Scene at the Tate
Even in the gallery, there’s gossip. Strangers talk about
what was staged––the model with silver gown stayed hours in a tin tub, laid out
like caviar––to
the general view, a maiden voyage. And Millais, Pre-Raphaelite, realist to the
manner born, grappled with the Surrey flies, windy gusts that could toss
him to the water, and a notice for trespassing––murder most foul of the hay. What,
then, did he confide to a friend? Painting “…under such circumstances would be greater punishment to a
murderer than hanging.” Not to mention the medical bills when Siddal of the bath took chill in the long hours of
painstaking detail. Art exacts a price and so the heart, as Ophelia floats in
her perpetual spring.
