Celia Jia
English II Honours, G Block, Mr. Parauda
22/10/2010
Farewell! Sweet maid
- Scene depicting the death of Ophelia
The meadow is without doubt pretty, even at this bleak hour of the night. The soft grass was of a lovely shade of emerald green, and felt plush to her, a downy cradle as she wondered through, her bare feet sank to the ankles. Yet she was oblivious to the bitter cold and the stinging pain, seeing that amid the glossy lawn did wild blossoms adorn, their hues further beautified beneath the silver moonlight. She held open her arms as she broke into a hastened pace, wrenching forcefully the buds from their innocent stems until a stream of broken pedals flowed from her fingers onto the trail behind, her long hair blew back by the chilling wind, tangled as the threads of Fortune.
Without any previous indications, she abruptly halted her hastened dance and regarded the crushed blooms that are still held between her hands. The pansies were in pieces, petals slipping away between her delicate fingers just like her distracted thoughts. Yet the stubborn purple of rosemary held tightly together, unable to be broken, impossible to be forgotten. Even with her distorted reason she mocked at the nature's irony, raising her arms high to the heavens. Then she released the mangled gifts of Flora, allowing them to swirl freely back to the earth of where they come from. She danced in the rain of beauty in brevity, and did not cease her step until every last pedal has left the locks of her tangled hair.
"There with fantastic garlands did she come
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them"
She sang, her voice pure as the glassy water of the weeping brook.
And then, without warning, her foot landed in an icy puddle. She let out a piercing shriek, as she stumbled over her own skirts in an attempt to regain balance. She sat on the ground and watched the mud create patches of brown on her garment that once was purely white as the snow.
It is at this point another tune caught her distracted mind, and she gleefully raised her voice to the shining celestial above.
Beautiful rosemary once again caught her eye. She leapt to her feet at the alluring hues amethyst. She snatched them from their roots, and lifted them high for the sky to witness, her heart swelling with pride.
Then, still singing pieces of old hymns that she knew since childhood, she collected crow flowers, nettles and long purples as she so often did before. Ah, dead man's fingers, she cannot help but wonder, what shall come to us after the fateful arrival of the eternal rest? All this scholarly argument seems too much for her troubled reasons now. She would just find more wildflowers to add to the tints and hues, then dainty daisies to circle her wrists and fingers.
At last she stood. Fantastic garlands crowned her upheld head, flowing down her tangled locks as daisies and crown flower ringed her fingers. Her white garment is now tainted with patches of mud. She appeared an eerie beauty, a nymph of the forest. She returned to nothing but the prettiness of nature.
She flung out her arms, petals shaking loose in a small rainbow flurry, and threw her head back to face the silvery planet of Diana. The grass around her was trampled into the mud, some torn up with their innocent white roots exposed.
"There is a willow grows aslant a brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream"
This is when she made the fateful move of climbing the willow tree once more, an act she had not performed since childhood.
The tender willow bent under her weight, causing her flowers to fall into the glassy water beneath before drifting lazily away. Dappled fish flickered into view, nibbling curiously at the blooms.
She laughed. Tearing off a small branch, she poked at the quick creatures of the water without mercy, until they disappeared beneath the last remaining water lily, a glossy reminder of the summer dying away.
But she lost her balance, and failed to regain it as she cringed onto a limb of the delicate tree, the hem of her tattered garment dancing in the glassy stream.
The limb, already bent too close to the water, snapped.
"There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook."
The splash was very mild. Her dress fanned out in the current as it bore her up in a mermaid like fashion. She looked pure and beautiful, a spirit of nature, returning to the nature of where she came from.
"Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up"
She smiled sadly at the blossoms breaking free from her weedy trophy, singing farewell to them, and wishing them luck for the unknown journey ahead. But as the water was about to claim the beautiful rosemary, she snatched it violently and held it close to her heart with a fierce intensity.
As she sang she hardly noticed her skirts sinking gradually beneath the surface, and the clear icy water creeping up her limbs. After some time, her face was covered last, water filling into the corners of her mouth as she continued to sing to the flowers of memories held aloft.
"Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element"
At last, water unmercifully closed over her pale forehead, her fair hair finally sliding beneath the crystal surface, smoothly untangled by the weeping brook, like the threads of fate.
"but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death."
Her hand suddenly clenched onto the rosemary, in an attempt so desperate, shaking so violently that the amethyst petals fell from the emerald stem, and then gently released
it, as both slid lifelessly into the glassy stream.
The moonlight is bleak, generously offering its luminescence of beauty but no warmth as it casted its usual silvery pall over the glassy water. The tender willow bent its branches over the weeping brook, chanting its unique requiem in the breeze as nature welcomes home an innocent lost soul.