Stanza 1

"Death Sentences" begins with what seems to be a paradox: the speaker was born both too late and too early for something. The meaning becomes clearer in the second and third lines, as the speaker reveals that she is addressing the fictional character of Hamlet, a reference to Shakespeare's protagonist. Although she is actually addressing her own lover, she calls this lover by the name of Shakespeare's hero, thereby comparing her relationship with her lover to Hamlet and Ophelia's relationship. When the speaker says she was born too late to be his Ophelia, she means she was born too late to be a woman of Shakespeare's time, which implies not just that she was not alive during this period but that women have changed since the early seventeenth century and, perhaps, are less likely to drown for their lovers. The speaker also says she is too old...