Breaking Down the Lyrics: Ophelia

Taylor Swift — “The Fate of Ophelia”

*** “And if you’d never come for me, I might have drowned in purgatory. I swore my loyalty to me, myself, and I…. Right before you lit up my sky!”

So, of course there’s a lot of emotional subtext here. So he (or the other person) had to come for her. This evokes someone rescuing someone. Especially combined with the rest of the line.

The reference to Purgatory jumps out right away. Whether we believe in it supernaturally… I think all of us remotely in “The West” know what it means. A spiritual holdover where the higher powers aren’t sure if you’re destined for Heaven or Hell.

Why someone might end up there, and how they can get out… that will continue to be debated. But so many of us grow up with at least that sense of what it is. And that you either need prayers from others, or to continue to do good deeds (or both), to be rescued.

But to drown in Purgatory?? Well, that’s a whole other concept… outside of most theological understanding. I don’t think there’s any reference to what the climate is in Purgatory… but I doubt we’d ever guess it to be a fire-pit OR an ocean.

So, maybe, it’s like suffocating. Drowning is a horrible, unique experience…. But what else is it, besides suffocating in water?

So many of us use the word “suffocate” when we mean a sense of existential dread, or feeling crushed by a world we don’t want to be in.

So in that sense… it’s not only possible, but logical — that you would “drown” in Purgatory.

*** “All that time spent alone in my tower, you were just honing your powers. Now I can see it all…. Late one night, you took me out of my grave and, saved my heart from the fate of… Ophelia!” ***

Who’s Ophelia, first of all? She’s a character in Shakespeare’s tragic drama, Hamlet. She was a noblewoman in Denmark, who would have been next in line for a royal marriage. Or, as Taylor Swift puts it:

*** “The eldest daughter of a nobleman, Ophelia lived in fantasy…. Love was a cold bed, full of scorpions; the venom stole her sanity!” ***

This is not the piece to retell the story of Hamlet. Hopefully you already have a good sense. She was, however, likely the most tragic figure in the story. Because, yes, she lost her sensibilities given the turmoil around her… and ended it. How else, actually, but by drowning!

So, she’s admitting she could have gone down the same path… if her rescuer had never arrived.