We Know What We Are But

These words are spoken by Ophelia in Act IV, Scene 5 of Hamlet (c. 1600–1601), after she has been driven to madness by grief over her father Polonius's murder and Hamlet's rejection. The line carries a painful irony: Ophelia herself, who once knew her own identity clearly — dutiful daughter, beloved of Hamlet — no longer does. She speaks the line during a scene of fragmented songs and speeches that culminate shortly before her death, making it one of the play's most poignant observations about the loss of self.