The scene depicted is from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act IV, Scene vii, in which Ophelia, driven out of her mind when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, falls into a stream and drowns:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Tate UK
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element; but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
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The Story of Ophelia at Tate UK
Sir John Everett Millais at smarthistory
Thanks for Visiting 🙂
~Sunnyside
At Sunnyside - Where Truth and Beauty Meet 
Thats a very beautiful paint. The colors matching the scene as well as the point of the story. Very talented painter.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts, janicetv. 🙂
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A tragedy all round. Fabulous painting however.
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Yes…a sad story. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Vivienne.
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I used to have, and may still have, a note card with this painting on it. I might even have got it at the Tate in the 1990s.
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Thanks for visiting, Steve. 🙂
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Fascinating.
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Thanks for visiting, Anna. 🙂
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