The Poet wrote Sonnets about his Ophelia character in Hamlet.
Here are three of those Sonnets, and what they mean.
- The forward violet thus did I chide:
Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells,
If not from my love's breath? The purple pride
Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells,
In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed.
The lily I condemned for thy hand,
And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair,
The roses fearfully on thorns did stand,
One blushing shame, another white despair:
A third nor red, nor white, had stol'n of both,
And to his robbery had annexed thy breath,
But for his theft in pride of all his growth
A vengeful canker eat him up to death. - More flowers I noted, yet I none could see,
But sweet, or colour it had stol'n from thee. - ~~~~~~~
- ~~~~~~~
Laer: Lay her in the earth, - And from her fair and unpolluted flesh,
May violets grow and flourish. - ~~~~~~~
- That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair,
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
So thou be good, slander doth but approve,
Thy worth the greater being wooed of time,
For canker vice the sweetest buds doth love,
And thou present'st a pure unstained prime.
Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
Either not assailed, or victor being charged,
Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
To tie up envy, evermore enlarged, - If some suspect of ill masked not thy show,
Then thou alone kingdoms of hearts shouldst owe . . . (love) - ~~~~~~~
- ~~~~~~~
- Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, - So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. - ~~~~~~~
- Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate, (Ophelia.)
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, (from slender slivers in willow trees,)
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven [the "son"] shines,
(when he glares at you in the Nunnery Scene.
Eye of heaven = the sun. A sun/son pun is implicit. The "son" is Hamlet.)
And often is his gold complexion dimmed, (by melancholy,)
And every fair from fair sometime declines, (when it falls from the tree of life,)
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade, (Ophelia,)
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, (to the world,)
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, (in the lines of Hamlet,) - So long as men can breathe
(to speak the lines of Hamlet onstage,)
or eyes can see,
(to read Hamlet in print,)
So long lives this, (your story, Ophelia, in Hamlet,)
and this gives life to thee.
Ophelia's Flowers Sonnet (#99)
Sonnet #99 is about the Poet's choice of flowers for Ophelia's death garland. It relates to the flowers Gertrude mentioned that Ophelia had in the willow tree, when Gertrude announced Ophelia's death. In the Sonnet, the Poet wrote of various flowers he considered using for Ophelia's death garland, but rejected. He began the Sonnet by characterizing Ophelia, herself, as the violet, by chiding her about her insistence to remain alive in Hamlet, as he felt it, and then by expressing his feeling of remorse that he had to "kill" her.
The forward violet is Ophelia, herself. At Ophelia's funeral, Laertes said the following.
The author did even better than that, in the Sonnet. He turned Ophelia into the violet, itself. He had earlier used the idea of a person being turned into a flower in Venus and Adonis, where a flower grows from Adonis's blood. Venus picked the flower, and compared its sweet smell to Adonis. In Sonnet #99, the author turned Ophelia into the violet, and then remarked on her sweet smell, as we see.
The Poet called Ophelia forward, in the Sonnet, following on what the Gentleman said before Ophelia first appeared in her "mad" condition, in Scene 16 (conventional Act 4 scene 5.) There, the Gentleman said Ophelia was "importunate," which means insistent, or forward. In the Sonnet, he meant essentially that Ophelia was insistent to remain alive in the play, but he couldn't do another Romeo and Juliet ending, so she had to "die" early. He hated that, but it had to be done.
Steal means to take, or to obtain, without permission. The author used the "taking" idea frequently in Hamlet, and quite broadly. In the Sonnet, "steal" doesn't mean literal theft, in terms of human crime. Here, it means, figuratively, that Ophelia "stole" her life from the author's own life. That is, it was his own creativity that created her. In the Sonnet, he poetically "chided" Ophelia that she had no real life of her own, only what she obtained from him.
He said she "stole" her sweetness from his own love's breath. "Love" probably has a dual meaning, as so many things in Hamlet do, referring in undertone to somebody he knew, a real woman he loved, and on whom Ophelia was ultimately founded. Then, "love" means the author's own love, as he "breathed life" into Ophelia with loving care, in making her the best character he could.
Purple pride is the author's own "royal pride" with which he painted Ophelia's complexion, in words, in Hamlet. But Ophelia's death "dyed" the purple pride, in the veins of his own love for her, and changed his emotion to black mourning color. The purple was dyed to black, poetically speaking, as he felt it.
Grossly means "obviously," and probably also "basely." His regret about Ophelia was obvious to him, in his feelings, and he felt her death was too base, or crude an event.
The Poet decided not to use the lily as one of the flowers for Ophelia's death garland, because of the meaning the lily has in traditional flower folklore. The lily symbolizes beauty, which would have well suited Ophelia, but it also symbolizes wealth and majesty, which Ophelia did not have when she died. He therefore rejected the lily, and kept looking.
Marjoram buds were used to make dye, and still are, to a limited extent. They can be used to make an organic dye for Easter eggs, for example. Recipes for marjoram dye can be found on the World Wide Web. Ophelia was in a willow tree, and Gertrude said "crownet weeds." Ophelia was getting willow twigs to make crown wreaths of flowers, of the kind that maidens wore on holidays such as May Day. Willow twigs are long and supple, and easily bend into a circle to make the frame for a crown wreath. The Poet rejected marjoram because buds of marjoram in Ophelia's crown wreath would have stained her hair. As he expressed it, the dye would have "stolen" Ophelia's fair hair color. There is additionally the point that marjoram does not have traditional flower meaning that would have been very fitting for Ophelia. Thus, the Poet rejected marjoram as one of Ophelia's "crownet weeds" for her death garland, using the "dye" reason.
Roses pose a problem for a crown wreath, since wearing thorns on the head would be very uncomfortable. There is allusion to Hamlet, in Scene 16, where Ophelia says "Robin." In legend, the robin is a blessed bird because it removed Jesus's crown of thorns. The author did not want Ophelia with a crown of thorns at her death even if the flowers were roses. Roses on Ophelia's head would have "stood fearfully" on their thorns.
The colors of the red and white roses were not suitable for Ophelia, either, because of the author's own adopted symbolism for red and white. As the Sonnet states, the red rose "blushes shame," and white means "despair." This is closely related to Moth's song in Love's Labours Lost, where he sings about a woman of "white and red," with the colors symbolizing shame and fear. The Poet perhaps used the word "despair" in the Sonnet because he had already used "fearfully." He did not want shame or fear, or despair, symbolism for Ophelia, nor the thorns, so he rejected the red and white roses as flowers for Ophelia.
By third, the author meant the third flower for Ophelia's crown wreath. Notice he condemned the lily for her hand, which takes it out of the count for the crown wreath flowers. Marjoram is the first crown wreath flower mentioned, and roses are the second.
The third crown wreath flower alluded to is mistletoe. It has tiny yellow flowers, neither red nor white, and it "steals breath" by being a parasite. Breath means "life." Mistletoe gains its life from the life of trees, but Ophelia lost her life because of a tree. In that way, the mistletoe symbolism is opposite what it needs to be, for Ophelia. The "shame" symbolism that the mistletoe "steals" from the red rose is in the public kissing, which can cause embarrassment, or shame, loosely speaking. The "fear" or "despair" symbolism is that the kissing stops when all the mistletoe berries have been eaten. The author facetiously disposed of the mistletoe by poetically inflicting a canker on it, and he scratched it off his list, and kept looking.
He concluded the Sonnet by saying that he considered other flowers, but found no more that would have added proper symbolism for what he wanted to express about Ophelia. The others would either have detracted from her sweetness with their traditional symbolism, or would have been the wrong color.
So, he ultimately settled on the crowflower, the nettle, the daisy, and the early purple orchid as the flowers for Ophelia's death garland. The meanings of those flowers are explained in the Notes for the Hamlet (Regained) playtext on this website.
In sum, the Poet chided Ophelia for her insistence to live, as he felt it; he spoke of how his purple pride in her as a character had become mourning black at her death; and he spoke of how he had chosen her flowers, telling her, and the world, that it was the best he could do.
(I identified "Ophelia's Flowers Sonnet" on Valentine's Day, 2005, by the way. A sweet coincidence.)
Ophelia's Love Sonnet (#70)
Sonnet #70 is the Poet's apology to Ophelia for the slander he inflicted on her in Hamlet, and it also includes his sublime solution for any bad thoughts about Ophelia that might arise in the "ill breeding minds" of those who read the play, or who see a performance of Hamlet.
The Poet began by saying that any blame ascribed to Ophelia is not because of any real defect in her. Instead, it's something people think they see in her that isn't really there.
Mark means both "target," and also refers to a person's reputation being stained. Envious people will "target" a beautiful person, and will stain the person's reputation with rumors and slanderous talk.
The mention of slander is on the Slander theme in Hamlet.
In the third line, suspect means "doubt," and the word order needs to be reversed to see the meaning in prose. It means, "doubt is the ornament of beauty." The idea is that doubt, or suspicion, is a beauty mark, figuratively speaking. The third and fourth lines must then be read together to see the sentiment.
Heaven's sweetest air means the sky, which is the "face of heaven." Ophelia's beautiful face is likened to the "face of heaven." A crow, then, when it's flying high in the sky, is only a small dark spot on the face of heaven. It's like a small dark mole on a beautiful face. The author compares a crow flying high in the sky to a small beauty mark on the most beautiful face.
So, the author explains to Ophelia that the slander he inflicted on her in the play is only like a small mole on her beautful face, the way a crow flying high in the sky is seen as only a tiny black spot on the face of heaven.
The crow idea follows from the crowflower that the author included as part of Ophelia's death garland. He used the crowflower for its traditional meaning, but he didn't like the "crow" in the word. He's also saying that the "crow" in "crowflower" is nothing significant, only a tiny "beauty mark."
In the fifth line, So thou be good means, "you are so good." The Poet said that Ophelia was so good, that the slander only proves her worth even more, as time goes by. Time in the sixth line means Time personified, with a capital "T." Being wooed of time means to be courted by Time, that is, Ophelia and Time will go together, hand in hand, so to speak, as the years go by. It means Ophelia will endure through the passage of years. The author couldn't really know that, when he wrote, but he was right. Ophelia has been "courted" by Time for four centuries, so far, and she'll "live" forever in human literature.
The author then uses the canker - bud metaphor again, likening the vice of slander to a canker that attacks the sweetest buds. He says Ophelia is indeed the sweetest bud, who presents a pure, unstained youthfulness and height of excellence.
In the ninth line, the ambush of young days is a reference to Ophelia's fall from the tree. The word ambush refers to trees, in root meaning. The author says Ophelia has passed by the tree that killed her in her youth, when the envious sliver broke.
The author was aware he had left it ambiguous in Hamlet whether Ophelia was a virgin, or might even be pregnant. He provided the uncertainty intentionally, to show the power of subtle suggestion on people's minds. Ophelia did die a virgin, but he showed how words could be used to make some think otherwise. With his great talent with words, he could do that, and he did it in Hamlet. The line Either not assailed, or victor being charged, means that whatever people thought, whether Ophelia was a virgin, not "assailed," or Hamlet had been "victorious" over her, it didn't matter, because Hamlet was charged, i.e. he suffered death at the end. Hamlet's conquest of Ophelia, (if that's what some people thought,) got "capital punishment" in the play.
The Poet then says that this, meaning the Sonnet, cannot be enough to stop all bad feelings about Ophelia, as time goes by, and more and more people learn about her. But the Poet has a devastating solution for any bad thoughts anybody might have about her.
The Poet says that if there were not some suspicion of wrong that hid Ophelia's true glory, then to her, alone, entire kingdoms of hearts would owe . . . something. What? Think about it.
The last word of Sonnet #70, as it was printed, is correctly owe, to an absolute certainty, exactly as the original printing shows. It means exactly "owe" and not anything else. The Poet intentionally left the poem incomplete, by one word. It's up to the reader to speak that word. If you want to complete the thought of the poem, you have to say the word, yourself, from your own lips, as your own personal contribution.
The word is "love." The Poet wrote the Sonnet so that everybody who ever reads it, no matter what he thinks about Ophelia, if he wants to complete the thought, will have to add his own personal word of "love" for Ophelia. That is the Poet's ultimate, astonishing, and devastating answer to any ill will or suspicion of wrong about his Ophelia.
No matter what you think, when you read this Sonnet, if you want to complete the thought, you have to add your own personal word of "love," for Ophelia.
Ophelia's Immortality Sonnet
Sonnet 18 is about Ophelia, and it includes Shakespeare's promise that she will "live" forever, despite the fact he had to "kill" her in Hamlet. First, the original form.
Interpretation is relatively straightforward, and consists mainly in filling in a few words and phrases. Recall the things Laertes said of Ophelia: "Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!"
"Oh, Rose of May!"
The word "this" doesn't mean only the Sonnet. It also means her character in Hamlet, where Ophelia will live forever.
(Regained)