The beautiful Ophelia becomes insane after her father's death, and wanders about the castle singing disjointed love songs and uttering musings.
_"How should I your true love know From another one? By his cockle hat and staff And his sandal shoon."_
_"They say the owl was a banker's daughter; Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be."_
Laertes returns from France and finds his sister insane from grief over the loss of her father, and viewing this innocent wreck parading palace halls, exclaims:
_"Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia! O heavens! is it possible a young maid's wits Should be as mortal as an old man's life?"_
_"They bore him barefaced on the bier; Hey no nonny, nonny hey nonny; And in his grave rained many a tear-- Fare you well, my dove!"_
Holding a spray of flowers in her hands she fitfully plucks them and murmurs:
_"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; Pray you, love, remember; And there is pansies, that's for thoughts; There's fennel for you, and columbines; There's rue for you, and here's some for me; We may call it herb of grace on Sunday; O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy; I would give you some violets-- But they withered all when my father died!"_
Hamlet and his party in sailing for England encounter a war-like pirate ship, and in the fight and grapple Hamlet alone is taken prisoner and his keepers go to destruction.
He suddenly appears at Elsinore, and goes to the churchyard, where a grave is being prepared for Ophelia, who was drowned in a garden stream in her mad ramblings.
Hamlet converses philosophically with the grave diggers about the bones, skulls and greatness of a politician, courtier, lady, lawyer, tanner; and when the skull of the old king's jester is thrown out of the grave after a sleep of twenty-three years, Hamlet, speaking to Horatio, says:
_"Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, Horatio; A fellow of infinite jest, of most Excellent fancy, he hath borne me On his back a thousand times, and now How abhorred in my imagination It is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung Those lips that I have kissed, I know not How oft. Where be your gibes now, your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, That were wont to set the table in a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning! Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, And tell her, let her paint an inch thick, To this favor she must come; Make her laugh at that!"_