ART HISTORY ADVENT CALENDAR 1: OPHELIA

Week of Death

1st of December - Ophelia

 Ophelia by Millais

A LETTER FROM ELSINORE TO PARIS:

Dearest Laertes,

your sister was not entirely sane:

she kept on doling out weeds to all of us

while singing nursery rhymes,

and therefore, when trying to get a water-lily

beneath the willow that grows by the lake,

she slipped on a rock and her gown was fully drenched,

falling into the lake, and 

the Näkki spirited her away.

We are so sad you lost the only family you have left.

Sincerely,

Queen Gertrude and King Claudius.

THE TRUTH ABOUT OPHELIA:

My older brother's gone to France

to teach French ladies how to dance...

and all my violets have wilted.

Have some rue for my regrets, for I rue the day

that I began loving Prince Hamlet,

who set sail for Mercia and Northumbria 

not long ago.

That Näkki-rose, that water-lily,

that grows in the shade of the weeping willow,

would look lovely on Mama's and Papa's grave,

(ah, if they were alive and understood me!)

so I headed for the lake.

And, as I knelt by the little pier there,

I heard the Näkki play the violin...

He is so handsome,

in spite of his webbed hands and feet,

and the gills frilled like a collar round his neck...

When he fiddled, I sang old sagas and nursery rhymes.

One look, one tune, and we understood

that we were kindred spirits,

both of us outsiders,

neither one wanted in the human realm.

So I gathered my courage and took the plunge,

my gown and apron drenched, I pulled down to the bottom,

I felt both my clothes and flesh melt away,

even as the guards fished up my lifeless corpse.

Now I am another ghost of Elsinore,

married to a freshwater merman beneath the lake,

and the Näkki loves me like no one ever has,

and he understands me like no one ever has.

Merfolk can live for centuries, after all,

and our relationship is certainly

a happily ever after.