Unfinished Mystery
Enter Hamlet, stabbed, no longer baffled, Stepping across his mother, drowned in a pearl, Carrying lifeless Ophelia. Now enter Stabbed Othello, enlightened at last, From his cistern of toad-genderings, bearing Suffocated Desdemona. Now enter Headless Macbeth, regicide killed in him, Stepping from the cauldron of sisters Bearing his cold Queen. Now enter Crack-brained Lear, finally freed From the foam-lipped vortex of his daughters, Carrying strangled Cordelia. Now enter Prospero smiling. Rolls up the magic island And wakes out of being. Enter Oliver Milton – carrying under his arm His own head, helmed, stake-pierced, and blind. A crowned monkey picks its nose on his neck-stump. Delilah, with bitumen cries, Limbs blazing, bears Blake in the Mills of Hell.
Unfinished Mystery - meaning Summary
Literature as Unresolved Violence
The poem imagines famous figures from Shakespearean tragedy and English history emerging after their stories have ended. Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and Lear carry the women destroyed by their worlds, while Prospero simply leaves existence. The later scenes grow more grotesque, involving Oliver Cromwell, Milton and Blake. By collapsing these cultural icons into one violent procession, Hughes presents history and literature as unresolved cycles of power, suffering and destruction.
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