Death of Ophelia by Eugene Delacroix

Ophelia is a character in the tragedy of William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,” Hamlet’s lover. On the eve of her death, Ophelia had a long, difficult conversation with Hamlet, returned all the presents to him, which made him very angry. As a result of this stormy conversation, Ophelia decided that Hamlet had gone mad.

Going out to her father, she said: “What charm has the mind perished, the connection of knowledge, eloquence…”

Later, when Ophelia learned that Hamlet had killed her father Polonius, she herself had gone insane. Then everyone will know that Ophelia perished: “… She hung out her wreaths, the cunning bitches broke, and herbs, and she herself fell into a sobbing stream.” Her clothes, stretched out, carried her like a nymph, while she sang fragments of songs, as if she did not sense the woes or was a creature born in the elements of water, so could not last, and the attire, heavily drunk, miserable from the sounds carried away into the quagmire of death. “

This is one of the most poetic descriptions of death in English literature. Shakespeare does not say exactly what caused the death – either it was an accident or she committed suicide, so the death of Ophelia has been the subject of endless disputes for many centuries.