Blog Post 4: I Know Why the Crazed Bird Sings

I worried tremendously over Ophelia; now I know I had good reason. Those horrible, nonsensical little tunes she continually spouted may have had far more meaning than what I thought. Peter J. Seng, the resident palace psychiatrist, voiced his concern that the ballads Ophelia sang were keys to opening her thoughts, thoughts which certainly are not as unintelligible as we may have first presumed. 
When she first called out to me, wondering "Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?" (4.5.21), she was not simply asking for my location; she was asking where the once graceful and beautiful Queen of Denmark was, as such a woman was "certainly not in the wretched and haggard Queen confronting the mad girl." (Seng 217) I'm aware that I have not had much time to keep up my appearances, but I fear my outer self has slowly started to reflect my inner morality. 
Hamlet had already vehemently criticized me for my actions, and indeed I was already deeply apologetic. But Ophelia couldn't help but throw another jibe at me, as she sang "How should I your true love know from another one?" (4.5.24) According to Seng, Ophelia was referring to my "inadequate mourning for King Hamlet" (Seng 218), that which had already placed such guilt in my heart. When Hamlet first made me aware of the unconscious atrocities I had committed against him and his father, I begged him to "speak no more" (3.6.89); his words "like daggers" (3.6.96) were almost too much for me to bear. To know that a grief-stricken Ophelia, turned mad from the murder of her father, is even capable of identifying my sins, I know I must truly repent.
I truly had "hop'd [she] shouldst have been Hamlet's wife" (5.1.191), and can only find sadness in her tragic end. That we buried her so quickly, without the proper Christian rites, reminds me of the "hasty wedding between Claudius" and myself (Seng 227), and the grave of my once-husband that was so quickly forgotten. Though Ophelia may have bowed down to madness, I will remember her, for as long as I shall live.