..."
Maddened with jealousy he sees the act, scourges himself with his own
lewd imagining as Posthumus scourges himself. No one ever felt this
intensity of jealous rage about a mother or a sister. The mere idea is
absurd; it is one's own passion-torture that speaks in such words as I
have here quoted.
Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia, too, and his advice to her are all the
outcome of Shakespeare's own disappointment:
"Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners?"
We all expect from Hamlet some outburst of divine tenderness to Ophelia;
but the scenes with the pure and devoted girl whom he is supposed to
love are not half realized, are nothing like so intense as the scenes
with the guilty mother. It is jealousy that is blazing in Shakespeare at
this time, and not love; when Hamlet speaks to the Queen we hear
Shakespeare speaking to his own faithless, guilty love. Besides, Ophelia
is not even realized; she is submissive affection, an abstraction, and
not a character. Shakespeare did not take interest enough in her to give
her flesh and blood.
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