The Moon Shines Dimly

Here I am exploring what might have happened between Hamlet and Ophelia before she went mad.

H: The moon shines dimly as day doth break for you.

O: Of what do you speak my lord?

H: Do you see this forefather to your wicked ways? This oaf of virtue who hides his body to lose his soul.

O: I believe t’s my father you splay before me.

H: Correct! Your eyes see clearly though your virtue be stained.

O: My lord, I do not understand your meaning. What is wrong with my protector.

H: Your protector now tends the worms of hell.

O: He is dead?

H: He is!

O: Of what did he die?

H: Of me!

O: I don’t understand.

H: I killed your virtue which was hidden behind a vail, and now I take it again, a twin event bound by the inevitability of fate.

O: Why do you stand behind me my lord Hamlet. I am afeared of you and the night. If my father be truly dead why do you lay him at my feet? Should he not be rested on a dias, cleaned and cleansed and offered to God?

H: His soul will rot with yours. Impurity handed down father to daughter, brother to sister, husband to wife.

O: Oh please make sense. I am not impure I swear! I have kept myself cloistered despite your importatons of love and desire as you well know.

H: All women are impure. A wife will mourn a husband for less than a minute before bedding his brother. An uncle becomes a father in the breath of a moment, and only the moon shall see.

O: No, my lord. My chastity is a fortress to only be breached upon the oaths of love and fidelity.

H: I told you to vouchsafe your husband, yet you did not.

O: What husband? I don’t understand.

H: I asked you to refuse his bed and honour your true lover, the dead man. I told you to seek the protection of abstinence, to take on the habit of the maidens of Christ. Yet here you are, beckoning sin and desire

O: I beckon nothing my lord. I am here in my bedchamber, the place honour and duty and the hour require me to be. It is you who have breached the walls of propriety and lodged an offensive on my honour. As well, you lay before me the body of my sole protector in this land and affright me with you pacing and circling. You come ever nearer and I have nowhere to flee, no comfort or shelter to seek. Is my father truly dead? Surely he will awake and with the fury of the righteous make harm upon your person should you still linger here.

H: It is the eternal sleep, my sweet seductress. As you gown sways in the breeze and teases with the shadow of your promises, his soul flies to hide and he hid afore his death.