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“Ower Swete Sokor”: The Role of Ophelia in Hamlet

1980; Western Michigan University; Volume: 14; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/cdr.1980.0001

1936-1637

Cherrell Guilfoyle,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

“Ower Swete Sokor”: The Role of Ophelia in Hamlet Cherrell Guilfoyle The virtuous disguise of evil in woman is described most bitterly by Shakespeare in King Lear (IV.vi.120-29) : “Behold yond simpering dame/ Whose face between her forks presages snow . . ./ But to the girdle do the gods inherit,/ Beneath is all the fiends’.” If she can be separated from sexual considera­ tions, for example in royalty or in comedy, woman can appear on a level with, if not equal to, man; but where his feelings are most deeply aroused, in love and veneration, or in lust and frustration, die writer finds her angel or devil, separately or interchangeably. In the opening cantos of The Faerie Queened Spenser presents the two pictures of woman which combine in a potent myth in the literature of all ages: the pure, young, innocent Una, characterized by her name, and her exact phy­ sical duplicate, who is, behind the façade, a filthy fiend. This sinister figure is later presented as Fidessa/Duessa, but in her first appearance she usurps the fair form of Una, the one truth. In one of the fragments of Euripidean tragedy, there is the saying “Woman brings to man the greatest possible succour, and the greatest possible harm.”2 The words for “greatest pos­ sible succour” are ophelian . . . megistan. Ophelia’s name links her to the idea of succor; “ower swete sokor” was a phrase used of Mary Magdalen in the Digby Magdalen play. In different ways, Ophelia and Magdalen embody the “angel/devil” dichotomy of woman, and the figure of Magdalen appears in the imagery of Ophelia’s scenes through­ out Hamlet. Conventions in Shakespeare are often hidden, because in his hands they do not appear conventional, but if the strands of the Magdalen legends are examined, it can be seen that many of them are woven into Ophelia’s words and 3 4 Comparative Drama actions. These images reflect Shakespeare’s preoccupation, not with the horrific figure described by Lear, but with innocence or good faith mistaken—for example, Desdemona mistaken by Othello, Hermione by Leontes, Imogen by Posthumus, Cordelia by Lear—and Ophelia by Hamlet. The young woman in the Saxo and Belleforest versions of the Hamlet story was not vir­ tuous (and not, of course, called Ophelia); Shakespeare changes this into the figure which seems to have haunted him. The tragic mistake is explicit in The Tragedy of Hoffmann, a crude revenge play which borrows much from Hamlet and may have been commissioned on the heels of Hamlet’s success. Mathias describes the innocent Lucibella thus: “Shee is as harlots, faire, like guilded tombs/ Goodly without; within all rottenness . . . Angel in show,/ Divell in heart.”3 In The Faerie Queene, angel and devil are presented in simple allegorical form, as two different figures that look the same. The Red Cross Knight abandons Una, because he assumes that the girl he finds in flagrante dilectu is his virgin fallen. In Hamlet, the duality is used differently, but basically the same thing happens. Hamlet abandons Ophelia, maligning her in the most brutal terms, because he assumes her to be corrupt or, at the least, on the first step downwards. Archimago creates the false Una; Hamlet, on this occasion as on others, combines the roles of hero and villain in creating for himself his false Ophelia. He, like the Red Cross Knight, is mistaken; but his mistake is not retrieved. The presentation of the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia at first seems contradictory. In Act I.iii Polonius and Laertes warn Ophelia that Hamlet’s wooing may not be honor­ able, and she is instructed to avoid his importunities. It should be noted that his wooing is of recent date: “He hath my Lord of late made many tenders/ Of his affection to me.” But in Act Ill.i, she appears as the neglected mistress and reproaches Hamlet for his coldness. This may be an inconsistency, but it may alternatively reflect a major change in Hamlet. Between the picture of the ardent young lover given by Ophelia to her father, and Hamlet’s bitter comments to her father (Il.ii. 18Iff) and to herself (ni.i.l03ff...