Hamlet Delivers A Discourse, Late, 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.; Thursday morning, June 1, 2023 at 10: 36 a.m.

—This poem is for my wife Kim Jung Sook Ryan, for reasons that the reader can discern in the following poem based upon events as they "play out" in William Shakespeare's HAMLET, the play which the English poet and playwright completed in 1599 A.D. and dedicated to his recently-deceased son, Hamnet.

How goes it, Horatio, these days with Ophelia?
I see her not; is she whole, holed up in her chambers
following my return of her tenders? I do love her yet
though I said no, not so to her face most recently.
I was 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
they trumpet out troubles, hers, a troubled mind for which
I am largely to blame, having deceived her, having killed
her father, and am now prepared 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. I have wasted time—if something
should happen to Ophelia, I—I want not to think on it;
she remains so dear to me, my soul. Horatio, make haste
to her, to chambers, tell her the truth—tell her I lied to spite
her. Reveal my true feelings to her. Do it now! Time is of
the essence, methinks. Now more than ever! I so worry
about what the king, his henchmen—the constabulary—will
do to her—plan her death—do it covertly—make it look like
an accident or a suicide—as is their wont—when it isn't,
cowards all, policing us to remain in power, using my mother Gertrude and other members of the court to have their way,
Claudius's. A perverse king withal! ‘Tis wormwood—all,
all bitter to my taste and thought. Events will play out, my
worse fears realized I fear less I act bravely against them …