Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais’ interpretation of the death of Ophelia (c 1851). This painting hangs in the Tate gallery in London and is even more tragic and beautiful when you see it the flesh.
The flowers that surround Ophelia are mentioned in the play, with some others added by Millais because of their symbolic meaning.
“There is a willow grows askant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead-men’s-fingers call them.
There on the pendent boughs her crownet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.”
- Hamlet, Act 4, Sc.7
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