The note on this line on Genius.com is that this line has baffled scholars. I find this hilarious. Because it’s only baffling if you’re attempting to make symbolic meaning out of all these flowers – if you’re trying to put a double sense of message behind each flower gift. That’s the only reason a daisy is baffling.
To most of us, the daisy is as clear as anything – if not clearer.
Times like these are when it helps to be a theatre maker…because it’s all very simple. Ophelia has collected some flowers and she is giving them away. One of those flowers is a daisy.
Maybe she likes daisies. Maybe she hates them. Maybe she associates them with love or dissembling or maybe they remind her of her mother. But fundamentally, it’s just another flower.
The character, in her state of mind, is not likely to be thinking symbolically – there’s no real reason for the audience to, either.
