Ophelia

by Lisa Klein

  Hamlet knelt before me in a parody of his marriage proposal.

  “Swear to be silent and tell no one what you know.”

  “Why did you tell me this?” I cried, holding my hands over my ears. “I do not want the knowledge of this evil!”

  Hamlet took my hands firmly in his own.

  “Once you said to me, Test me, I will not fail you. I test you now. Do not fail me, my love.”

  I shook my head slowly, more in defeat than denial.

  “Swear it!”

  Feeling compelled, I swore, as he bade me, not to reveal his plan of revenge. My heart felt like a sack laden with stones and dropped into the deepest sea.

  “With your help, I will not fail. Ophelia, promise me your aid!”

  “What choice do I have?” I said, despairing. “I am vowed to you, and you are vowed to revenge.” My tears began to fall, and Hamlet became again the very picture of a loving husband. He lifted his hands to wipe my cheeks and kissed my brow.

  “Once this vow to my father is fulfilled,” he said, “I will honor you. We will be known as husband and wife and you, Ophelia, will be my queen.”

  I should have been glad to hear those words and to think of myself as a queen. But alas, I would have bartered my high estate to be plain Jill to Hamlet’s Jack.

  “I will do as you bid me, my lord,” I said, but my heart was deeply unwilling.

  “Meet me at dusk tonight in the chapel,” he said. Then he was gone, his feet soundless on the stones beneath them.

  Chapter 17

  All that day I was sorely troubled by what had passed between us. Was Hamlet mad, I wondered, with his talk of ghosts and murder? How had it come to pass that I consented to aid his revenge? Why had I taken a husband so little known to me? I needed the wisdom of someone who had long been married, such as Elnora. So I sought her out and, concealing my situation and my tormented thoughts, offered her a drink of cooling mint and fanned her while she sipped it.

  “I have been reading a tale of a good wife severely tested by her lord, and it caused me to wonder about marriage. Did Lord Valdemar ever perplex you with his behavior and seem a stranger to you?”

  Elnora regarded me with surprise and, I thought, some suspicion.

  “Why, what a peculiar question, Ophelia.”

  “I only seek some wisdom for when I shall be married,” I said, affecting carelessness.

  “Every wife wakes up one day and wonders if she has made a mistake by marrying,” said Elnora. “So do husbands, I suspect. By then it is too late, for they are yoked to each other like oxen for the long haul.”

  I tried another question that might yield better advice.

  “Was it difficult to bend yourself to the will of Lord Valdemar when you were first married?”

  “A young bride will easily bend to her husband’s desire. Ha, ha!” Elnora nudged me with her elbow. “But truly, Lord Valdemar was no different from any man. He thought to rule me, as will your husband one day. I am the head, he will say. So grant him that,” she said with a shrug and leaned closer. “But remember this: The husband may be the head, but the wife is the neck, and it is the neck that turns the head which way she pleases.”

  “I hope my years will make me as wise as you are,” I said with a sigh. I was sure that few husbands behaved as strangely as Hamlet was behaving. Moreover, I had little confidence that I could lead my new husband as Elnora had learned to control Lord Valdemar.

  When evening drew near, I went to the chapel to wait for Hamlet. 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. No ghostlike shapes appeared; the peace was undisturbed. 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.

  I saw Hamlet enter, a large book in his hand. He had changed his tattered clothes and was again dressed in his customary suit of black. His manner was calm, but he was deep in thought. He looked up as if seeking answers in the ceiling bosses where the arches met over the nave. My heart leaped to see the outline of his noble face, its beloved features unmarred by the morning’s frenzy. I prayed that he had put aside his dire thoughts.

  Then Hamlet looked down to find that he stood before the newly placed stone, beneath which his father was buried. He shook his head and the deep sigh that escaped him echoed like a wind in the empty chapel.

  “Here I am, my lord,” I whispered, beckoning from the darkened arcade. Hamlet whirled around to his right, then to his left, before he saw me and drew near.

  “I did not mean to frighten you,” I said, taking his hand between my palms and holding it gently to my cheek. But Hamlet was in no mood for such a mild touch. He grasped my head in both hands and kissed my lips with a passion, letting his book tumble to the floor with a great noise.

  His hands and lips were warm and full of life, but at my back I felt a chill. I withdrew from his embrace and looked about. A stone effigy of some long-dead king stared at us with stern rebuke. In a painting dark with smoky grime, a naked Adam and Eve turned from the avenging angel. I felt their woeful eyes on me and shivered with unease.

  “A cloud of long-dead witnesses marks our embracing,” I said. “There is no privacy in this holy place.”

  “How is this chapel holy if no one prays here any longer?” Hamlet said. “We will sanctify it anew to the god of love.”

  “Though it is unused and empty, some holiness still clings to this place, and I would not dishonor it. So let us make love later in a better suited spot.”

  Hamlet did not contend with me but loosened his embrace, and his ardor cooled like an ember when the wind ceases to blow. His attention returned to his book, which he retrieved from the floor. He held up the large calf-bound folio, and I saw by its gilt lettering that it was a book of anatomy by Vesalius.

  “I have been studying the question, Ophelia, of where evil resides in men.”

  His quick fingers turned the pages until they came upon an engraving of a man’s body, its skin flayed open to reveal bones, the human heart, and a maze of conduits and sinews. I was both curious and appalled but did not hesitate to fill my gaze. Hamlet’s voice grew animated.

  “When I heard of my father’s death, I was traveling to the university in Padua, where thousands come to study with the masters of medicine, to dissect every part of man and discover his secrets.”

  “Is this not a heresy?” I said with a gasp. “An offense against God’s creation, to cut open a human body?”

  “Those who say so are the enemies of reason and learning,” Hamlet scoffed.

  “Tell me what this signifies,” I whispered eagerly, my finger tracing the intricate drawings.

  “The vital spirit originates here, in the heart, and is perfected by the lungs, which inspire the blood with air,” Hamlet explained. “In a wicked person, the vital spmt 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.” Hamlet paused before coming to his point. “I wish to discover whether a surgeon, by cutting out the cankered spot, could restore the vital spmt to perfection.”

  “But does not evil, like an invisible worm, work inside the fruit, even while the fruit seems fair?” I asked. “One cannot remove the worm without destroying the apple.”

  “Yes, and as the apple’s fair outside finally shows its inner rum, so evil thoughts in time corrupt a man’s features.”

  I thought of Claudius. Though I did not like his looks, I could not say his face appeared corrupted. I decided I would gently dispute with Hamlet, using my reason to stir doubt within him. Thus I might act as the neck that turned my husband’s head away from his revenge, I thought, remembering Elnora’s advice.

  “If what you say were true, then the murder of your father would be written on Claudius’s brow,” I said. “But it is not. Per
haps he is innocent?”

  The very mention of his uncle caused Hamlet to leap to his feet.

  “Claudius! I could send his soul to hell!” He paced to and fro with growing agitation. “But why is it, I ask you, that in some men, thoughts of action never move from the head to the hand?” He regarded his own hand as if it were unknown to him.

  “You are not such a one, Hamlet, for think with what haste you wedded me yesterday. I hesitated, and you spuned me to action,” I said, hoping to divert him to thoughts of love. But Hamlet would not be moved.

  “You mistake my meaning,” he said.

  “I do not,” I said firmly. “I know you speak of crimes and evil deeds. But I believe that such dire thoughts are unfitting for the Prince of Denmark and my husband.”

  Hamlet did not acknowledge my opinion, but went on in his former vein.

  “You must help me understand, Ophelia. Tell me, how does it happen that in some men, dark thoughts become deeds whose consequences shake whole nations?” he asked, pressing his forehead as though to force an answer from his brain.

  I saw that Hamlet’s mind was stuck on the idea of revenge, like a wheel lodged in a ditch. If I could force it back to the smooth highway of common sense, then Hamlet would be himself again.

  “Answer me!” he demanded. “If there is already crime in the thought of killing, why does the deed of killing not follow with ease?”

  “I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps the hand of heaven stays your hand. Or perhaps reason is your master. It is only those who are ruled by passion who allow their thoughts of violence to become violent acts.” I was determined to make Hamlet, by reasoned thinking, doubt his bloody course of action. And Hamlet, as if he followed me, picked up the thread of my thoughts.

  “Such deeds of violence,” he said, nodding slowly, “corrupt the body and soul of the man who commits them. But what if the act, though it seems evil, is the will of heaven? Then the supposed evildoer must be God’s agent!”

  “No! For the deed of killing defies justice, both human and divme,” I argued with a fervor that matched his own. “Surely there can be no further debate about this truth.”

  “I will consider your words, Ophelia, for they are weighted with wisdom,” said Hamlet, closing the anatomy book and ending our discussion.

  My own mind was spinning from the ideas we had bandied back and forth so rapidly. Had I succeeded in dissuading Hamlet from revenge? I was hopeful, for I knew how great a store he set by reason.

  “Meanwhile,” Hamlet said, “we must find a way to divert the king and your father so that none may suspect our secret deed. Our mamage, I mean.”

  “I wish we did not need to hide it,” I said wistfully, though I knew that it was wisest not to provoke my father and the king by the revelation. And I had grown accustomed to secrecy and the excitement of our plotting.

  “In due time, Ophelia, it will come to light,” said Hamlet, though he seemed not to be thinking of our love, for his face was grim.

  “I have a plan, husband,” I said brightly, touching his arm to regain his attention. “What better way to hide that we are married than to pretend a courtship? You shall pursue me, for my father believes that you do. I will deny you and seem the virtuous daughter, while we steal secret kisses from each other.”

  “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.

  I held his head there and stroked it. I knew that I would break my unwilling promise to Hamlet. Like one who digs a tunnel beneath a fortress, I would undermine his revenge, not aid it. This game of love would distract him from his dire course.

  Revenge was Hamlet’s plan; this was mine.

  Chapter 18

  My simple device to deceive Polonius and the king grew, under Hamlet’s hand, into a plot with ever more complex motives and uncertain ends.

  “Remember, I will appear mad with love for you���or with a general madness���but I put on this disposition to divert and test them all,” he said.

  “Why do we test them?”

  “To make a trial of their wits and an ordeal of their judgment,” he said as if he relished confusion itself.

  “Why must you put on madness?” I asked, not understanding his drift. It was late at night and we were in Hamlet’s chambers. A single candle gave the flickering light by which we made our plans.

  “Thwarted lovers are melancholy, and is not melancholy a form of madness? Let them doubt my mind to be sane,” said Hamlet. He took a pen and paper and in a few minutes had penned a sonnet.

  “Listen,” he said, and began to read with a feigned accent. His comically arched brows and broad gestures made me smile, and the injured look he then assumed caused me to laugh until I was weak.

  “Doubt thou the stars are fire,

  Doubt that the sun doth move;

  Doubt truth to be a liar;

  But never doubt I love.”

  “Not bad, but not at all good, either,” I said. Indeed the hasty poem was lacking in music and halting in meter.

  “Never doubt I love can also signify Never suspect I love. See?”

  I nodded, though the meaning seemed obscure.

  “It matters not, for I know you love me,” I said with a coy tilt of my head.

  But Hamlet was all business in his reply.

  “This should serve my purpose well,” he said.

  “How, exactly?” I asked.

  “If Claudius has done evil, his reason and judgment will be corrupted, and he will be deceived; that is, he will believe that what we act is true. If he is innocent, he will perceive the truth: that we only play at being lovers.”

  “You know it is not true that we are only lovers. We are married,” I reminded him gently.

  “Of course.” He waved his hand. “It is the truth of our play to which I refer.”

  “And how should my father react?” I asked, doubting the soundness of Hamlet’s reasoning.

  “Polonius, not being evil but only foolish���I beg your pardon, but he is a fool���will believe this nonsense is proof of my love,” explained Hamlet. “Now, we will contrive for this poem to be made public and observe their response.”

  “It needs a letter showing that you intend the poem for me,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, of course. I did not think of that.” Hamlet took up his pen again and wrote a letter hailing me as the beautified Ophelia. “You see, I should say ‘beautiful Ophelia,’ for with the mistaken phrase I suggest that your beauty is painted on.”

  I tried to smile, but I could not see how his purpose was served by writing of me this way. Hamlet sensed my hurt and looked up from his writing.

  “I do love you, Ophelia, my own true wife.”

  “And I you, husband of my heart,” I said, contented again.

  “Remember, when we are in company I will play the languishing lover to your disdainful mistress; you will show me no pity, and yet I will fawn upon you. Let us see how they do greet this love.”

  “Yes, I will relish this sport,” I said. “Like a pair of licensed fools, we will tweak the beards of our elders.” I tucked the letter into my bodice and kissed him good night.

  The next morning, I ran to my father, pretending distress, and told how Hamlet had come into my room while I sat sewing. I described his ungartered stockings, his unlaced doublet, and his pale visage. Imitating Hamlet’s astonished stare, I showed my father how he had gazed upon me. Seizing my father’s hand and pressing it hard, I let him feel my desperation. I passed my other hand over my brow, as Hamlet had done. I nodded, sighed, and backed away from my father, all without speaking.

  “This was his manner exactly!” I declared. “He said nothing, but his movements spoke of some terrible suffering. It was most strange!”

  My father reacted to my pantomime just as Hamlet had predicted he would.

  “This is the very ecstasy of love!” He rubbed his hands with delight and
pinched my cheek.

  Thus encouraged, I played the false role of obedient daughter with even more zest. So well did I act my part that even my father, despite being schooled in deceit, did not perceive my mask.

  “I have refused Hamlet’s letters and avoided his presence, as you, dear Father, have commanded. Here, I yield you this, its seal unbroken.”

  He snatched the missive from me as if it were money. Upon reading the letter and the poem, he crowed with pleasure and, forgetting me, hastened to find the king. After a moment, I followed, half pitying my father for being so gullible. He darted this way and that, until he determined that Claudius was holding court in the great hall. While he descended there, fairly topping in his haste, I took the tower stairs to the arcade, where I could look down and observe their encounter without being seen.

  Seated on a dais, Claudius was speaking in low tones to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Gertrude leaned against him, seeming bored by their business. She held her crown in her lap and polished it idly on her skirt. I was surprised, for I had never seen her look so undignified. Then I was startled to see a guard in blue and white livery approach and stand at the king’s side. His legs were spread and his arms crossed in a menacing way. One hand clutched a tall pike, the head of which bore a sharp point and a fearsome curved blade. I recognized the guard as Edmund. How fitting, I thought, that the villain had found a position as a mercenary soldier, paid to protect Claudius and fight his battles.

  As the two courtiers prepared to leave, Gertrude leaned forward and called them back. I strained to overhear her speech. Her brow was creased with concern. She seemed to be begging Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for some favor. They bobbed their heads, eager to comply. I caught the words friends of Hamlet and visit my much-changed son.

  A welcome visit that would be, I thought with scorn. Hamlet would pounce on these agents like a wolf on a pair of ducks.

  My father rushed in, announcing the arrival of the ambassadors from Norway and promising, upon their departure, his own news of great importance concerning Hamlet’s recent disposition. I had to smile at the means by which my father hastened his eventual reception. The ambassadors then swept in, wearing capes edged with fur and bearing maps and many papers. The chief ambassador proclaimed loudly that by his wise diplomacy, Prince Fortinbras’s challenge to Denmark had been deferred. Fortinbras was no light threat, I knew, for his mission was to reclaim lands that his father had lost to King Hamlet in battle. But Claudius merely waved the men away and bade them join him in feasting that night. How poorly, I thought, the mantle of kingship rested on his careless shoulders.