Ophelia me; we may call it herb of grace o' Sundays; O, you must wear your rue with a difference". Rue is well known for its symbolic meaning of regret, but the herb is also used to treat pain, bruises and has abortive qualities. In Act 4 Scene 7, Queen Gertrude reports that Ophelia had climbed into a willow tree ("There is a willow grows aslant the brook"), and that the branch had broken and dropped Ophelia into the brook, where she drowned. Gertrude says that Ophelia appeared "incapable of her own distress". Gertrude's announcement of Ophelia's death has been praised
Hamlet in performance the States, fathering the nation's most famous Hamlet and its most notorious actor: Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth. Charles Kemble initiated an enthusiasm for Shakespeare in the French: his 1827 Paris performance of "Hamlet" was viewed by leading members of the Romantic movement, including Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, who particularly admired Harriet Smithson's performance of Ophelia in the mad scenes. Edmund Kean was the first Hamlet to abandon the regal finery usually associated with the role in favour of a plain costume and to play Hamlet as serious and introspective. The actor-managers of the Victorian era (including Kean,