Explication

English 2030-70

Dr. Dugger

4 October 2016

A Close Reading of Hamlet

Act 4, Scene 5, Lines 45-64

Ophelia: Pray you, let’s have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

[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 donned his clothes,

And dupped the chamber-door;

Let in the maid, that out a maid

Never departed more.

King: Pretty Ophelia!

Ophelia: Indeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on ‘t:

[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.

He answers:

So would I ha’ done, by younder sun,

An thou hadst not come to my bed.

Ophelia’s father, Polonius, has recently died which has driven the girl insane. Hamlet, her previous lover, killed her father. The two take a similar path after losing their fathers, insanity. Hamlet chooses revenge while Ophelia runs around the castle singing multiple songs that reveal secrets about herself, like the one above. This particular scene starts off with the Queen, Horatio, and a Gentleman entering a room in the castle. The Queen begins by saying that she does not want to speak to Ophelia, but the Gentleman informs her that Ophelia has gone mad and really wants a word with the Queen. Horatio agrees that it is probably best to talk to the girl so the Queen allows Ophelia in. The girl enters and starts singing a song the Queen does not understand. Ophelia continues singing while occasionally being interrupted until we get to this particular part in the song.

Ophelia begins by not wanting to talk about her father’s death and then begins singing yet again. The song begins by setting a place in time which is Saint Valentine’s day which is a holiday meant for love. The actual story of Saint Valentine is not exactly clear. There are two main stories, according to history.com, that could possibly be true. The first takes place all the way back in the third century in Rome. Legend has it that Emperor Claudius the Second came to the conclusion that unmarried men would be better material for soldiers rather than married men. Therefore, he decided to outlaw young men being able to marry. Saint Valentine decided that wasn’t right and married young lovers in secret. Obviously, the Saint eventually got caught and was killed. The second story says that Saint Valentine actually attempted to help Christian prisoners, who were being tortured, escape from a Roman prison. Supposedly, while in prison, the Saint sent out the very first Valentine to a jailor’s young daughter who he had fallen in love with. She came to visit him while he was being imprisoned. He signed the letter “From your

Valentine” before being put to death. (history.com) Perhaps Ophelia brings Saint Valentine into her song because the day she slept with Hamlet was on Valentine’s Day. She could have also mentioned it because it is known as the holiday of love and the day when you are supposed to celebrate love. With the second legend of Saint Valentine, Ophelia could also be bringing him up to foreshadow her future death.

The second line of her song is telling what time of day the setting in the song is, which is early morning. This could also be referring to what time she went to Hamlet. Although, in the early morning, everything is new and fresh. It is the time when people are first waking up and don’t know if it is going to be a good day or a bad day. Nothing has yet to be decided and it’s a fresh start. The third line is where Ophelia finally inserts herself into the lyrics and placing herself under her lover’s window which is assumed to be Hamlet. This could be seen as a mirror imagine to Romeo and Juliet. However, the genders are swapped as to where they are standing. Romeo and Juliet were both equally in love with each other while Ophelia feels like the romance she had with Hamlet was one sided on her part. Romeo and Juliet were willing to die for each other. Hamlet loses his mind, tells Ophelia to become a nun, and kills her father. However small it may be, there is still a parallel between Shakespeare’s two plays. The next part is explaining that she wants to be this person’s Valentine. She goes on to explain that the person inside gets up, put his clothes on, and opens up the door to her. She goes inside, sleeps with him, and loses her virginity.

At this point the King tries to stop Ophelia’s song, but she promises to end it soon. However, she does not exactly say that she will end the song. Perhaps she could mean that she

plans on ending her life after she finishes the song since she could or could not have possibly committing suicide by drowning herself. She continues her song. The next part of her song begins to really show her level of insanity. She starts off by slurring the name of Jesus. She also mentions Saint Charity. Saint Charity was one of three little girls, Faith and Hope, who were put to death because they refused to change their religious views. They were quite young and are considered Saints due to their brave acts for their religion. Ophelia might have brought up Saint Charity specifically because she was the youngest of the sisters, age 9, and therefore was probably thought of as the most naïve of the three. Ophelia could relate to this girl because after everything Ophelia has done, she now realizes how naïve she was being when she chose to sleep with Hamlet before getting married. Saint Charity and her sisters also died for a cause they truly believed in. Ophelia, once again, could be foreshadowing her own death. The little girls said that they would rather die Christians and join their mother in Heaven rather than live and not be Christian. (orthodoxchristian.info) Ophelia could also be thinking along the same lines. She would rather join her father in the afterlife than be left all alone since her brother is in France and she did not know he would be returning.

The next line is Ophelia saying what a shame things young men will do. She says that they are capable of doing very bad things. She goes on to quote the woman, herself, mentioned earlier in the song saying that the man promised to marry her before sleeping with him. The man replies that he swears to the sun that he meant what he said and would have kept his promise if only she had not gone to bed with him.

An interesting idea is that women are ruined after losing their virginity. It ruins her purity for her partner. Even though it is considered a sin to have sexual intercourse before marriage, this does not seem to apply to men as much as it does to women. The subject of men sleeping around and women doing the same almost seems like completely different topics. A woman could be called a whore for engaging in such activities, but men do not really have a name equivalent to that. Men are praised for “scoring”, but a woman is shamed. Religious people have a funny way of deciding which parts of the bible are most important and who they apply to. Therefore, Ophelia has lost her purity while Hamlet has lost nothing, but gained “experience”. That’s at least how today’s society would view it.

Through Ophelia’s songs, the audience learns that Ophelia and Hamlet have had a sexual relationship. After his father dies and his mother marries his Uncle shortly afterwards, Hamlet goes insane. He tells Ophelia to pretty much join a nunnery. Hamlet calls his ex-lover a prostitute as well. If Ophelia was a man, however, she probably would not have been called that by anyone. Hamlet’s only reasoning for this outburst is his mother. First off, the majority of this play wouldn’t exist if the Queen had not decided to marry her late husband’s brother. Perhaps if Hamlet had not called and told Ophelia such awful things, she would be able to handle her father’s death a little better than killing herself. This girl has lost her father and lover in a few short period of time. One wound did not even have time to close before a new one opened. Hamlet was the cause for both of these injuries. He is the one who broke her heart and then killed her father. With her brother in France, she most likely feels utterly alone. She has no family to turn to and no lover to comfort her. Naturally, in a state of loneliness, grief, and misery, the poor girl loses her mind and ends up joining her father in the afterlife.

In the last bit, Ophelia is saying that men think too much with their genitals. Hamlet claimed to love and wanted to marry Ophelia until she slept with him. Logically thinking, this was probably around the time close to the late King’s death and the Queen ruined Hamlet’s idea of women. However, Ophelia does not have all of this information so with the small amount she does have, she just assumes that he is like every other man and lost interest in her after taking her

to bed. Hamlet, in his state of madness, is clearly not thinking about how his words or actions would affect Ophelia.

Works Cited