A Dictionary of Shakespearian Quotations

Every human feeling, answered by Shakespeare: an 1892 dictionary that files the Bard's best lines under the passions they express — from Ambition to Woe.

HomeO › Ophelia Drowning

Ophelia Drowning: Quotations from Shakespearian Quotations

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; 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. There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds Clamb'ring to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies, and herself, Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide; And mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up: Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes; As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and endu'd Unto that element: 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. H. IV.7
← OpennessOpinion →