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<<set $flowers to 0>>
You've been anxious all day. The girl has always had a fragile mind, but you fear that this time she may have strayed beyond reach. All you wanted was for things to settle down a bit. Haven't you been punishing yourself enough?
"I will not speak with her," you tell the obsequious gentleman.
"She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied," he replies.
[["What would she have?"]]
[["Tell her I've gone out for an evening stroll."]]"My queen," the attendant gentleman lowers his voice conspiratorially as he speaks to you,
"She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
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."
One might think there might be thought. One shouldn't think too much.
[["Let her come in."]]
[["Tell her I've gone out for an evening stroll."]]
<<audio satie2 volume 0.25 fadein>>
The gentleman bows and calls through the door, "Her grace is attending to Queenly matters, and she's not for us to annoy. Shall I take a message?" Hearing no reply, he bolts the door.
No sooner has he turned his back than the door flies open as if hit by a battering ram. In the threshold stands a girl with a ragged beauty, the kind of fading beauty reserved for objects once loved, now neglected.
"Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?" she asks in a raspy, nearly inaudible whisper.
"How now, Ophelia!"
After her whisper, the volume of her song makes you jump:
"How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon."
The gentleman raises his eyebrows and leaves the room.
[["Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?"]]
[[Say nothing and stare.]]
[["Alas, sad girl, your cries will wake the dead!"]]<<cacheaudio "satie1" "music/satie1.mp3">>
<<cacheaudio "satie2" "music/satie2.mp3">>
<<cacheaudio "satie3" "music/satie3.mp3">><<audio satie1 volume 0.25 fadein>>
The gentleman bows and moves to open the chamber doors, but before his hand reaches the knob, the door is flung open with a force that belies the waifish young girl standing at the threshold. Ophelia looks tired--no, worse--broken. Her hair floats like a nimbus around her head, and black bags droop below her once-shining eyes.
"Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?" she asks a bit too loudly.
"How now, Ophelia!"
She replies in strangled song:
"How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon."
[["Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?"]]
[[Say nothing and stare.]]
<img src="images/bw.jpg" alt="bw">
Helena Bonham-Carter as Ophelia in the 1990 <i>Hamlet</i> film.
<<audio satie1 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 0.25 fadein>>
Ophelia replies instantly:
"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."
[["Pray, why did he don his clothes but to discard them presently?"]]
[["Tomorrow is no holy day, for though your songs are sung in sweetest key, they open no doors, save those to the grave."]]
<img src="images/robles.jpg" alt="robles">
<i>Photograph by Cristina Robles.</i><<audio satie1 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 0.25 fadein>>
Your jaw drops in a most un-queenly fashion as you listen to Ophelia's rambling song. Seeing your speechlessness, the girl stands up straight and marches toward you until her face is inches from yours.
"Pray you, mark.
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
Fare you well, my dove!"
She shouts the last bit directly into your ear. You recoil a bit, and she follows, shouting
"Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
HEY NON NONNY, NONNY, NONNY NON!"
[["Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?"]]
[["Alack, what noise is this?"]]
[[Begin screaming uncontrollably.]]<script>
$( "#take" ).click(function() {
$( "#columbine" ).fadeIn( "slow", function() {
});
});
</script>
<<set $flowers to $flowers + 1>>
<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie2 volume 0.25 fadein>>
Ophelia pauses. She walks until she's facing the tapestry hanging on the far wall, and stares at its complex patterns. She mutters,
"I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I
cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him
i' the cold ground."
You approach her as she speaks, intending to place a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"My brother shall know of it:
and so I thank you for your good counsel."
Before your hand can reach her, she turns toward you and raises a flower to you as if holding a prism to the sun.
<div id="take" style="color:green" align="center">
Double-click here to take the columbine.
</div>
<div id="columbine" style="display:none;">
<img src="images/columbine.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="Columbine">
</div>
[[Sniff it.]]
[[Place it in your hair.]]<script>
$( "#take" ).click(function() {
$( "#rosemary" ).fadeIn( "slow", function() {
});
});
</script>
<<set $flowers to $flowers + 1>>
<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie1 volume 0.25 fadein>>
The stress and fright prove too much for your queenly sensibilities: you shriek in surprise and find yourself unable to stop. Ophelia, seemingly delighted by this, joins in.
After a few long moments, you stop and catch your breath. Ophelia stops too. She pulls something faintly fragrant from her bodice and holds it out to you. It's a rumpled sprig of rosemary.
<div id="take" style="color:green" align="center">
Double-click here to take the rosemary.
</div>
<div id="rosemary" style="display:none;">
<img src="images/rosemary.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="Rosemary">
</div>
[[Sniff it.]]
[[Place it in your hair.]]<<audio satie1 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie2 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<if $flowers gte 3>>
The combined fragrance of your $flowers flowers is becoming noticeable. Strangely, it alleviates your anxiety a little. You feel a pang of pity for the girl before you, and wonder if it isn't too late to help her.
<<elseif $flowers is 2>>
You daintily bring your two flowers up to your delicate, queenly nose and inhale. Together, their scent is earthy and sharp.
<<elseif $flowers is 1>>
The flower has a weak scent now, but was once pungent.
<</if>>
Ophelia stares into space for a moment, and then her mood seems to droop again.
"Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers," she sings with melancholy.
The grave. Sweet flowers. There were cyclamen at your husband's funeral. Sweet, red cyclamen, like setting suns, tiny goodbyes. Goodbyes--and a cure for the ear-ache. Too late.
[["Alas, sad girl, your cries will wake the dead!"]]
[["You must to bed. We'll have no more of this."]]
[["Care to walk with me among the weeds, lady?"]]<<audio satie1 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie2 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
As you tuck the sprig behind your ear, Ophelia scowls at you.
"Why ornament your person with the dead?
For they are gone where beauty matters not,
And you prolong their severance from the earth."
As if to end life was a mercy. You think again of your husband, cold in the ground. He felt no pain. Small mercy.
[["You must to bed. We'll have no more of this."]]
[[Sniff it.]]
<img src="images/bouquet.jpg" alt="bouquet">
<i>Royal Shakespeare Company, 2009.</i><<audio satie2 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 0.25 fadein>>
Rather than the deferential curtsey you'd expect from Ophelia at this rebuke, the girl looks defiantly into your eyes. For the first time you question whether this is madness, or something more calculated.
"And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God.
God be wi' ye."
With these last words, she flops onto the palace floor and lies prone.
[[Say nothing and stare.]]
[[Call for an attendant to help.]]
[[Begin screaming uncontrollably.]]
<img src="images/float3.jpg" alt="float3">
Paul Delaroche, <i>La Jeune Martyre</i>.
<script>
$( "#take" ).click(function() {
$( "#fennel" ).fadeIn( "slow", function() {
});
});
</script>
<<set $flowers to $flowers + 1>>
<<audio satie2 volume 0.1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 0.1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie1 volume 0.25 fadein>>
This gives Ophelia pause. Her eyes sparkle, bringing out the deep sapphire color for which she was, until recently, greatly admired.
"How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon."
She giggles and presses something delicate into your palm. It's a sprig of crumbling fennel.
<div id="take" style="color:green" align="center">
Double-click here to take the fennel.
</div>
<div id="fennel" style="display:none;">
<img src="images/fennel.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="Fennel">
</div>
[[Sniff it.]]
[[Place it in your hair.]]"Say you? nay, pray you, mark." She begins to sing:
"He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone."
In this moment, Ophelia doesn't seem mad. She seems simply to be a grieving daughter.
[[Attempt to embrace Ophelia.]]
<img src="images/pray.jpg" alt="pray">
Marcus Stone, <i>Ophelia</i>."Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's
daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not
what we may be. God be at your table!"
Ophelia grabs your hand, and you don't pull away. She leads you out of the room, into the vast network of winding gardens outside the palace. You notice that her feet are bare.
"I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end."
<<if $flowers lte 1>>
As you walk together, she releases your hand and lets her arm fall limply to her side. A sliver of moon is high in the sky, and the stars peer from behind dark clouds. You pass a deep green stream, and Ophelia glances at it wistfully. She veers off the garden path and moves toward it.
You leave her to gather her flowers.
<img src="images/float2.jpg" alt="float2">
Voodica, <i>Ophelia</i>.
<<elseif $flowers is 2>>
As you walk together, she grasps your hand more tightly.
"Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame."
Your whole life has been dedicated to your husband the King. When his courtship began, you were too young to know what being a princess meant. It means a prison.
You release Ophelia's hand and link arms with her. You pass a deep green stream, and Ophelia glances at it wistfully. An idea strikes you, and you playfully tug her toward the water. No more rules. No more princes or princesses, kings or queens.
At the same time, you both leap into the slice of moon reflected on the water's surface.
<img src="images/float.jpg" alt="float">
John Everett Millais, <i>Ophelia</i>.
<<elseif $flowers gte 3>>
As you walk together, she releases your hand and links arms with you. You pass a deep green stream, and Ophelia glances at it wistfully. She does not alter her pace.
The gardens are chilly at night. Without meaning to, you recall the warmth of your husband's arms.
A good end.
<</if>>
*******
[[Replay?|SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.]]
"Ophelia's Method" by Adam Engel
Made using Twine 2.0Ophelia scowls at this, turns on her heel, and leaves the room.
Several minutes later, you hear a knock from without. The attendant gentleman calls apologetically:
"Ophelia has returned, Queen Gertrude. Shall I call the guards?"
[[No need for that, you think. Best let her back in.|"Let her come in."]]
[["Tell her I've gone out for an evening stroll."]]<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie2 volume 0.25 fadein>>
You shout for your attendant gentleman to return. His immediate reappearance makes it obvious that he's been lurking just outside.
"Your grace?"
"Look to the lady--she swoons!"
As the gentleman kneels over Ophelia, she lifts her head with such speed that their heads collide with an audible thunk. The attendant gentleman falls to the floor in a daze.
Ophelia bends over him, lifts his eyebrows, peers into his pupils, and intones:
"No, no, HE is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll..."
<img src="images/lute.jpg" alt="lute">
<i>Royal Shakespeare Company, 1970.</i>
The attendant gentleman stirs and begins to lift his head, but Ophelia presses his head forcefully back to the floor. Her monotone abruptly becomes a wail:
"He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul!"
[[Attempt to pull Ophelia away from the gentleman.]]
[["His beard was white, as is his soul in heaven."]]
<<audio satie2 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie3 volume 0.25 fadein>>
Ophelia doesn't resist at all. You find yourself supporting her weight as she lets go of the gentleman's head.
"You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
steward, that stole his master's daughter."
Falsehood, theft, down, down, down...your husband, the stolen crown, the tainted ground...
[["You must to bed. We'll have no more of this."]]
[["The prince is fat, and scant of breath. Anon, as patient as the female dove, when that her golden couplets are disclosed, his silence will sit drooping."]]
<img src="images/painting.jpg" alt="painting">
Benjamin West, <i>Ophelia Before the King and Queen</i>. <script>
$( "#take" ).click(function() {
$( "#pansy" ).fadeIn( "slow", function() {
});
});
</script>
<<set $flowers to $flowers + 1>>
<<audio satie2 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie1 volume 0.25 fadein>>
"Nay, good fishmongress," Ophelia says, calmer now. "His soul trods the earth, though his spirit may play above the moon."
"Whom dost thou mean?"
"Whom dost thou think? There is pansies. That's for thoughts." She presents a tired-looking flower.
<div id="take" style="color:green" align="center">
Double-click here to take the pansy.
</div>
<div id="pansy" style="display:none;">
<img src="images/pansy.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="Pansy">
</div>
[[Sniff it.]]
[[Place it in your hair.]]<script>
$( "#take" ).click(function() {
$( "#rue" ).fadeIn( "slow", function() {
});
});
</script>
<<set $flowers to $flowers + 1>>
<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie2 volume 0.25 fadein>>
You're torn between feelings of guilt, pity, despair, and exhaustion. You walk over to the trembling girl before you and fold her into your arms. She goes limp but does not relax. Her body seems resigned, her mind far away.
"O you must wear your rue with a difference," she mutters. She brushes a bit of rue against your open palm.
<div id="take" style="color:green" align="center">
Double-click here to take the rue.
</div>
<div id="rue" style="display:none;">
<img src="images/rue.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="Rue">
</div>
[[Sniff it.]]
[[Place it in your hair.]]<script>
$( "#take" ).click(function() {
$( "#daisy" ).fadeIn( "slow", function() {
});
});
</script>
<<set $flowers to $flowers + 1>>
<<audio satie3 volume 1 fadeout>>
<<audio satie1 volume 0.25 fadein>>
Ophelia's eyes spark at this. It's the first time you've seen her smile. Seemingly from nowhere, she offers you another gift: a daisy.
<div id="take" style="color:green" align="center">
Double-click here to take the daisy.
</div>
<div id="daisy" style="display:none;">
<img src="images/daisy.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="Daisy">
</div>
[[Sniff it.]]
[[Place it in your hair.]]