Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene

[Dionysus of Zeus]

…Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.
Then, Hamlet goes on to ask Ophelia is she is honest and fair, and
then he tells her to become a nun. Before he rejected the remembrances
Ophelia is offering back to him, I think the term of endearment, "[…]
Nymph […]," is very important. It represents to Ophelia what she was
to Hamlet before he rejected her and told her to become a nun.

In the Shakespeare, Hamlet described Denmark as a prison, and there

are many reasons that Hamlet would feel this way. He was royal, first
of all, which gave him certain boundaries. He was also stuck not
knowing exactly what to do about the fact that Claudius killed his
father, and now his uncle was married to his mother. In Act II, scene
2, when speaking with Gildenstern and Rosencrantz, Hamlet compares
Denmark to a prison, and then accuses the two of having been sent to
spy on him by both the king and the queen. So now he knows he cannot
trust Claudius or the queen, Gildenstern or Rosencrantz. Although
Hamlet could trust Horatio, Hamlet was much more intelligent than
Horatio; if Horatio was the only person Hamlet could trust, this is
still a dismal existence for Hamlet because, in my opinion, life is
made of up having several friends and several people one can trust and
relate to. Life must have been incredibly monotonous for Hamlet,
waking up each day not knowing what he should do about his situation,
but yearning to do something about it and not being able to trust or
communicate his thoughts with anyone except for himself (in his
monologues). So he drove himself mad with all of this thinking he was
doing about acting, rather than making an action. He became incredibly
lonely and felt betrayed by almost everyone, and this type of reality
must have also been incredibly boring. In Either/Or, Soren Aaby
Kierkegaard writes that "Boredom is the root of all evil." Conversely,
Ophelia would have viewed Denmark as a prison as well. She was a young
woman in Denmark in the late medieval period who had to answer to the
men in her life. Once Laertes left for France, she was without her
brother, then Hamlet rejected her. Hamlet killed Polonius and was sent
away from Denmark. Without the three most important men in her life,
Ophelia was left with no one, and it's obvious in Act IV, scene 5 of
the Shakespeare that the queen did not wish to see her: "I will not
speak with her." Ophelia must have wondered if she had caused her
situation. She must have asked herself if she had done something to
cause this horrible situation she was in. Her life must have been
similar to Hamlet's: incredibly monotonous, waking up each day not
knowing what she could (not should, but could, because of her station
in life) do about her situation; yearning to do something about it and
not being able to trust or communicate her thoughts with anyone.
Again, boredom and loneliness must have followed, and then madness and
death because she really couldn't do anything about what she had no
control over.

I believe Ophelia initially trusts the villagers, but the occasional

suspicions that the villagers are gossiping about her are a result of
her past experiences in the castle. I can see this clearly. Ophelia
must be upset about her time in the castle when telling her story at
the beginning of the scene—she must at least be sad. Her fantasies
about Hamlet being her husband and of she being his nymph are the only
way she can respond to the way her life has turned out because of what
her options were and because of who she was. These fantasies were all
she could do to regain her former life and to find, I would use the
word entertainment, in her boredom and loneliness. It was very fatal
entertainment, but entertainment nonetheless. As the fantasy shatters,
she is confronted again with her sadness and grief—her reality. So the
coloratura sobs are not only from her heart, we're not just talking
about love here, but also from her frustrations with the fact that she
has little control over her situation and yearns for a solution to her
problem. Actually, this whole scene stems from Ophelia's desires to be
with people and to resolve her loneliness. She sees these villagers
celebrating the arrival of spring. How symbolic! Young people who are
dancing, happy, and celebrating life & new things. She yearns to be
happy, but she cannot accept the fact that she must accept a new way
of life—she is stuck in her desires to return to the past and this is
her great mistake. So here is Ophelia, who desires happiness and
relief, but cannot accept that her life must change as a result of her
current situation, and so she creates a fantasy world for herself,
which shatters, and she is then stuck in the past forever.

What do you think about the differences between the Shakespeare and

the Hamlet? What are your opinions on the Mad Scene? What are your
opinions on the symbolism in the Mad Scene? Why do you think Ophelia
went mad? Who is your favorite Ophelia and why?

[David Melnick]

Ouch! You've been thinking too hard.

O vin, dis-si-pe la tris-te-e-sse!

;-)

I.M.M. de F.

[stephenmead]

"Dionysus of Zeus" <***@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:***@posting.google.com...
<snipped to point being replied to>.

Post by Dionysus of Zeus

What do you think about the differences between the Shakespeare and

the Hamlet?

In Shakespeare, Ophelia sings some bawdy songs in the mad scene - "e'er you
tumbled me, you promised me to wed" - but the sexual/ bawdy imagery is all
removed from the operatic version to produce the 19th century's idea of a
pure young miss. Of course, although there are a few snatches of songs for
Ophelia to sing in the Shakespeare, no one knows what music they originally
used whereas the Mad Scene in Thomas' opera is a tour de force for
coloratura with spectacular music for the soprano.

<What are your opinions on the Mad Scene?
I think it is much easier for a star soprano to make an effect in the
opera's Mad Scene than for an actress to produce a sensation in the play.
The Mad Scene in Thomas' opera is the highlight of the score whereas the few
times I have seen the spoken play the Mad Scene has not been particularly
moving or memorable. In fact the opera really ought to be called Ophelie.

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
What are your
opinions on the symbolism in the Mad Scene? Why do you think Ophelia
went mad?

Hamlet's rejection of her added to the fact that in the play her boyfriend
( Hamlet) kills her father .

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
Who is your favorite Ophelia and why?

The only time I have ever seen this opera live was last season at Covent
Garden with Natalie Dessay as Ophelie and she was stunning in every way. The
spectacular vocalism of the Mad Scene was supplemented by a powerful and
disturbing dramatic performance in that scene with her self-harming herself
and cutting herself with knives. She utterly stole the show and the Mad
Scene made the whole evening worthwhile.
I also have the complete recording with June Anderson and Thomas Hampson and
Anderson is very fine too . I have heard Sutherland's recording but I don't
like the way she seems to treat the scene as a mere vocal exercise and to
have seen her attempt this part onstage would have been a laughable
spectacle.
The fact that it is possible to have a discussion at all about one's
favourite Ophelie shows how much better this character is delineated in
the opera than in the play. Who could ever have a discussion about famous
Shakespearean Ophelias? How many people could even name any? Although the
title role is much diminished by the translation from play to opera, and the
characters of the Queen, King, Polonius and Laertes suffer too, Ophelie is
an immeasurably more effective, convincing and memorable part that Ophelia.

[Capa0848]

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene
Date: 8/11/2004 1:23 AM Pacific Standard Time
<snipped to point being replied to>.

Post by Dionysus of Zeus

What do you think about the differences between the Shakespeare and

the Hamlet?

In Shakespeare, Ophelia sings some bawdy songs in the mad scene - "e'er you
tumbled me, you promised me to wed" - but the sexual/ bawdy imagery is all
removed from the operatic version to produce the 19th century's idea of a
pure young miss. Of course, although there are a few snatches of songs for
Ophelia to sing in the Shakespeare, no one knows what music they originally
used whereas the Mad Scene in Thomas' opera is a tour de force for
coloratura with spectacular music for the soprano.
<What are your opinions on the Mad Scene?
I think it is much easier for a star soprano to make an effect in the
opera's Mad Scene than for an actress to produce a sensation in the play.
The Mad Scene in Thomas' opera is the highlight of the score whereas the few
times I have seen the spoken play the Mad Scene has not been particularly
moving or memorable. In fact the opera really ought to be called Ophelie.

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
What are your
opinions on the symbolism in the Mad Scene? Why do you think Ophelia
went mad?

Hamlet's rejection of her added to the fact that in the play her boyfriend
( Hamlet) kills her father .

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
Who is your favorite Ophelia and why?

The only time I have ever seen this opera live was last season at Covent
Garden with Natalie Dessay as Ophelie and she was stunning in every way. The
spectacular vocalism of the Mad Scene was supplemented by a powerful and
disturbing dramatic performance in that scene with her self-harming herself
and cutting herself with knives. She utterly stole the show and the Mad
Scene made the whole evening worthwhile.
I also have the complete recording with June Anderson and Thomas Hampson and
Anderson is very fine too . I have heard Sutherland's recording but I don't
like the way she seems to treat the scene as a mere vocal exercise and to
have seen her attempt this part onstage would have been a laughable
spectacle.
The fact that it is possible to have a discussion at all about one's
favourite Ophelie shows how much better this character is delineated in
the opera than in the play. Who could ever have a discussion about famous
Shakespearean Ophelias? How many people could even name any?

================

Stephen, you can't be serious. A very distinguished sorority of great stage
actress of the last two hundred plus years have played Ophelia. Sarah Siddons,
Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Eleonora Duse, Julia
Marlowe, Lillian Gish, Ethel Barrymore, Clair Bloom, Jessica Tandy, Dame Judith
Anderson, Uta Hagen.

In our own time Glenda Jackson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Cate Blanchett.

Just to name a few familiar names.

Most of us wouldn't recognize their names now, but until late-Victorian times *
it would have been almost unthinkable for an English-speaking woman to be
considered a leading actress without having played Ophelia, the female lead in
the world's greatest play, just as no actor worth his salt would have eschewed
Hamlet.

Pat

* When Ibsen, Shaw, Chekhov et al changed the nature of theater forever.

[Jim Dunphy]

Post by Capa0848

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene
Date: 8/11/2004 1:23 AM Pacific Standard Time
<snipped to point being replied to>.

Post by Dionysus of Zeus

What do you think about the differences between the Shakespeare and

the Hamlet?

[snip]

Post by Capa0848

The fact that it is possible to have a discussion at all about one's
favourite Ophelie shows how much better this character is delineated in
the opera than in the play. Who could ever have a discussion about famous
Shakespearean Ophelias? How many people could even name any?

================
Stephen, you can't be serious. A very distinguished sorority of great stage
actress of the last two hundred plus years have played Ophelia. Sarah Siddons,
Ellen Terry, Sarah Bernhardt, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Eleonora Duse, Julia
Marlowe, Lillian Gish, Ethel Barrymore, Clair Bloom, Jessica Tandy, Dame Judith
Anderson, Uta Hagen.
In our own time Glenda Jackson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Cate Blanchett.

Not to forget Harriet Smithson! whose performance changed the life of Hector
Berlioz!

Jim D.

[Capa0848]

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene
From: "Jim Dunphy"
Not to forget Harriet Smithson! whose performance changed the life of Hector
Berlioz!
Jim D.

==============

Ahh, 'tis a fine and fitting thing that a Dunphy would remember Harriet, that
lovely actress who must have given poor Hector a wee glimpse of her Irish
charms to beguile him to within a shamrock's thickness of distraction. The
"Fair Ophelia", as her biography calls her, quite spoiled 'im for all other
women, she did.

D'ye see now why Irish men are so often late to marry?

Seriously, though, I don't think I have ever run across Smithson's name apart
from Berlioz'. I'm not sure that she would rank as an actress with the
daughters of Lecouvreur that I mentioned earlier.

Pat

[stephenmead]

Post by Capa0848

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene
From: "Jim Dunphy"
Not to forget Harriet Smithson! whose performance changed the life of Hector
Berlioz!
Jim D.

==============
Ahh, 'tis a fine and fitting thing that a Dunphy would remember Harriet, that
lovely actress who must have given poor Hector a wee glimpse of her Irish
charms to beguile him to within a shamrock's thickness of distraction.

The

Post by Capa0848
"Fair Ophelia", as her biography calls her, quite spoiled 'im for all other
women, she did.
D'ye see now why Irish men are so often late to marry?
Seriously, though, I don't think I have ever run across Smithson's name apart
from Berlioz'. I'm not sure that she would rank as an actress with the
daughters of Lecouvreur that I mentioned earlier.
Pat

To be honest Harriet Smithson would be the only name that I would have come
up with if asked to name a famous Ophelia. But I will take Pat's word that
that is just ignorance on my part and that all of those famous actresses he
named were celebrated Ophelias. It is news to me but I guess it just shows
that I pay much more attention to music than to theatre. IMO the part of
Ophelia in Shakespeare's play is not much of a part for a star actress,
unlike Juliet or Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth for instance

[Capa0848]

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene

IMO the part of Ophelia in Shakespeare's play is not much of a part for a star
actress, unlike Juliet or Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth for instance.
=====================
Sure, I would agree that it doesn't rank with Cleopatra or Lady M (or
Rosalind or Viola, for that matter). But it is the love interest in what many
regard as the greatest play ever written.

In King Lear, Cordelia has only 132 lines (or something like that -- a
ridiculously small number) but two of the three * images that fans of that play
carry with them forever are Cordelia tending her distraught, half-crazed father
in Act IV, and "Lear enters, with Cordelia in his arms." It's not the size of
the role, it's the size of the character.

Ophelia and Hamlet are each other's haven from grief and touchstone to sanity.
When each feels that he has lost the other's love, the pathos is palpable.
Because almost all of us have known that grief.

Pat



*the third being Lear in the storm

[Dionysus of Zeus]

Post by stephenmead
To be honest Harriet Smithson would be the only name that I would have come
up with if asked to name a famous Ophelia. But I will take Pat's word that
that is just ignorance on my part and that all of those famous actresses he
named were celebrated Ophelias. It is news to me but I guess it just shows
that I pay much more attention to music than to theatre. IMO the part of
Ophelia in Shakespeare's play is not much of a part for a star actress,
unlike Juliet or Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth for instance

I would say Ophelia is an ambiguous character who is open for
interpretation. In some ways she is similar to Desdemona.

[Ygor Coelho]

Post by stephenmead
I also have the complete recording with June Anderson and Thomas Hampson and
Anderson is very fine too . I have heard Sutherland's recording but I don't
like the way she seems to treat the scene as a mere vocal exercise and to
have seen her attempt this part onstage would have been a laughable
spectacle.
The fact that it is possible to have a discussion at all about one's
favourite Ophelie shows how much better this character is delineated in
the opera than in the play. Who could ever have a discussion about famous
Shakespearean Ophelias? How many people could even name any? Although the
title role is much diminished by the translation from play to opera, and the
characters of the Queen, King, Polonius and Laertes suffer too, Ophelie is
an immeasurably more effective, convincing and memorable part that Ophelia.

Perhaps you haven't watched Sutherland's Hamlet Mad Scene video. She
recorded it in 1960, when she was still a rising star, and she's
wonderful! Please don't expect her to be an explosive dramatic
actress, since Sutherland was IMHO a more introspective and placid
interpreter. Anyway, she's in great shape vocally and dramatically!
She changes her facial expression in every phrase and makes her
Ophelie one of the most moving opera roles I have ever seen!

[Mark D Lew]

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
It represents to Ophelia what she was
to Hamlet before he rejected her and told her to become a nun.

Have I been miseducated? If you're talking about "get thee to a
nunnery", I don't think he's actually telling her to become a nun.

--

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
D'ye see now why Irish men are so often late to marry?

You probably know this, but Irish men have traditionally been late to
marry due to the economic structure of traditional Irish society. In
brief, they can't afford it until later in life.

mdl

[Dionysus of Zeus]

Post by Mark D Lew

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
It represents to Ophelia what she was
to Hamlet before he rejected her and told her to become a nun.

Have I been miseducated? If you're talking about "get thee to a
nunnery", I don't think he's actually telling her to become a nun.

According to Alan Durband this is exactly what Hamlet is telling
Ophelia to become. Also, after "Get thee to a nunnery," Hamlet asks
Ophelia, "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?." He's telling
Ophelia to go to a nunnery and to actually become a nun, because why
would she want to be a breeder of sinners? Nuns (generally) never give
birth, so if Ophelia became one she would not breed any sinners at
all. What do you believe he is telling Ophelia to do? Also, do you
care to answer any of the questions I included in my original post? I
would like to read your answers to those quetions as well.

[Capa0848]

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene
Date: 8/13/2004 10:02 AM Pacific Standard Time

Post by Mark D Lew

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
It represents to Ophelia what she was
to Hamlet before he rejected her and told her to become a nun.

Have I been miseducated? If you're talking about "get thee to a
nunnery", I don't think he's actually telling her to become a nun.

According to Alan Durband this is exactly what Hamlet is telling
Ophelia to become. Also, after "Get thee to a nunnery," Hamlet asks
Ophelia, "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?." He's telling
Ophelia to go to a nunnery and to actually become a nun, because why
would she want to be a breeder of sinners? Nuns (generally) never give
birth, so if Ophelia became one she would not breed any sinners at
all. What do you believe he is telling Ophelia to do?

================

In my opinion, Hamlet's "Get thee to a nunnery" has a triple sense with two
layers of meaning.

Remember that this conversation follows immediately upon his "To be or not to
be speech." Hamlet is contemplating suicide and at this moment he is seeing the
world and everything in it through the darkest prism imaginable.

In the first place he is warning Ophelia about the darker side of his own
nature, and that only in a nunnery will she be safe from the weaknesses that
plague him, and indeed most men. The entire passage reads:

Hamlet: Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am
myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious;
with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination
to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do
crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of
us. Go thy ways to a nunnery"

The second sense is that he is adjuring her to "Go thy ways to a nunnery"
because only there (in theory) will she able to renounce the ways of women, and
to escape the hypocrisies of marriage (cf. Gertrude, whose flesh was so weak
that, while professing to love his father, she was sleeping with and conspiring
with his brother who sought to kill him. A moment later he tells Ophelia"

"I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God hath given you one face,
and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nickname
God’s creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no
more on’t; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages; those
that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they
are. To a nunnery, go."

But, on another level, there is in these passages, I think, some not-too-subtle
irony about the nunnery reference, because in those early years of the
protestant ascendancy in England, there was widespread belief in the notion
that nunneries themselves were citadels of hypocrisy and the scenes of all
sorts of lewd carryings-on. In other words Hamlet's cynical, misanthropic
aspect is suggesting that in a nunnery will Ophelia find a congenial home for
the wantonness and weakness that, in that dark moment, he believes is as
inherent in woman's nature, as lechery is in man's.

If his own mother's lust has betrayed him, surely Ophelia, whose hot young
blood has not yet cooled with age, will do likewise.

Pat

[Mark D Lew]

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
According to Alan Durband this is exactly what Hamlet is telling
Ophelia to become. Also, after "Get thee to a nunnery," Hamlet asks
Ophelia, "Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?." He's telling
Ophelia to go to a nunnery and to actually become a nun, because why
would she want to be a breeder of sinners? Nuns (generally) never give
birth, so if Ophelia became one she would not breed any sinners at
all. What do you believe he is telling Ophelia to do? Also, do you
care to answer any of the questions I included in my original post? I
would like to read your answers to those quetions as well.

The penultimate paragraph of Pat's post covers what I had in mind about
the nunnery. I was under the impression that ironic suggestion was the
primary one, and that there was little or no suggestion of a nunnery
actually being a place of virtue. More generally, I assumed that
Hamlet was being vulgar in making the suggestion and that Ophelia
should take it not just as a rebuff but as a crude insult.

But my knowledge of Shakespeare is haphazard and limited. When I asked
if I had been miseducated, that was a genuine inquiry.

Sorry if you were looking to me for answers to your other questions. I
have nothing to offer on any of them.

mdl

[Dionysus of Zeus]

Pat & Mark--

If the statement is meant to be an insult towards Ophelia, is he not
telling her to become a nun in order to insult her?

I would say that my interpretation is, at the very least, feasible.

[Capa0848]

Subject: Re: Understanding Ophelia's Mad Scene
Date: 8/14/2004 10:33 AM Pacific Standard Time
Pat & Mark--
If the statement is meant to be an insult towards Ophelia, is he not
telling her to become a nun in order to insult her?
I would say that my interpretation is, at the very least, feasible.

I don't think that he's insulting Ophelia as Ophelia. IMO, in his black
mood, Hamlet is damning the weakness {"Frailty, thy name is woman," he says to
his mother a short time later} of both women and men (and hence all mankind)
for succumbing too easily to the pleasures of the flesh.

Hamlet is probably the first play of Shakespeare's dark period, during which
sexual impulses are almost always treated with something close to revulsion.
Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and All's Well that Ends Well, not to
mention the great tragedies, almost never depict sexual activity as healthy.
Remember how Iago speaks obscenely of 'the beast with two backs', how Goneril
and Regan are depicted as monsters with female organs, how Lady Macbeth
adjures the spirits to 'unsex me here', how Antony is regarded by the Romans as
somewhat unmanly for yielding to Cleopatra's 'infinite variety', how Timon
reviles the Athenians for pursuing pleasure (among other things).

This is a striking departure from the bawdy Shakespeare of the 1590's (R&J, the
Henry IV plays, the great comedies, in which sexual activity is usually
depicted smilingly as the natural efflorescence of youth.

Critics have debated for centuries what (if any) events in Shakespeare's
personal life might have precipitated this decided change in outlook, which was
to last almost ten years.

In his last plays, particularly The Tempest, he has mellowed, and through the
eyes of Prospero regards the budding romance of Miranda and Ferdinand with
affection and nostalgia once again, rather than with the eye of a poet who
seems to have become disenchanted with the joys of sexual pleasure.

Unfortunately we will probably never know whether that decade-long cynicism
about sex stemmed from bereavement or betrayal, disappointment or disease.


Pat

[Richard VanDerBeets]

From: ***@aol.com (Capa0848):

Spot on, Pat.

Post by Capa0848
I don't think that he's insulting Ophelia as Ophelia. IMO, in his black
mood, Hamlet is damning the weakness {"Frailty, thy name is woman," he says to
his mother a short time later} of both women and men (and hence all mankind)
for succumbing too easily to the pleasures of the flesh.
Hamlet is probably the first play of Shakespeare's dark period, during which
sexual impulses are almost always treated with something close to revulsion.
Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and All's Well that Ends Well, not to
mention the great tragedies, almost never depict sexual activity as healthy.
Remember how Iago speaks obscenely of 'the beast with two backs', how Goneril
and Regan are depicted as monsters with female organs, how Lady Macbeth
adjures the spirits to 'unsex me here', how Antony is regarded by the Romans as
somewhat unmanly for yielding to Cleopatra's 'infinite variety', how Timon
reviles the Athenians for pursuing pleasure (among other things).
This is a striking departure from the bawdy Shakespeare of the 1590's (R&J, the
Henry IV plays, the great comedies, in which sexual activity is usually
depicted smilingly as the natural efflorescence of youth.
Critics have debated for centuries what (if any) events in Shakespeare's
personal life might have precipitated this decided change in outlook, which was
to last almost ten years.
In his last plays, particularly The Tempest, he has mellowed, and through the
eyes of Prospero regards the budding romance of Miranda and Ferdinand with
affection and nostalgia once again, rather than with the eye of a poet who
seems to have become disenchanted with the joys of sexual pleasure.
Unfortunately we will probably never know whether that decade-long cynicism
about sex stemmed from bereavement or betrayal, disappointment or disease.
Pat

================================================
"The learn'd is happy nature to explore,
The fool is happy that he knows no more." -- Pope

[Mark D Lew]

Post by Dionysus of Zeus
If the statement is meant to be an insult towards Ophelia, is he not
telling her to become a nun in order to insult her?

No, he's telling her she's a whore. The idea here is that in
Shakespeare's time, "nunnery" was a slang term for a whorehouse. Do a
Google search on nunnery+whorehouse and you'll turn up several
discussions about this.

I'm not advocating this interpretation, by the way -- just explicating
it.

mdl