Page 338 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

4-7. NOTE S 231

Picture Books, pp. 15-22). Perhaps Sh. also had in
mind Pss. cxlviii-cl, the psalms of praise sung at the
service of Lauds. Oph. dies crowned with flowers and
singing hymns of praise to God.
188. The woman will be out i.e. When these tears are
shed I shall have got rid of the woman in me. Cf. 'And
all my mother came into mine eyes,' Hen. V, 4. 6. 31.
190. douts (Knight) Fi 'doubts,' Q2 'drownes,'
MSH. pp. 51, 137. Cf. Hen. F, 4. 2.11 (F1) 'doubt'
(= dout), and above note 1. 4. 37.

5.1.
1-2. when she (Qz) Fi'that.'
4. straight — immediately (with a quibble on
'narrow').
6-7. unless.. .her own defence He is thinking of the
law of homicide.
8. found so i.e. by the 'crowner.'
9. se offendendo The sexton means 'se defendendo,'
i.e. the verdict in justifiable homicide (unless he is
making a shot at 'felo de se').
10-20. if I drown myself.. .his own life An echo
of the famous case of Hales v. Petit, heard 1554, of
which reports were pub. in 1571, 1578, and which
settled for the period the law as regards suicide, re-
cognising it as homicide and so distinct from some kind
of felony for which there was a forfeiture. Sir James
Hales, the suicide, was a Common Law judge, and
consequently the case would be noteworthy on that
score; in any event it presents some striking parallels
with the words of the sexton, e.g. (i) Hales committed
suicide by walking into a fiver at Canterbury (cf. 'if the
man go to this water' etc.). (ii) The counsel for the
defence argued that
the act of self destruction consists of three parts. The first
is the imagination, which is a reflection or meditation of the
man's mind whether or no it be convenient to destroy
himself and in what way it may be done; the second is the