Ophelia Quotes

Then if he says he loves you,
It fits your wisdom so far to believe it
As he in his particular act and place
May give his saying deed; which is no further
Than the main voice of Denmark goes withal.
Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,
If with too credent ear you list his songs,
Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open
To his unmaster’d importunity.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3. Laertes warns Ophelia that she will stain her reputation if she gives up her virginity to Hamlet. When he speaks of opening her “chase treasure,” this is a metaphor for losing her prized and precious virginity. Ophelia’s brother is being misogynistic here as he puts the burden of shame on her and not Hamlet if she surrenders to Hamlet’s persistent seductions.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keep
As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3. We first meet Ophelia in this scene. Laertes has been warning her not to trust Hamlet’s romantic declarations. Using a metaphor, Ophelia promises to keep Laertes’ lesson “as watchman to my heart.” But she also deftly turns her brother’s religious advice back on him. For he is about to depart for study in Paris, a city full of moral temptations for a young man. Ophelia tells him not to preach like a hypocritical pastor, showing her the “thorny way to heaven” while himself treading the “primrose path” of pleasures. After warning her to keep her chastity, she tells him not to be a “puffed and reckless libertine.”

OPHELIA: I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
POLONIUS: Marry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby
That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay,
Which are not sterling.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3. In his attempts to control Ophelia and her relationship with Hamlet, Polonius ridicules his daughter. Using two metaphors, he compares her to a infant he has to teach and describes Hamlet’s “tenders” or expressions of affections as “not sterling” – not true silver coins. He tells Ophelia to put a higher value on herself when it comes to Hamlet or she will make her father look a fool. Polonius thinks he is being clever by punning in response to Ophelia’s use of “tenders” when she speaks of Hamlet’s letters of affection to her. On being confronted by her father’s bullying and the patriarchal misogyny of her brother Laertes, Ophelia feels that she lacks her own voice and even the ability to think.

Do not believe his vows; they are brokers,
Not of that dye which their investments show,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,
The better to beguile.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3. Using a complex metaphor and personification, Polonius urges his daughter not to take Hamlet’s professions of love seriously, because his words and pledges cannot be trusted. Polonius likens the prince’s vows to brokers acting on his behalf. He says that they may be dressed in good clothes and pretending to be holy. But the reality is that they are pimps (“bawds”), pleading their unholy case (“suits”), in order to deceive and charm Ophelia, Polonius claims. He is telling her that Hamlet just wants her for sex.

POLONIUS: I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment leisure,
As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.
Look to ‘t, I charge you: come your ways.
OPHELIA: I shall obey, my lord.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3. A bullying and overbearing Polonius gets his way when he orders his daughter not to spend another moment of her leisure time with Hamlet or even talk to him. Despite Ophelia’s assurances that Hamlet’s behavior to her has been completely honorable, she feels she must comply with her father’s command. We see a father who is completely insensitive to a daughter’s feelings. This is foreshadowing of how he will later be only too willing to use Ophelia as bait to spy on Hamlet for King Claudius.

My lord, as I was sewing in my closet,
Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced;
No hat upon his head; his stockings foul’d,
Ungarter’d, and down-gyved to his ancle;
Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other;
And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors, – he comes before me.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 1. Ophelia is frightened when Hamlet suddenly entered her room in a disheveled condition. She doesn’t know what to do and expresses concern about Hamlet’s strange behavior to her father Polonius. Her reliance on Polonius reinforces the idea that she is dependant on male figures and does not have the ability to think for herself. Polonius tells her Hamlet is mad with love.

This is the very ecstasy of love.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 1. Polonius to Ophelia, speaking about Hamlet’s crazy love, after he burst into Ophelia’s chamber half dressed and frantic. Polonius says that his daughter’s rejection of Hamlet has left him mad and they must report this to the King. For a man who prides himself on his superior insights and and his clever stratagems, it is an irony that Polonius is immediately taken in by Hamlet’s pretence of madness because of lovesickness.

With devotion’s visage
And pious action we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. Polonius tells Ophelia that we use the appearance of religious devotion and piety to mask the evil within ourselves. He is giving a prayer book to Ophelia to read, demanding that she pretend to read it for an encounter with Hamlet. Claudius has sent for Hamlet, who will “accidentally” run into Ophelia. The plan is for Polonius and Claudius to hide behind a tapestry to spy on Hamlet, hoping to learn if his strange behavior is because he is sick with love. Polonius is at his hypocritical and deceitful best here, playing the misogynist who cynically uses his daughter for his own ends to ingratiate himself with the King. This is after earlier ordering Ophelia to end her relationship with Hamlet.

Are you honest?…
Are you fair?…
For the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to be a bawd…
I did love you once.

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. Hamlet to Ophelia, asking her if she is pure and beautiful. He says that the power of beauty is more likely to change a good girl into a whore, and adds that he used to love her. He is very insulting to Ophelia’s chastity. This is an example of dramatic irony, as Hamlet is really venting his anger towards his mother Gertrude, being disgusted by the process of love and marriage, and believing that beauty corrupts virtue. The cruel and cynical outburst to Ophelia is misdirected here, she is being used by all the men in the scene, her father Polonius, Claudius and by Hamlet to vent his frustrations towards his mother.

O, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!
The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers!

– William Shakespeare

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. Ophelia says this when Hamlet leaves the stage after his "Get thee to a nunnery" speech. She is convinced that he is mad and she mourns the downfall of one of Denmark’s most promising young men. In bewailing the lost of such a "noble mind," her own descent into madness is being foreshadowed. Ophelia’s speech is poignantly ironic. Having no inkling of Hamlet’s true motivations for his cruelty, mocking and rejection of her, nor any idea of the real reason for his madness, she sings his praises as a soldier, scholar and courtier.
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