The Confession of Horatio
This is season mad with love. The Moon
descants her silvered raving humors to
the air and black contagion stalks the night.
Strange sights portend imaginations in
my heart. One midnight watch I stood with eyes
amazed and saw.......I dare not say, but tremble
as I cross myself and pray our Savior
near. Fantastic sights may show a mind
askew with grief or be the pose of demons
set to bind a soul. What passes here?
The truths of apparitions are not known
until their deeds are done. Men quiver
in anticipation of their horrid certain
fates. In oily undulating midnight
swells, the slow dark passions whisper through
the faltering sails and unwound rigging as
the squatting hulk of Denmark flounders near
the shoals. Tied to the spars the blind men sleep,
but even men with wakeful eyes refuse
to see. Deception steers her course against
the stars, and churning mad desires shear
her hull.
These frail complicities of love
bear light and dark: our youthful new delights,
their ruddy lusts; and I must carefully
bestride the dusk. The duties of a friend
and subject oftentimes conflict; to both
I owe allegiances. The better mark
of Hamlet draws my love though he is now
deposed by darker dreams, but God and law
command my duty to the Crown. Forbear?
I cannot draw the line or let my duty
slide.
In Wittenberg we were secure
in truth. We bore the cloistered care of saplings
groomed within a sunny grove. The clear
fresh mornings of our minds bowed to the gentle
zephyrs of our whimsy. There our rules
were books and play. We sought the new found light
of knowledge from our elders and we dreamt
of young, soft lips. But now the world is changed.
The gauzy veil of innocence is drawn
aside, and we perceive the chaos and
confusion that command the hearts of men.
This was a burden borne with brief facades
of mirth. The players histrionic scenes
descried reality. Their mummery
revealed a growing shadow of deceit:
A King is dead; long live the King. And though
she is a widow, yet the Queen is made
a bride. Necessity has set aside
her ashen mourning face for scarlet lips
and slender, blushing neck. Their seeming joy
forgets despair, and Hamlet wanders through
these darkened halls confused by slandered love.
He can not right his mind, but like a wounded
animal seeks blind revenge by lashing
out at all who happen to come near.
Ophelia. That tender flower of
a child to whom he did profess his love,
was grossly chastened by his mad, hot words.
She was a foil poorly used to twist
the truth of madness from the Prince. As such
she withered in the blast of his offense,
and then was further crushed when Hamlet by
fierce accident did kill the precious fool,
Polonious. Then poor Ophelia wandered
with a ragged mind and ragged heart
amid the madmen and the traitors of
this house. Laertes returned from France,
but he could offer only small recourse.
His blood too hot for vengeance; his mind
not clear, and I have proved to be a dull
wit when I act in her regard for I
am tangled in emotion when I find
myself embraced, as I imagine, by
the blue translucent crystal of her eyes.
Her innocence shone through to cast upon
this vulgar world the fragile beauty of
her simple yet sublime perfection found
within each gift she offers in her downcast
glance, her modest smile, or lightness of
her palm placed on an arm.
In search of love,
I deprecate myself. The elements
of love are lust and rapture and the airy
changeling moods of adoration and
despair. Love is a soft, sweet harshness of
a maladroit delight. All men may lust,
but love eludes the vagrant seeker of
desire who may touch a love, caress
a love, but never know the fullness of
her heart.
I am a fool! I am a fool
to be so moved from reason, to concede
my own desire to a fantasy,
for even then I could not comfort her!
She was the love of Hamlet and remained
beyond my touch though Hamlet sent her off,
and she was torn by love, and love, and grief.
Her tear-stained cheeks made sallow by her mourning
fade the rose-lit beauty of her youth,
and I must watch this foul perfidition
swirl about engulfing her.
I am
too moved from reason to discern the proper
balance that could keep my adoration
of her innocence from where a love
became an act of coveting. Is love
a sin when love is but a fantasy
of rapture visited in dreams
that are forbidden and dispersed to air
to mingle with the dark corruption of
the night? If men deny their dreams as sinful,
they forsake all hope and thus become
machines that gear and stumble through their empty
days. To dream a sinful dream and then
confess is truer to the human form
than dullard piety. But dreams of passion
can consume, destroy the dreamer by
the gross imbalance of his reason. What
purgation can restore a sinner to
his holy place? Confusion is an art
of man. Dissatisfaction, vanity,
desire render him a fool. A fool!
That has become a wearied, common word.
The world is full, and I have joined that school
of frantic, flopping fish, their red gills sucking
at the too thin air, their glazed eyes dully
baffled by the cold, pale moon; they drift
ashore to dry and reek beneath the sun.
Forgive me. Please. Not only are you caught
within my ambuscade of words, but my
deceit in love denies a faithfulness
deserved by all. Ophelia was my love----
unknown to all but me----and she is gone.
My sadness is that even in her death
I dare not stir the hearts of others with
my tears. Despair and anger quarrel for
a place to rip my heart. She, who in life
spread joy and care for others, now can find
no mercy in her death. For even though
her sins were few, they mar her purity
of soul and bar her from the light and grace
of God. She died unsanctified. Her death
is questioned as to her intent. Can there
be sin without the gift of reason? How
could God believe Ophelia chose to die?
The King requested that I follow and
protect her from her madness. This I failed
to do. A servant saw her wandering
the fields collecting flowers for a garland
a she sang her songs of disarray.
She picked some daisies first then laid them all
aside with pansies on the ground before
she walked away meandering without
a course and speaking to the air. Afraid
to come too close, yet curious of madness,
he observed her aimless stumbling as
she stooped for columbine, and rosemary,
and rue to weave with nettles all about
her neck. And as she walked, she plucked the small
blue blossoms from a fist of rosemary
and one-by-one she loosed the blossoms to
a sad and wandering trail.
Reluctantly,
the servant told his tale. He bowed in low
obeisance, trembling with the fearful weight
of knowing what he saw. He clutched his soft
brown cap, his eyes averted from his Queen
until permitted by her voice of kindness
first to rise and then to speak. His grey
lips quivered nervously. His tongue was stiff.
His thick voice caught inside his throat as if
he could not force the words beyond his lips
but with a rattled sigh he rolled the thick
words out of how Ophelia slowly crossed
the fields down to a small, swift stream.
She walked
along the muddy bank until she came
to where a sudden swirl of dark brown water
undercut a sandy bank to form
a quiet pool surrounded by the slender
trunks of poppel growing from the brake.
A single dying willow stretched a naked
limb above the water where a few
bright water lilies float. She found a fallen
willow branch and awkwardly leaned out
above the glassy surface, but she failed
to draw the nearest lily to the shore.
Then squatting in the mud she gripped a tuft
of yellow grass and with her free hand tried
to push the stick a little closer to
the tantalizing bloom, but once again
the stick splashed uselessly. Her hands slipped from
the grass. She reeled and stumbled almost falling
headlong in the pond, but once again
her hand sunk to her wrist in mud. She jerked
herself upright to stand again, her arms
wrapped tight around her shoulders as she keened
and moaned a pitiful thin cry. She sobbed
and muttered madness, rocking side-to-side,
and sang a snatch of sordid trilling nonsense
fluttering through the air.
The servant said
he stood apart some distance, fearful of
the strength that madness oftentimes bestows
upon the slightest frame. No clement breeze
disturbed the still, warm air. The poppels slanted
at the water's edge. The old grey willow
gently dipped a few green leaves into
the pond. The sun slid to the west in early
afternoon, but even in the warmth
the servant said the wildness of her cry
so chilled his soul, that as he told his story
to his Queen, he shuddered as he spoke.
Ophelia gripped her her shoulders tight. She held
a great confusion in her arms. Her hands
were clenched behind her neck, her elbows spread
to either side. With some great hidden effort
first she arched her back then stiffly stood
in silence gazing out across the pond,
beyond the shore, above the trees, and with
a glassy stare of pale blue eyes, beyond
the far and brilliant blue of sky. A new
sound floated in the air, at first just barely
audible, a humming in her throat.
It was a churlish tune, repeating in
refrain until it rose beyond her lips
to tease the servant's ears for he was only
just within the reach of sound to hear
her trembling words that softly pierced the air.
It was an old and vulgar song. The servant
blushed when he recalled the words before
his Queen and how Ophelia changed the words.
She took the withered garland from her neck.
The leaves and petals softly sifted to
the mud and as she reached to hang her twining
flowers on the willow branch, her foot
slipped in the mud. The garland caught the branch
as frantically she tried to grab the tree.
Her hands slid from the the smooth, grey wood, and as
she tumbled in the pond. Her clothing billowed
out and caught the air, and for awhile,
for a short and swiftly passing breath
of time that hung within the still warm air;
she floated like a wondrous water nymph
enchanting beauty on the pond. The current
slowly turned her from the bank. She turned
so lazily away. Her white feet grazed
the rushes near the shore. Her hair fanned out
in drifting golden strands. The moment slowly
saturated time. And as she turned,
she lay upon the water gazing far
above into the slowly drifting clouds.
And as she drifted from the pond into
the stream, she softly sang such lively tunes
of nonsense that her clear thin voice soon filled
the air, and from the brush the hidden sparrows
twittered in reply. She turned again,
her feet into the stream. The current snatched
an edge of cloth and spilled the buoyant air.
Without a sound, she rolled into the waves
and disappeared. The surface of the pond
regained the smooth composure of the sky.
The stream flowed quietly with just the gentle
sound of water flowing back upon
itself, and somewhere in the distance, in
the trees, the thin high chirr of unseen insects
rose to a sharp crescendo, then as quickly
died away. The rosemary enmeshed
in nettles swayed upon the branch. The petals
withered in the sun.
The servant carried
her to court, a sagging lump of swollen
rags and flesh, and where he laid her down
a dark stain oozed away across the floor.
her eyes were open, grey and dull. Her hair
clung to her face and draped across her shoulders
to the floor, all dark and tangled with
a string of water weed. He laid her down.
Her head rolled back, lolled to the side, and water
spilled from out her slack, black lips and purple
nose. There was no beauty left in her.
Death followed death and death now rules this house.
This blood. This foul peace upon the River's
edge where all who I have loved have crossed
and I am left to bear the sisyphus
of grief. I changed the world! My duty bore
the ignorance of love and by my love
were all impaled by love upon my words.
I set the course of action into pace.
There are no demons in this world to prod
the evil and misguided acts of men.
Chance plots a course amid the vagaries
of wills that chart the frail absurdities
of life. The days have passed that led away
from joy. And though he has escaped through death,
he has bequeathed his curse to me to set
upon the world his memory of woe,
a burden borne far greater than my death.
The brilliant days of youth fade to a dull
and seamless grey. The palling Sun lies cooled.
Days drift away to settle into night.
The vespered air will waft away the long
last echo of this quavering thin voice.
The rest is silence, cast beneath the stars.
3/31/01
rev.2/15/02
rev.1/25/03
rev.3/24/12
rev. 2/19/13
rev. 10/7/13
(This story originated with Ophelia as the central character but was taken over by Horatio as the revisions progressed.)