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Hamlet
Act 4 Scene 7
(Start of Scene 7)
[Enter Ophelia.
She walks into her bedchamber. Going to the window, she looks out on
the river and gardens]
Ophelia
O surely this
has gone on long enough.
My own voice stolen. My life lived for me.
I live for others, but at such a cost.
Ophelia's gone quite mad. But tell what more
Could one expect when they have made my heart
A trap? They used my body and my soul
In hopes to catch the one I truly love.
And now that Hamlet's gone I am alone.
I passed the river and I saw myself.
A wretched face reflected in the stream.
My
butterfly spirit was ripped away,
Now
leaving only a torn chrsalis.
Decisions are all made for me. My heart
Most cruelly broken, my mind atrophied!
I
am a marionette tied harshly to
A tragic play, in which I wish no part.
Life gives to me no joy, to death I turn.
Ophelia now herself shall take her life.
"Herself," a word that sits, a stranger on
Mutated
tongue. To death I proudly go
Like Oedipus, who took his sight in need
of reaffirming his humanity.
O death I should avoid, but I will have
At least made one decision of my own.
[She
momentarily clutches her head in pain]
Beset
with Harpies' shrieks and claws am I!
And now the flowers of Denmark do wither.
They beg and plead with me to tend to them.
O flowers, I shall water the myself.
[She
exits]
Richard Woolf
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