Ophelia's Flowers

There are two websites that I found to be the best for understanding Ophelia's flower speech.

"There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thoughts. There's fennel for you, and columbines. -There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We may call it 'herb of grace' o' Sundays. -Oh, you must wear your rue with a difference. -There's a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died."

Both of these sites give good explanations of the symbolism behind the flowers she was talking about. The first site is from a teacher who created an outline all about Ophelia's flowers and the second is a newsletter article. The newsletter article also discusses the reasoning behind Ophelia using flowers in her speech. The article states that her reasoning was that she could speak out and make the King and Queen feel regret and guilt without actually accusing them of anything, because in that time period, people were afraid and cautious of what they said because they could be put to death for it.

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:q5vsgnWrltgJ:www.athensacademy.org/teachers/asweetapple/Sample%2520Outline.doc+www.athensacademy.org+ophelias+flowers&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg_J0nd4fQur-q9k-JEDTRUZXADjmnB5O-ndpeM4QWa3kM_PvwL8CzafCMcxymoIUSVKO6-VCmCBeskRjNzeZPU_QBIzHL36azpwsBaoL_ak6C2xWFtF7kEtxLLGX1HFPMi8aBf&sig=AHIEtbSuH9n_ZEUnCqJZsXsbMUyhXlDETA

http://www.huntingtonbotanical.org/Rose/Subrosa/Subrosa14.pdf