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 (Thomas) triumph as Hamlet." The work was premiered at the Paris Opéra (Salle Le Peletier) on 9 March 1868. Among the noted singers in the original cast were Jean-Baptiste Faure as Hamlet and Christine Nilsson as Ophelia. The opera was staged, sung in Italian, at the Royal Italian Opera, Covent Garden (later the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden) in June 1869, with Nilsson as Ophelia and Charles Santley as Hamlet. "Hamlet" was Thomas's greatest success, along with "Mignon", and was further staged in Leipzig, Budapest, Brussels, Prague, New York City, Saint Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna within five years of the Paris