CLAUDIUS      Conceit upon her father –

OPHELIA        Pray, let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

Sings.

         Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day

        All in the morning betime,

        And I a maid at your window

        To be your valentine.

        Then up he rose and donned his clothes

        And dupped the chamber door –

        Let in the maid that out a maid

        Never departed more.                (4.5.45-55)

Claudius gets at least some of what’s going on, that it’s a conceit upon her father, this is about Polonius—but Ophelia doesn’t want to be commentated on, glossed—and she hasn’t finished. Pray, let’s have no words of this—what is this?—but when they ask you what it means, say you this. Interpretation, explanation is promised, but deflected, if not withheld; what follows is more snatches of song, this one a story of love, sex, perhaps exploitation and betrayal, with idealised romantic expectation giving way to a more jaded, bitter note. Tomorrow is St Valentine’s Day all in the morning betime—excitement, anticipation, the girl looking out of her window early for a man who will become her valentine, as the first man a woman sees that day is destined to be—and the yearning, the looking up (she’s below, he’s above, like Hamlet). But there’s the sense of a courtly game suddenly serious, too far too fast perhaps, no longer playful but intense, perhaps regretted. Then up he rose and donned his clothes and dupped the chamber door—he gets up, at the sound of her singing, goes to the door and lets her in, lets in the maid that out a maid never departed more. Donned (do on) and dupped (do up) suggest or anticipate do, do, to do it, to have done it, no going back—it’s not necessarily about a young woman taken advantage of, sexually, against her will, although that’s a possibility,. But it’s a change, irrevocable, fundamental, like dead and gone. A loss—of virginity, illusions, agency, self. The inference is usually that this is a story about Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia, although it doesn’t have to be—but Hamlet is the one who has departed, Ophelia is the one who remains.