Biography of Ophelia

                    Hamlet Act IV Scene 7 Part IV. [Enter Queen.]
                
                    How now, sweet queen?
                
                    Gertrude. One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
                
                    So fast they follow. Your sister's drown'd, Laertes.
                
                    Laertes. Drown'd! O, where?
                
                    Gertrude. There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
                
                    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
                
                    There with fantastic garlands did she come
                
                    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 pendant boughs her coronet weeds
                
                    Clamb'ring 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 chaunted 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,
                
                    Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
                
                    To muddy death.
                
                    Laertes. Alas, then she is drown'd?
                
                    Gertrude. Drown'd, drown'd.
                
                    Laertes. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
                
                    And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet
                
                    It is our trick; nature her custom holds,
                
                    Let shame say what it will. When these are gone,
                
                    The woman will be out. Adieu, my lord.
                
                    I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze
                
                    But that this folly douts it. Exit.
                
                    Claudius. Let's follow, Gertrude.
                
                    How much I had to do to calm his rage I
                
                    Now fear I this will give it start again;
                
                    Therefore let's follow.
                
                    Exeunt.

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Samuel Pepys' Diary. 13th February 1661. At the office all the morning; dined at home, and poor Mr. Wood with me, who after dinner would have borrowed money of me, but I would lend none. Then to Whitehall by coach with Sir W. Pen (age 39), where we did very little business, and so back to Mr. Rawlinson's (age 47), where I took him and gave him a cup of wine, he having formerly known Mr. Rawlinson, and here I met my uncle Wight, and he drank with us, and with him to Sir W. Batten's (age 60), whither I sent for my wife, and we chose Valentines against to-morrow¹, my wife chose me, which did much please me; my Lady Batten Sir W. Pen, &c. Here we sat late, and so home to bed, having got my Lady Batten to give me a spoonful of honey for my cold.

Note 1. The observation of St. Valentine's day is very ancient in this country. Shakespeare makes Ophelia sing "To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, All in the morning betime, And I a maid at your window To be your Valentine". Hamlet, act iv. sc. 5.-M. B.

1850. Ernest Hébert (age 32). "Ophelia".

Around 1851. John Everett Millais 1st Baronet (age 21). Study for Ophelia. Model Elizabeth Siddal (age 21).

1851 to 1852. John Everett Millais 1st Baronet (age 21). "Ophelia". Hamlet Act IV Scene 7 Part IV in which Queen Gertrude describes Ophelia's death to Laertes. Millais painted the scene near Tolworth, Surrey [Map] using the River Hogsmill. Elizabeth Siddal (age 21) modelled in a bath-tub at 7 Gower Street, Camden [Map]. The initials PRB bottom right next to his signature. See Ophelia by John Everett MIllais.

1852. Arthur Hughes (age 19). "Ophelia". The quote from Hamlet Act IV Scene 7 Part IV: "There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. There with fantastic garlands did she come, 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 pendant boughs her coronet weeds, Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke, When down her weedy trophies and herself, Fell in the weeping brook."

                    1863. George Frederick Watts (age 45). Portrait of Ophelia. Model Ellen Terry (age 15). Re-worked in 1877.
                
                    The painting itself presents the moment just before Ophelia meets her watery death in Hamlet, Act IV, scene vii, a moment which is reported but not enacted on stage:
                
                    There is a willow grows aslant a brook
                
                    That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,
                
                    Therewith fantastic garlands did she come,
                
                    Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples…

All About History Books

The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.

April 1864. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 35). "The First Madness of Ophelia".

1865. Thomas Francis Dicksee (age 45). "Ophelia".

1865. Arthur Hughes (age 32). "Ophelia". It illustrates the scene in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' (Act IV, scene 7) in which Ophelia picks flowers to make garlands shortly before she drowns.