OPHELIA

[spicii 1131]

 

O P H E L I A

Penned by Her Royal Majesty, Vivienne Anastasie, Queen of the Orenians

 

 

Spoiler

Ophelia is a character in William Shakespeare's drama Hamlet. She is a young noblewoman of Denmark, the daughter of Polonius, sister of Laertes and potential wife of Prince Hamlet, who, due to Hamlet's actions, ends up in a state of madness that ultimately leads to her drowning. In Act 4 Scene 7, Queen Gertrude reports that Ophelia had climbed into a willow tree (there is a willow that grows aslant the brook), and that the branch had broken and dropped Ophelia into the brook, where she drowned. Gertrude says that Ophelia appeared "incapable of her own distress". Gertrude's announcement of Ophelia's death has been praised as one of the most poetic death announcements in literature.

 

 

OPHELIA;

 

Golden aspen leaves smother the ground.

Blades of grass cut through the dense amber

searching for warmth from the summer’s lost sun.

I stumble; head down, on a gravelled path,

beneath a high bridge of ominous branches

musing if the handful of still flailing leaves 

will stem oozing blossom from the sombre skyline. 

 

I lay callously upon a bleak river.

Moth-eaten cattails trembling within the wind,

And lotus circles struggling to stay afloat.

I ponder, do they lament their fallen crowns?

The sky reverses ; forfeits gold for brown

As brittle leaves resign, crumble and drown.

I feel this landscape dying deep within me.

 

A swan glides into my world of despair,

and softly sings his sonorus song.

I lightly descend into his ready reflection.

Although of disparate form—we merge—

grappling with onerous thoughts,

 we yet slowly rotate to a hopeful perception– 

a visible and radiating inner complexion.

 

21 Lines

 

 

SIGNED, 

HER MAJESTY, Vivienne of Savoy, Queen consort of Oren, forever August, Queen consort of Renatus, Curon, Kaedrin, Salvus, and Seventis, Grand Duchess consort of Ves, Duchess consort of Helena, Novellen, Furnestock, Petra, Oltremont, South Arentania, and Lorraine, Baroness consort of Renzfeld, Protector of the Heartlanders and Farfolk, etcetera.

[cappor 563]

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