Ophelia

by Lisa Klein

  Watching the play, I waited for an opportunity to speak. Hamlet’s excitement mounted as the black-robed villain crept from the curtains, holding a vial and praising its rank and poisonous contents. I saw the villain pour the potion in the sleeping player king’s ear and heard the gasps around me.

  “Watch! Now you shall see how the murderer gets the love of the king’s wife,” Hamlet said bitterly.

  I realized then that Hamlet believed it was a man’s lot to be cheated by the woman he loves. I would make him see the injustice of such a thought, and I would discover whether I had been betrayed. I gripped his arm and when he looked at me questioningly I spoke with firm intent.

  “Hamlet, my husband, this I ask you. Are you honest?”

  At that instant, Claudius bolted from his chair and cried out in a voice strangled with fear, “Give me some lights! Away!”

  My question received no answer, for Hamlet threw off my hand and leaped to his feet. Guards drew their swords and surrounded the king. His attendants came running with flaming torches. Ladies and courtiers drew back as the king fled from the hall with Gertrude at his side. The players took refuge behind the curtains. They knew that a king’s displeasure could mean their death.

  I must have looked pale, too, for I found Horatio at my side, supporting my arm.

  “Did you see, Horatio?” cried Hamlet with glee. “My uncle’s guilt is now plain. The ghost is an honest one!”

  “I noted it,” said Horatio. “Be more discreet.” He seized Hamlet’s doublet, but Hamlet pulled away and clapped his hands, calling for music. The players scrambled for their instruments and struck up a wavering tune while Hamlet dashed among the crowd, trying in his manic way to restore their festive spirits.

  “He has lost his reason and is possessed by his father’s demon,” I said in amazement.

  “There is, he says, a reason in his madness,” Horatio said, but with doubt in his voice.

  “It was utter folly to have the players enact his father’s murder in the presence of Claudius himself. How is this revenge?” I whispered, unable to hide my deep dismay.

  “Violence goes against his nature, which is gentle and prone to thought,” Horatio said, close by my ear. “He seeks revenge, and yet he shuns it.”

  While Horatio and I conversed as intimates, a new fear took hold of my mind. This night Hamlet had revealed, through the play, his knowledge of Claudius’s crime. Cristiana had warned me of the king’s anger and suspicion. And Claudius had behaved like a man afraid for his life. He knew that I consorted with Hamlet. What if he began to suspect that Hamlet had revealed the king’s crime to Horatio and me?

  My eyes met Horatio’s and I saw that his thoughts ran in the same course as my own. At once he withdrew from me, holding out his arm to prevent my speaking.

  “Hamlet’s play puts us in mortal danger,” he said. “You should not seem my friend; nay, be a stranger. Therefore, go.”

  Chapter 23

  After Hamlet’s play broke off and the audience dispersed, worried and whispering, the night turned even more foul. Damp, foggy winds blew through the castle’s every hall and chamber and whistled in the ramparts, sounding like faraway screams. Torches flickered and died until darkness reigned both within Elsinore and without.

  For hours, sleep eluded me. Finally I rose from my bed to mix a calming draught. I made my way through the queen’s gallery, where the tapestries with their wordless stones hung dark and silent. I passed the gallery and came upon the tower stairs that led down to the apothecary. An evil presence seemed afoot, and my skin prickled as if touched by invisible ghosts. At the top of the steps I froze. A dim figure cloaked in black approached. By his gait, I knew my father.

  Fumbling with a key while trying to steady his candle, he unlocked the nearby door that led to the king’s lodgings. It was used by Claudius and formerly by King Hamlet to come and go secretly from Gertrude’s rooms. My father did not lock the door behind him, so I slipped in and followed him with silent steps through the retiring chamber and into the bedchamber. The vast bed of state, its curtains drawn back like the wings of a giant bird about to seize its prey, was empty. No doubt Claudius was ensconced in a secure room blazing with light and surrounded by his guards.

  I longed to know my father’s business here. He raised his candle, whose light threw shadows that trembled, for his hand shook. With another key he opened the door of a tall cabinet near the king’s bed. I crept closer and concealed myself behind a bed curtain. My father appeared to be looking for something. The light played over the contents of the cabinet���a jumble of books and boxes, rocks, carvings, and other curiosities. Then I saw in the corner of an upper shelf a small glass vial lying on its side. Its label bore a death’s head, and broken red wax surrounded its unstoppered mouth. In its shape, size, and smallest detail it was like the vials of poison I had seen in Mechtild’s cabinet. Elnora’s words on that occasion came to me: Turn away, lest you tempt evil. Should I turn away and forget the sight? Or should I go forward and satisfy my curiosity? No, turn away from evil!

  I must have spoken, for my father whirled around and fell against the open cabinet. Books fell down with a thump and boxes crashed around him.

  “What spirit is this? Who comes?” he asked in a tremulous voice.

  Dropping the curtain and moving swiftly from the shadows into the candle’s weak light, I reached for the vial. My fingertips touched it. Standing on my toes, I closed my hand around it. I confronted my father, whose face revealed his alarm and confusion.

  “Is this what you seek?” I asked, opening my hand.

  “Give me that, girl! It must be destroyed.”

  “No, I must give it to Hamlet, for it proves the ghost an honest one.” I held the vial up to the flickering candlelight and saw that it was half empty.

  “What nonsense do you speak?”

  “No nonsense, but truth. Claudius is a murderer.”

  My father seized my wrist and the vial was dashed from my hand into the darkness.

  “No!” I cried, falling to my knees and pawing the floor in vain for the lost bottle.

  Then the far door of the chamber was flung open and one of the king’s guards stepped into the room, a cup of ale in one hand and a sword at his side. Despite the dark, I recognized his shape, and when the light from a lamp behind him illuminated the hideous scar on the side of his face, I knew for certain that it was Edmund.

  “Who’s there? Declare yourself!” he called in a voice slurred with drink.

  “Go, child, make haste to save yourself!” my father whispered, flinging his cloak around me.

  “Is it Polonius? Who runs away? Halt!” growled Edmund, staggering forward.

  I needed no urging from my father to run as fast as my feet and the darkness would permit. As I fled, I saw my father, his arms held wide to block Edmund while he declared in a torrent of words that he was doing the king’s bidding.

  I do not know if he spoke the truth. I never learned what became of the bottle, that evidence of Claudius’s evil, and I never saw my father again.

  Chapter 24

  In the gray dawn of the following morning, a noisy and riotous dream disturbed my sleep. I opened my eyes to the sound of wailing and pounding outside my chamber door. Then Elnora burst in and seized me in her arms.

  “No, no. Poor child, she must not hear it!” she murmered, covering my ears. I shook off sleep and Elnora’s suffocating embrace.

  “What has happened? Tell me!” I demanded, suppressing my rising fear that Hamlet was dead, slam by Claudius.

  A disheveled Gertrude appeared in the doorway, wringing her hands and weeping as Cristiana toed to comfort her. Seeing Gertrude, I was certain. “Something terrible has befallen Prince Hamlet!” I said in a rush, forgetting all discretion.

  “I must speak to her myself. It was but a tragic accident!” Gertrude cried, pushing Cristiana away. “Hamlet stabbed at the arras in my room, thinking it hid a spy. Alas, it was your father, and now, oh! Now he lies
dead.”

  Still lethargic from my sleep, I wondered if this was a game, a joke of Hamlet’s.

  “My father? Dead? Is this true?” I asked in dull confusion.

  “Hamlet’s intent was only to protect me. My dear son. Pity his madness! Poor Ophelia, forgive him and forgive me!”

  With a loud wail, Gertrude fell to the floor before me. It was a dreadful scene, like something acted in a tragedy. Denmark’s queen lay begging at my feet. Hamlet, my husband, had slam Polonius, my father. What mistaken revenge was this? Was all of nature’s order turned topsy-turvy? I shrank into Elnora’s arms, shaking from the awful news, unable even to speak. Weakened by the expense of her passion, Gertrude allowed Cristiana to lead her away.

  I never saw my father’s body. Claudius arranged a quick and secret burial, and I was not told of it. Nor was Laertes present, for he was abroad. I wept and raged against the king when I found my father was in the cold ground. Elnora tried to calm me by saying that Hamlet, not the king, was to blame, but I cried all the more. So she prepared draughts of barley water, lettuce juice, and poppy seeds and poured them in me, promising they would bring sleep and forgetfulness. But nothing could make me forget the terrible truth that my father was dead at the hands of my husband. My dreams were frightful, full of ghostly figures that resembled my father. Sometimes the person of Death visited me, and I beat it with my fists and begged for it to depart, waking myself. I found Elnora’s arms around me, and though I must have bruised her with my thrashing, she did not complain.

  Though I had felt little love for my father, sadness like the constant tide swept over me, leaving me limp. Guilt mingled with my despair as I thought of how I had fled into the dark while he faced Claudius’s guard, protecting me. I wondered if I had misjudged his love. Then I would become angry that he had placed himself in danger. Why had he been in the queen’s chamber, spying on her and Hamlet? Were his ambitions without any bounds? In death, as in life, my father remained a mystery to me.

  I also despaired because Hamlet had not come to me. Fear and shame, I was sure, kept him away. I felt like one who dwelt alone in the farthest Antipodes of the earth, where the sun’s heat and light could not dispel the cold and darkness.

  One day I heard Cristiana and Elnora whispering outside my room and I crept to the door to listen.

  “It is said that Hamlet cried out I see a rat! before running Polonius through with his sword,” Elnora said. “The rats at Elsinore are not so big! The prince is surely mad.”

  “And then to hide the body while it was yet warm and bloody? He would not tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern where it was, saying only that it was being eaten by worms,” said Cristiana with a shudder in her voice. Was this gossip true? I did not want to believe that Hamlet could be so cold and remorseless in his actions. I returned to my bed, buried my head beneath my covers, and wept.

  Finally I asked Elnora, “Do you think that Prince Hamlet regrets his rash deed? He should express some sorrow for my loss, at least.”

  “For what he has done, he ought to seek your pardon on his knees,” she said with vehemence, then added, “I must not say such a thing, for he is still the son of my queen.” She sat down beside me and took my hand. “The prince did try to see you the day after your father’s death. But for your safety I would not let him pass,” she said. “When he persisted, I said the door was locked and the king alone held the key. Yes, that was a lie, but surely a pardonable one.”

  “Why did you prevent him? For I would have heard from his own lips why he killed my father!”

  “Hear me out, Ophelia. When I told him to leave, the prince acted so desperate and mad, I said that I would call the guard or lay hands on him myself if he tried to touch you.”

  I sighed and buried my head in my hands. I could not blame Elnora for trying to protect me. Who could guess what Hamlet’s intentions were? To beg my mercy, or to harm me? To declare his love, or to vent his hate? What did it matter now?

  “Then he sent his man Horatio, who had a message for your hand alone. Suspecting his purpose, I gave him the same treatment.”

  “But Horatio is as harmless as a lamb, and a most honorable man,” I wailed, full of regret. He would have brought truthful news of Hamlet, but now I would never hear it.

  “So it is Hamlet’s friend you favor! Perhaps he will try again to see you,” Elnora said with a hopeful smile. But Horatio did not come again.

  Nor did Gertrude visit me. Like her son, she remained silent and cold. With recent griefs of her own, she did not wish to share mine, I thought bitterly. Still, her abandonment added to my hurt. I even longed for my brother, despite his rudeness to me when we last parted.

  Cristiana sometimes relieved Elnora, bringing me food for which I had no taste. A bowl of sweet figs, which I usually relished, gave off a sickly smell that turned my stomach, and I pushed them away. Indeed I had never felt so strangely before.

  “They are not poisoned, if that is what you fear,” said Cristiana, eating the figs herself.

  I did not mind Cristiana’s presence, for at least she held her tongue, perhaps out of respect for my loss. And I guarded my own, not wanting to give her matter for gossip. But one day she appeared in tears and needed no invitation to tell her woes.

  “Gertrude is moody, for she and Claudius argue about the prince. So to cheer herself, she has taken on a new favorite, the niece of an ambassador. Now she will not let me wait on her.”

  Cristiana’s worries seemed petty to me, but I had not the will to be sharp with her.

  “To kings and queens we are like lutes,” I said. “They play us for our flattering songs, and when we are out of tune or they are fretted, they cast us aside.”

  Cristiana fowned at me as if considering whether I had lost my reason.

  “It is a manner of speaking, something a poet might write,” I said wearily, waving my hand. The next day she came with the news that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had left Elsinore.

  “They are gone, their destination a mystery,” she said in her usual manner of investing idle news with importance. “It is some secret errand for the king, which if they perform well”���she paused, waiting for me to look up. Her eyes were bright with pleasure���“Rosencrantz will be allowed to marry me!” She noted my surprise. “It is true. The king has promised, and the queen also gives her consent.”

  I had been about to say that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were mere puppets, not men, but I thought better of it. I would let Cristiana have her happiness.

  Then Elnora came to report that Hamlet had sailed to England.

  “Wherefore?” I cried aloud, stunned by the thought that he had deserted me.

  “It was the king’s order. Most likely, for Hamlet’s own safety.” She looked at me carefully. “Lest Polomus’s death be charged to him as murder.”

  “Murder! Who dares to call him a murderer?” I cried in horror. Elnora made shushing noises and reached out as if to soothe me. “Did Horatio go with him?” I asked, pretending calm.

  “No; it was the king’s pleasure to send Hamlet alone,” she said.

  Hamlet’s sudden departure was strange and unwelcome news. My hope that we would be reconciled grew dim, and I was filled with new regrets. Perhaps Hamlet would have forgotten his hate, even taken me to England with him, had he learned of my new suspicion. Lately my breasts and belly ached, though my bleeding had failed to commence. My stomach was easily sickened. Perhaps this discomfort was due to grief. But might I be carrying Hamlet’s child? Alas, now he would never know of it! Full of doubt and confusion, I decided to put this uncertain matter from my mind.

  “Be thankful!” Elnora interrupted my thoughts. “Though his poor mother is distraught at his departure, you will have nothing more to fear from that madman.” Thinking to reassure me, she frowned to see my tears start up.

  I brooded continually over the timing of Hamlet’s departure and its meaning. Had we but spoken after my father’s death, he would know that I had seen evidence�
��the poison vial���that could convict Claudius, bringing a just revenge that would leave Hamlet’s own hand unbloodied. I doubted that Claudius would send Hamlet away simply to protect him from justice in my father’s death. Who besides the king could charge Hamlet with the crime? And Claudius would never dare to bring Gertrude’s son to trial. He had a darker purpose in sending him away. Would he now take my husband’s life?

  Then I thought about my father’s death, growing more certain that it involved foul play. I did not doubt that Hamlet’s sword mistook its mark for Claudius. I supposed that Claudius had sent my father to spy upon Gertrude and her son in the bedchamber, knowing that the wild Hamlet would expect the king���and not my poor father���to be lurking there. How could loyal Polonius refuse the king’s command? I thought of his distress after my scene with Hamlet in the foyer. He knew he had overstepped his ambitions in bringing Hamlet’s madness to light, rousing Claudius’s suspicions. He feared for himself and for me. Was my father, as he crouched behind the arras, yet another unwilling player in a drama contrived by Claudius? Did he even suspect his fate? Was Hamlet, too, an actor in Claudius’s malevolent plot, forced into the role of villain on the stage of his mother’s room?

  I shook my head, unwilling to believe such machinations could be possible. Were my ideas as wild as Hamlet’s ghost-driven revenge fantasies? Why should the king wish to kill my foolish and insignificant father?

  The answer, I knew, lay in the discovery of the poison vial. The knowledge of it put my father in danger. Had he found the evil proof on his own, or was he sent by Claudius to destroy the evidence of the foul murder? Ruefully I considered that the truths I sought had died with him, and the only other person who could shed light on these questions, Hamlet, was himself a mystery. I wept to recall how he spurned me and abused my love, and I rebuked myself for trusting him. Bitterness rose in me at the thought of his rash deed, stabbing blindly at a curtain on the mere hope that it concealed the king. I beat my fists into my bed in helpless fury that I could not comprehend Hamlet’s behavior.