!]
Sings
By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.
[So here’s a song about a woman having sex out of wedlock because a guy promised to repay her… and then he reneges on his promise because she had sex with him]
And then Ophelia exits, spouting seeming madness, and Claudius says to Horatio:
Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you.
So Claudius suspects something – whether that’s a suicide watch, or to make sure she doesn’t inspire rebellion – isn’t explicitly stated in text. But in any case, Ophelia’s not alone.
Then, Leartes comes in, leading a mob of commoners, who are chanting that he should be king (see the comment of Gentleman, above). And we have this exchange:
Leartes: Where is my father?
Gertrude: But not by him.
That, right there, is a single line of iambic pentameter. Which means that Gertrude literally does not skip a beat to defend Claudius before thinking of protecting her own son.
And now Ophelia comes in and sings her “mad flower song.” This Wordpress article outlines the symbolism of each flower and herb (It also spells out specific actions by Ophelia which are not spelled out in the original). The meaning flies right over our heads, but audiences of the time would have grokked it immediately; There’s “Grief” and “remembrance;” there’s also “flattery” and “deceived lovers” and an herb commonly used to induce abortions…
And the next news we hear of Ophelia is that she’s “Drowned herself.” Who delivers this news? Queen Gertrude – with an overabundance of minute detail of the scene as it happened.
Finally, there’s the fact that Ophelia was being hastily buried in the churchyard – even though that was strictly forbidden for suicides. The younger gravedigger thinks that’s because Ophelia was a privileged noblewoman, and getting special treatment. The older gravedigger reminds him (and the audience) that not all people who die by drowning are at fault…
And then I realized that Hamlet had to have the murder plot revealed to him by the ghost of his father, because he was away at school, but Ophelia was there at court, the whole time, and could have seen everything going down. But who pays attention to teenage girls hanging around the edges, or worries about what they see or don’t see, amirite?
I do think Ophelia was having a mental breakdown, triggered by grief and shock. But I think it was more of the “loss of situational awareness” and “blind to the danger” variety, instead of “no longer have the will to live” variety.
And that’s my analysis. And I’m sticking with it.
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