I’m interested in days of the week and how they evolve over time. I mean. Sunday has the word Sun in it. And most days are connected to planets and Greek/Roman Gods – but maybe Christians shifted the meaning from SUN day to SONday. Is that how Sunday came to be treated as a holy day?
I’d have to do a lot more research on this subject – but I’m thinking about it because it’s such an anomalous mention. We don’t get a lot of days of the week in Shakespeare. And certainly no other days from Ophelia…like…here’s suddenly a day of the week showing up and I want to know why she’s mentioning it when she could just say, “We may call it herb of grace.”
(FYI – there seems to be a bit of text difference regarding this herb. Some have it as “herb of grace” which is how I remember it. But there are quite a few “herb-grace” or “Herb Grace” that I’ve seen as well. It’s not clear to me where this distinction comes from. Is it a quarto/folio distinction or an instance of editors adding an “of”?)
The Hamlet Project 