A Late Development: Hamlet Delivers A Discourse To Horatio Voicing His Concern For Ophelia's Health And Welfare Poem by Dennis Ryan

Monday morning, May 22, 2023, from 8: 42 a.m. until 9: 10 a.m.; and again, at 9: 30 a.m.

—this poem is for my wife Kim Jung Sook Ryan

How goes it, Horatio, these days with Ophelia?
I see her not; she is holed up in her chambers
following the return of her tenders. I do love her
though I said not to her face most recently. I am
dealing left then right with her as happened before
at court with that previous lady, Isabel—my bad habits
based on my emotions of the moment which, I do
admit, require tempering. (Horatio, steadfast friend,
you remember Isabel, daughter of the Spanish duke?)
I do worry for Ophelia—there are reports issuing from
her maidservants that she cries most days now, is openly depressed, openly blaming the king for her present state
of affairs, that she numbers and names flowers, personifies them, gives them names like Patience and Fortitude, etc.
Weeps over them. Granted, these are just rumors, yet
such rumors trumpet out trouble, a troubled mind for which
I am largely to blame, having killed her father, and am now ready to do the same to her brother upon his return from Spain. (When was it, pray, that Isabel was dispatched back to the peninsula with all haste?) Wasted time. If something should happen to Ophelia, I—I want not to think on it; she remains
so dear to me, my soulmate. Horatio, make haste to her, to chambers, tell her the truth—tell her I lied to spite her that time. Reveal my true feelings. Do it now! Time is of the essence, methinks. Now not never! I so worry what the king might do.