GERTRUDE                I shall obey you.

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness. So shall I hope your virtues

Will bring him to his wonted way again

To both your honours.

OPHELIA                    Madam, I wish it may. [Exit Gertrude.]        (3.1.36-41)

I shall obey you: there can be a considering pause before she says this, even a sense of a slight begrudgingness or suspicion? or, equally, complete acquiescence; Gertrude too desperately wants to know what’s going on with Hamlet and (far more than Claudius) to help him. Obey recalls the wedding vows that she has all too recently made, too.

Then follows one of Gertrude’s very, very few exchanges with Ophelia: this is a play in which women almost never speak to each other. And for your part, Ophelia—she’s being kind, solicitous, using her name (Polonius tends to refer to Ophelia as ‘my daughter’)—I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause of Hamlet’s wildness. More than anything, I hope that you’re the reason why Hamlet’s so out of sorts. I like you, you’re a sweet girl—and incidentally I don’t have a problem with the two of you seeing each other, not at all (there could be a glance at Polonius here). (But she too is in a way blaming Ophelia, making this all her fault. Ophelia’s already worried enough that this is the case.) So shall I hope your virtues will bring him to his wonted way again to both your honours. It’d be great if you could fix him, really great! Wouldn’t it? You’d like that, wouldn’t you? No pressure. And it’s meant to be supportive, loving even, towards this motherless, brotherless, anxious (or resentful) young woman—but it’s just adding another kind of coercion and responsibility, in the guise of solidarity and reassurance. There is an unhappy man here, and as a woman it’s your job to make it better, because it might in fact be your fault in the first place.

What can Ophelia say, but madam, I wish it may. And she can believe that, even as she fears and resents it.