When Othello is brooding over the supposed delinquencies of Desdemona, tortured by commingled love and hate, in his wrath he strikes her. Afterwards he demands: "Let me see your eyes; look in my face"; and as she does so, and he searches there for her innocence and finds it not, he bitterly adjures her: "Swear thou art honest," though all the while assured that she is "false as hell." And he weeps and laments over her at the very moment that he determines upon an eternal separation. Othello's interview with Desdemona and this interview of Hamlet's with Ophelia are identical in outline, and they differ in detail only as the character of the two men differ. Shakespeare has told us in words that Othello is jealously suspicious of Desdemona, and with equal faithfulness he has depicted jealous suspicion in the acts of Hamlet.
This mute interview between Hamlet and Ophelia reminds one of the "Dumb Shew," which precedes the scene from the drama of 'Gonzago's Murder'; and as in the latter instance the Duke and Duchess afterwards put into words the thoughts which the pantomime foreshadows, so on examination will this be found to be the case in the second interview between Hamlet and Ophelia, which immediately follows upon his great soliloquy.
This second interview concludes Scene i of Act III in Quarto II and in the Folios, but in Quarto I it is in Act II, and logically it belongs there. Act I of 'Hamlet' was designed to disclose the relation of the several characters to each other, and the command imposed on Hamlet to avenge his Father's death upon the King; and Act II was originally intended to exhibit Hamlet erratically making ready to obey the Ghost's command, and the various artifices which the King employs to detect his hidden purpose. When Ophelia tells her father of Hamlet's wordless interview with her, Polonius promptly goes to the King with the story of their amours and his termination of them, and with the announcement that Hamlet is mad for his daughter's love; and, after hearing his reasons for this opinion, being impressed by them, naturally the first thought of the King is: "How may we try it further?" To this Polonius replies: "I'll loose my daughter to him" during one of his walks in the gallery here, whilst you and I, unseen but seeing, will witness their encounter. In Quarto I the meeting between Hamlet and Ophelia follows at once, and when it fails Polonius undertakes to board him, and when that fails Rosencrantz and Guildenstern assay him. Afterwards Shakespeare saw fit to change the order of these scenes, but this particular scene may properly be considered now, and before others which it logically precedes.
In the interpretation of this interview, as of the former, commentators have been misled by the assumption that it is in some way connected with Hamlet's mission of revenge, and consequently they have found it, as has been suggested, a veritable pons asinorum. Apart from the three theories above referred to, there is an attempt to explain it on the hypothesis that when Hamlet meets Ophelia in the palace, whither he has been sent for by the King for the express purpose of meeting her, but "as 'twere by accident," he at once suspects the ruse, and therefore talks in the extraordinary manner recorded of him; that is, that he is rude and brutal, and refuses to yield to his feelings of affection, in order to deceive the King, who he well knows is within hearing, or to punish Ophelia, who he is assured is spying on him. But this theory seems to be wholly without support in the text. In the first place, there is not a word which indicates that he suspects the King's presence, and, on the contrary, the delivery of the soliloquy, the admission that he is revengeful and ambitious, and the covert threat to kill the King, all tend to prove that he does not suspect it. Further, such a suspicion could reasonably originate only in the fact that the King had sent for him, and that instead of the King he found Ophelia, but it is to be remembered that in Quarto I the King does not send for him, and that the meeting is in fact accidental. Conceding the suspicion, however, for argument's sake, whilst it might induce Hamlet to be reticent or cautious in his speech, it does not explain why Shakespeare put into his mouth the denunciatory language he employs, and this is after all the vital question. It cannot have been in order to deceive the King by concealing his love for Ophelia, for such concealment must necessarily undeceive him; the King, Queen, and Polonius are all deluded into believing him mad for Ophelia's love, and this test is expected to confirm them in it; but we know that in fact the King is undeceived, for his comment is: "Love! His affections do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness." Were he profuse in his protestations of love, the King might indeed be deceived into believing that it is not his conduct, but Ophelia's, which troubles Hamlet; for herein the situation differs from that narrated by Belleforest, the lady there being a mere vulgar temptress, whose preconcerted blandishments Hamlet shrewdly refuses to yield to. As for Ophelia's spying on him, it is untenable; for she also expects that Hamlet will exhibit affection for her, and, were he to do so, instead of betraying his secret, she would aid him in concealing it. It seems plain from his inquiry that Hamlet sees Polonius during the interview, but it is not probable that he believes Ophelia to be cognizant of his presence; her answer is a denial of such knowledge, and Hamlet's succeeding sarcastic speech is meant for the conscience of Polonius, not for hers. The worst that he could say to her is said before the discovery of her father, and before her falsehood, and hence the discovery and the falsehood do not serve to explain it. Nothing can explain it satisfactorily, but Hamlet's conviction that she has transferred her affections to the King.
After Hamlet has for some time been in the King's chamber, whether it is with or without the King's request, he meets Ophelia there, and he finds her apparently waiting for some one, and whiling away the time by reading. So it has been pre-arranged, and so it seems to him. Plainly she has not been waiting for him, for, though he himself has been waiting, she has not addressed him, and in the end he first accosts her. Indeed, it has been planned that their meeting shall seem to him to be "by accident," and, so seeming, the idea of her waiting for him is precluded. Hence to him, already suspicious of her integrity, she must have come to meet the King. But he has before this been convinced of such an intrigue, as above shown, and because of it has renounced her; and accordingly he petitions her lightly, if not ironically: "Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd." Their meeting is on the same day as, or certainly not more than one day later than, the speechless interview; but Ophelia ignores that, and ignores his petition also, and inquires into the state of his health "for this many a day,"--that is, since Polonius has separated them,--to which he responds gravely, and without show of affection. Thereupon ensues the following conversation:
"Oph. My lord, I have remembrances of yours
That I have longed long to redeliver;
I pray you now receive them.
"Ham. No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
"Oph. My honor'd lord, you know right well you did, And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd As made the things more rich. Their perfume lost, Take them again; for to the noble mind Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind."
It seems clear that Ophelia returns these remembrances in pursuance of her father's orders, express or implied; that Hamlet repudiates them because, proud and sensitive, he would blot their old associations from his memory; and that Ophelia insists on their return with a sad and tender recollection of those music-vows of love that he has made so often. But why she should accuse him of unkindness towards her is not so clear, since it is she who has broken off their intimacy. Her meaning is not doubtful in Quarto I, where this reference to Hamlet's unkindness follows upon his comments on her honesty, and evidently refers to them. But in Quarto II Shakespeare changes the order of the conversation, and so apparently intends to make Ophelia's suggestion of unkindness refer to Hamlet's visit to her closet. Hence he had not only frightened her at that interview, as she informed her father, but he had hurt her, she realizes that he had renounced her, and in this gentle way she now upbraids him. But Hamlet, wrought to sudden fury by the reminiscence, like Othello, can see nothing but the supposed wrong which she has done him, and, like Othello, charges her with unchastity, without indicating the suspected man:
"Ham. Ha, ha! are you honest?