This paper examines an ornamental cliché taken from Hamlet (IV,7) : 'the glassy stream', in the Queen's description of Ophelia's drowning. French translators usually have recourse to 'le cristal de l'eau'. A study of the meanings of 'glassy' elsewhere in Shakespeare's works shows how complex the word is - and we discover that the whole passage is somewhat ambiguous. Two words from Shakespeare may form a cliché, they are a part of the whole, connected to it - and to the Elizabethan world. There is no given equivalent in another language, in another time.