OPHELIA        [aside] Heavenly powers restore him.

HAMLET         I have heard of your paintings well enough. God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t. It hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriage. Those that are married already – all but one – shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go!       Exit.     (3.1.140-148)

And all Ophelia can do, it seems, is to pray, aghast: heavenly powers restore him. Oh, bring him back to himself! She’s frightened, bewildered, perhaps angry. But Hamlet has one final go, a misogynistic rant which can be delivered, cruelly, directly to Ophelia, but which seems to be more generalised satire too, and skews, perhaps, towards his mother. I have heard of your paintings well enough. Women wear make-up! (This can be given a particular charge if Ophelia is manifestly bare-faced.) God hath given you one face and you make yourselves another! You deface God’s creation, you dissemble, you’re hypocritical! (Cosmetics, of course, associated with Bad Women, but also with hypocrisy and a kind of wilful ignorance, an attempt to deny or defy mortality and time.) You jig and amble and you lisp, trip around, wiggling your hips, thinking you’re being seductive, trying to look innocent; you try to sound childish and cute. (Hamlet might imitate this here; again, if Ophelia’s been nothing like this, it’s especially cruel, and also mad.) You nickname God’s creatures—you have pets! you give them cute names! you have cutesy nicknames for people too!—and make your wantonness ignorance, being all flirty and seductive and then pretending you don’t know what you’re doing, had no idea, didn’t mean that sort of thing at all. (Hell, Hamlet, who hurt you? Not Ophelia, almost certainly. Someone’s been spending far too much time online. But it’s sad and pathetic as well as troubling and infuriating, this spewing out of generic hate, this making out that it’s ALL HER FAULT. Plus ça change…)

Go to, I’ll no more on’t. I’m not having it. I’ve had enough. It hath made me mad. (Indeed, that’s true, at least.) I say we will have no more marriage. Ah. Is this about Ophelia—has that been the expectation, marriage? (In some productions, yes.) Her expectation, or that of them both? But it’s also making clear that this is about Gertrude, and Claudius. Those that are married already—all but one—shall live. I’ll make an exception for people who are already married—they can survive my murderous, righteous rage—except Claudius, obviously. (That might be just for the eavesdroppers, but it’s ominous; if it is directed at Claudius, it suggests Hamlet becoming a bit more controlled and intentional—but it’s always still moot as to how much this is a properly mad outburst, venting all his pain and (self-) disgust at Ophelia, how much it’s performance.) The rest shall keep as they are; everyone else must remain single, you and me both. To a nunnery, go! And with that exhausted, odd parting shot, Hamlet finally leaves, leaving behind anguish, confusion, perhaps rage.