The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1848-07-06
FEMALE CHARACTERS OF SHAKESPEARE,
From Hudson's Lectures.
OPIIEIIA

| OPIIELIA.
OF all Shakspcare's heroincs the impression
Of Ophclia is perhaps the most difficult of
analysis, partly because she is so intensely
real, and partly because she is so undovelop-
ed. A perfect rosebud of womanhood, Just
ready to burst into development from its own
tulness, we feel its riches i'll the promise, but
cannot distinguish the peculiarities that are
to characterize the flower. Nipt, too, in the
promise of the blossom, the bud pcrishes
" before its buttons be disclosed" leaving us
nothing but smiles for its beauty and tears for
its fate.
Ophclia is brought forward but little in the
play, and vet the whole play seems pervaded
with her presence. Her very absence re-
vcals her; her very silence uttcrs her; we
think Of her the more for that we miss her
society. We see her and Hamlet together
scarcely any, yet We can hardly separate them
in our thoughts. Of their sweet hours of
courtship, when Ophclia sucked the honey
of his music VOWS" we hear nothing what
ever; yet we know them all : We read their
whole history in the impression they have left
upon her, subduing her entire being, heart,
soul and sense, to the sweet sovereignty of
love. Perhaps the reason why Ophclia,
though seen so little in the play, affects us SO
deeply and constantly is, that those about her
owe their best development to her influence.
Amid the court circle she is like voice of
music issuing from the bosom of chaos:
| Whatever harmony comes from Polonius and
the queen, is of her elicting all that redeems
them from our hatred or scorn, is of her in
spring: Laertcs is interesting to US chiefly
for the interest he takes in his sister; he had
little hold on our regard but for the feelings
she has awakened in him. OF Hamlets SOUL
too, she is the sunrise and the morning hymn,
bathing in brightness the birth of day so
awful i'll its beauty and so ptlable in its woe.
The soul Of innocence and gentleness, wisdom
seems to radiate from her insensibly, as fra
GRANGE is cXhaled from flowers. 1t is in such
| forms that Heaven most frequently visits u.s.
Ophelia is exhibited in the utmost rpeness
and mellowness, both Of soul and of sense, to
impressions from without. With her suscep-
tibilities just opening to external objects, her
! thoughts are so completely engrosscd with
those objects as to leave no room for selfcon-
temptation. This exceeding impres5ibility is
the source at once of her beauty and her
danger. From the lips and eyes of Hamlet
she has drunk in assurances Of his love, but
she has never heard the voice of her own
and She knows not how full her heart is of
Hamlet, because she has not single thought
or feeling there at strife with him: the cur
rent Of her feelings runs so deep that it does
not admit of tumult enough to make her con-
sciouS Of them. in the words of Mrs. Jane
son, " She is far more conscious Of being loved
than Of loving, and yet loving in the depth
of her young heart far more than she is
loved" For it is a singular fact, that though
Hamlet gives many disclosures, and Ophela
gives only conceaments, many have doubted
the reality Of his love, while no one has
ever thought of doubling the reality of hers.
Critics generally have construed Ophcla's
silence respecting her own passion into q
wish to hide it from others but the truth is,
she seems not to be aware Of it herself; and
she unconsciously bctrays 1t in the modest re-
luctance with which she yields up the secret
Of Hamlet's addresses to her. The extorted
confession of what she has received reveals
how much she has given: the soft movements
| OF her bosom are made the palmer by the
delicate lawn Of silence thrown over it. To
the warnings of her brother and the orders
Of her father she promises and intends i'm
| pcit obedience, ignorant herself of the fear
full truth: and yet betraying it to us by this
very ignorance, that those warnings and Or
dcrs have come too late. Alas she knows
not that the love which she thus consents to
shut out of her heart has already entwined
itself ineXtricably with the inncrmost thread
of her life. Even when despair is wringing
and crushing her innocent young soul into
an utter wreck, she seems not to know the
source of her affection; and the dreadful
truth comes forth only when her sweet mind
which, stringcd and tuned in heaven, once
breathed such enchanting harmony, lies
broken in fragments before us, and the secrets
of her maiden heart are lowering ON her soul
deserted tongue.
One of the bittcrest ingredients in poor
Ophclia's cup of sorrow, is the belief that by
her repulse of Hamlet she has scared away
the music of his mind and when, forgetting
the wounds with which her own pure spirit
is bleeding, over the heart.rending spectacle
of that unmatched form and feature of
blown youth, blasted with ecstasy" she meets
his fatal, II loved you not" with the despair
ing sigh, / was the more deceived" we see
that she feels not the sundering of the ties
that bind her sweety- tcmpcrcd faculties in
harmony. The singing Of this innocent sweet
bird has but betrayed her to the hunters
aim; and she feels not the fatal shot because
it strikes to the very source Of her spirits
life.
And yet we blame not Hamlet, for he is
himself but q victim of the same relentless,
inexorable power which is spreading its raw
ages through him over another life as pure
and heavenly as his own. Standing on the
verge of an abyss which he sees is yawninr