You weren’t always frail, but pneumonia took your strength from you. As children you and Iris would run wild, chasing each other through the fields of Marcella, stealing apples, shooting tins with pistols, your shrill children’s laughter blending together. You used to think that maybe you would be the one to marry her when you grew up. Such foolish notions. You probably could have. But not in this reality.

-

Having spent most of your youth studying the arts of poetry, fencing, diplomacy, and dancing, you are on the surface the perfect image of a young noble. It was a charming, but boring existence with the servants of God, and dreams of escaping and experiencing the raw realities of life outside were never far away.

-

Unsure if your friends, fans, and lovers care about the real you or if they care about the person you are pretending to be, you are terrified of letting go and being less than perfect. Eternally the damsel in distress, you fear the day when no one will come to your rescue.

- texts for Inside Hamlet 2017

Arthur Hughes Ophelia (first version)