![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eden-saga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lady-of-shalott-by-waterhouse-1900x1140-1.png\" "\\"The")
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In the tragedy of Shakespeare, Ophelia Lady of Denmark is the fianc\u00e9e of Prince Hamlet. To avenge his father, Hamlet fakes madness. Ophelia takes it for granted. Driven mad for real, she throws herself into the river. Rimbaud drew from this account one of his most beautiful poems. He was 16 years old.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I<\/em><\/p>\n On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping<\/em> For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia<\/em> The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath<\/em> The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;<\/em> II<\/em><\/p>\n O pale Ophelia! beautiful as snow!<\/em> It was a breath of wind, that, twisting your great hair,<\/em> It was the voice of mad seas, the great roar,<\/em> Heaven! Love! Freedom! What a dream, oh poor crazed Girl!<\/em> III<\/em><\/p>\n – And the poet says that by starlight<\/em> Arthur Rimbaud, Recueil de Douai<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I learned this sublime poem when I was 12 years old. To illustrate it, what could be more appropriate than John William Waterhouse\u2019s painting? No canvas of Ophelia, old or modern, excites me as much as this Lady.<\/p>\n John William Waterhouse, (1849-1917), a British painter close to the Pre-Raphaelites, is known for his paintings inspired by mythology and literature.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The Lady of Shalott has haunted me since childhood. A large poster decorated my teenage bedroom. I exhumed it from a cardboard drawing it found its place in my old supper.<\/p>\n Under the subtle brush of Waterhouse, Lady Shalott makes a perfect Ophelia. English like Shakespeare, John William Waterhouse painted this painting in 1888, eighteen after young Arthur Rimbaud composed Ophelia.<\/p>\n Prince Hamlet is not an invention of Shakespeare. He ruled Denmark in the 8th century, while Camelot\u2019s gesture took place just two centuries earlier. The white dress of the young Lady evokes the long veils lily color of the poem of Rimbaud.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still due to the talent of Waterhouse, here she left the boat and slowly sinks towards her death. What could be more romantic than this medieval Lady? Besides painters, she inspired more than one English poet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) 1st Baron Tennyson, was one of the most famous British poets of the Victorian era.<\/span><\/p>\n Like other ancient poems \u2014 Sir Lancelot, Queen Guinevere<\/a>, Galahad \u2014 the poem recounts an Arthurian legend<\/a> freely inspired by medieval sources. And Arthur Rimbaud quentch his thirst at the same spring.<\/p>\n It is a river poem of 19 verses in three parts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On either side the river lie \n<\/p>\n There she weaves by night and day
\nWhite Ophelia floats like a great lily;<\/em>
\nFloats very slowly, lying in her long veils…<\/em>
\n– In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nHas passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.<\/em>
\nFor more than a thousand years her sweet madness<\/em>
\nHas murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nHer great veils rising and falling with the waters;<\/em>
\nThe shivering willows weep on her shoulder,<\/em>
\nThe rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nAt times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,<\/em>
\nSome nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;<\/em>
\n– A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYes child, you died, carried off by a river!<\/em>
\n– It was the winds descending from the great mountains of Norway<\/em>
\nThat spoke to you in low voices of better freedom.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBrought strange rumors to your dreaming mind;<\/em>
\nIt was your heart listening to the song of Nature<\/em>
\nIn the groans of the tree<\/a> and the sighs of the rocks<\/a>;<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThat shattered your child’s heart, too human and too soft;<\/em>
\nIt was a handsome pale knight, a poor madman<\/a><\/em>
\nWho one April morning sate mute at your knees!<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYou melted to him as snow does to a fire<\/a>; <\/em>
\nYour great visions strangled your words<\/em>
\n– And fearful Infinity terrified your blue eye!<\/em><\/p>\n
\nYou come seeking, in the night, the flowers that you picked<\/em>
\nAnd that he has seen on the water, lying in her long veils<\/em>
\nWhite Ophelia floating, like a great lily.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eden-saga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lady-of-shalott2-JWwaterhouse-iks24-900x1500-1.jpg\")
The Lady of Shalott, by Waterhouse<\/h4>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eden-saga.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/lady-of-shalott3-JWwaterhouse-iks24-900x1500-1.jpg\")
The bracelets she wears, the ornaments of the boat could stick with the epic of Arthur. If this lady isn\u2019t drowned yet, she\u2019s gonna jump in the water the next minute. Her desperate face and the leaning boat confirm this impression.<\/p>\nThe Lady of Shalott<\/a><\/span> by Tennyson<\/h4>\n
\nLong fields of barley and of rye,
\nThat clothe the wold and meet the sky;
\nTo many-tower’d Camelot;
\nAnd up and down the people go,
\nGazing where the lilies blow
\nRound an island there below,
\nThe island of Shalott.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nA magic web with colours gay.
\nShe has heard a whisper say,
\nA curse is on her if she stay
\nTo look down to Camelot.
\nShe knows not what the curse may be,
\nAnd so she weaveth steadily,
\nAnd little other care hath she,
\nThe Lady of Shalott.<\/em><\/p>\n
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