Ophelia
original painting
48x24 inches
oil paint and fabric
I’ve always loved the description of Ophelia’s death in Hamlet. She had been making flower wreaths then slipped into a brook where she floated like a mermaid singing songs until she eventually drowned. 🌿
“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
Clambering 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 a while they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds
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,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.”
This painting cannot be shipped. Please only purchase if you are willing to pick up or if you live in Oklahoma and would like me to deliver it in person.