cates that the drowning was accidental, is not only picturesTES que, but also so remarkable in vividness and clearness of detail as to suggest the improbable, that she herself was an eye-witness of Ophelia's death. On the river-bank was a willow which from the looseness of the soil hangs outward aslant the stream, and its green leaves, silvery on the under side, are reflected in the glassy waters. Hither came Ophelia with fantastic garlands of orchis, buttercups, and daisies, and, as she clambered to hang her "coronet weeds" upon the pendent bough, it broke and with her and her flowery trophies fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide and for a time bore her up, while like a mermaid she chanted snatches of old songs. But soon, her garments water-soaked, the poor maid singing like a dying swan went down to muddy death.

Of the Queen's grief, a critic says: "She was affected. after a fashion by the picturesque mode of Ophelia's death, and takes more pleasure in describing it, than any one would who really had a heart. Gertrude was a gossip, and she is gross even in her grief.""" The description is poetical rather than dramatic, and gives rise to certain doubts. Is it fictitious or real? Did the Queen or any other person witness the catastrophe? If so, why was no attempt made to rescue the slowly drowning maiden from the little brook? Clearly there was no witness of the sad affair. The description therefore is a fabrication. It is impersonal and studiously embellished with such poetic circumstances as are apt to soften the calamity; hence its accidental nature is emphasized, as

31 Of her description, Campbell says: "Its exquisite beauty prevails, and Ophelia dying and dead is still the same Ophelia that first won her love. Perhaps the very forgetfulness of her throughout the remainder of the play, leaves the soul at full liberty to dream of the departed. She has passed away from the earth like a beautiful air a delightful dream. There would have been no place for her in the agitation and tempest of the final catastrophe. We remember that her heart is at rest, and the remembrance is like the returning voice of melancholy music''.

well as the fact that, "incapable" or unconscious "of her own distress," Ophelia, garlanded with flowers and singing, went down to a painless death. The Queen had witnessed the very recent angry outburst of Laertes, knows his hostile feeling against her husband, and fears that the news of his sister's death will stir him to a new and greater passion for revenge. Hence, she deems it more prudent to break the sad news herself, and gradually, and as softly as possible. The scheme was successful; for the description roused Laertes to thoughts and sentiments of grief rather than to anger and resentment.

Laertes moved to tears at the graphic recital of his sister's death, apologizes as a man for a woman's weakness, and departing affirms that his thoughts of fire would blaze forth in burning words, did not his tears of grief extinguish them. "Come, Gertrude, let's follow," says Claudius, " 'twas much a-do to calm his rage, and now I fear it will start again. Let us follow."

ACT FIFTH

SCENE FIRST

CHRISTIAN BURIAL

From the death of Ophelia, we naturally pass to the scene of her burial. Without interrupting the action of the drama, her funeral serves as a brief respite for the audience before the breathless on-rush of the fast approaching and final catastrophe. The action is carried on by grave-diggers who by their grim humor and heartless indifference to the nature of their work, form a strong background to a scene wherein, by contact with most opposite extremes, the character of the hero is further luminously revealed. The weird humor of his philosophizing on life, the grave diggers and their gruesome moralizing, the funeral procession and the grapple in the grave, are all contrivances which make the scene a miracle of construction. It exhibits a remarkable change in Hamlet since his return to Denmark. No longer indulging in soliloquies, nor in expressions of weariness of life, nor in self-reproachful analysis of thoughts and feelings, he abandons with one exception the role of dementia, and, with the mists of melancholy slowly dissolving, discloses a new consciousness of power. It may be partly due to success in undermining the plot of Claudius and to the incriminating document in his possession, but more to a feeling which recent events have forced upon him—a feeling that he is in the hands of Providence.

The scene opens with a dialogue between two grave-diggers, who with spades enter a church-yard to make a grave for Ophelia. The conversation of these clowns, the one a

S

sexton, and the other, a common laborer, is replete with a strange wit that never fails to awaken delight and merriment. Incidentally it reveals the Poet's diversified genius, which enables him to impersonate so naturally even rude and ignorant characters in their peculiar habits and modes of reasoning. The first clown, laughing in untaught wisdom at the learning of philosophers, flashes his ready wit at almost every stroke of the spade; but, beneath it all is discernible a deep and solemn wealth of meaning. Though old, he is yet vigorous and bold of thought, and, in universal sweep of judgment, formulates principles which may or may not justify self-murder. In boastful words he prides himself upon his own avocation and the exalted dignity of his office. The works of other men, whether of stone or iron are all sure to crumble under the ravaging hand of time; but the lowly edifices which he constructs shall, in defiance of the storms of ages, remain intact till the day of general doom. His sane philosophy enables him to perceive the difference between substance and accident, between real and artificial distinctions of social life; for daily he sees exposed before his eyes the fact that all have from Adam the same common patent of nobility.

The dialogue begins with a discussion concerning the justice of according Ophelia Christian burial. Supposing that she had wilfully sought her own fate, or doom, the sexton appeals to the canon of the Church which forbids the burial of deliberate and wilful suicides in consecrated ground. In those days, all Europe was either Jewish, infidel, or Christian; and the term Christian was synonymous with Catholic, for none of the many modern Christian sects had as yet been born. The sexton's opponent appeals in turn to the verdict of the "crowner.” The coroner was originally a

royal official whose duty was to secure the property of sui

cides in forfeiture to the crown. His verdict was, as is evident from the text, that Ophelia, like any other Catholic in good standing with the Church, was entitled to Christian burial, either because her death was accidental, or, if wilful and deliberate, was due to her insanity: and one bereft of reason is according to the teaching of the Church, incapable of moral guilt in the violation of the Almighty's "canon against self-slaughter."

The sexton still holding out, resorts to his own peculiar method of reasoning, whereby, as commentators commonly suppose, the Poet intended to parody an inquest held in his day on a certain Sir James Hales. His suicide in a fit of insanity was an admitted fact; but at the inquest arose much quibbling as to the activity or passivity of Sir James in his own death. The Second Clown, impressed by the reasoning of the Sexton, states his positive opinion that, if Ophelia had not been of the aristocracy, she would have been excluded from consecrated ground. This opinion of the clown is not uncommon to Catholics of the ignorant, and unreligious type. Around them, they daily see the influence which wealth and power exercise in the world, and naturally conclude that the same forces invade the sanctuary and sway its ministers. It is a rash judgment born of ignorance or forgetfulness of the fact that the Church has always gloried in being the Church of the poor; that history shows her in unremitting warfare against worldliness in its triple form: "the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life;" that, consistent with her teaching, she reduces to practice her precept of the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God. She receives at her sacred altar the serf and the monarch on equal footing, just as they are in the sight of God. In reply to the clown, the sexton ironically deprecates the fact that the world looks with more leniency upon