Page 345 - Hamlet: The Cambridge Dover Wilson Shakespeare

N O T E S 5.1.
tiers' are mentioned by Ham. (1. 212), and the 'open
coffin,' required by 1. 244, was the common if not the
usual practice of the time, the corpse being covered with
a 'sable cloth' (cf. Knight of the Burning Pestle, 4. 4.
62 and above 4. 5. 164 'They bore him barefaced on
the bier').
217. That is Laertes etc. v. Introd. p. tlviii. Sh.
has been careful to keep Hor. and Laer. from meeting
hitherto on the stage, and as Hor. had hurried to greet
Ham. at the end of 4. 6. he would not have heard of the
death of Oph.
220. Her obsequies etc. Q2 heads this and the
priest's other speech 'Doct.' which I interpret Doctor
of Divinity, i.e. an Eliz. cleric. Canon Dearmer, who
agrees, writes privately, 'he would wear a gown and
a tippet over his cassock, and a square cap, as ordered
in the canon of 1604, the tippet being what we call a
black scarf (cf. note 1. 2. 113).
221. Her death was doubtful Clearly the coroner's
Verdict (5.1.1-5) and the account of the drowning told
to the (£ueen (4. 7. 165-82) have not satisfied the rigid
ecclesiastical authorities. 'The rubric before the Burial
Office forbids it to be used for persons who have laid
violent hands upon themselves' (Clar.). The rubric
was not inserted until 1662 but the practice was
traditional. Cf. next note.
223-25. She should,. .thrown on her Itwas formerly
the practice (abol. in 1823) to bury those convicted of
felo de se beneath a pile of stones at the cross-roads with
a stake driven through them. Cf. J. H. Blunt, Book of
Church Law (ed. G. Edwardes Jones, 1899), pp. 182-4,
which also makes clear that the verdict of a coroner was
not binding upon the ecclesiastical authorities.
227-28. bringing home.. .burial i.e. laying to rest
with the passing-bell and a grave in consecrated ground.
'Funerals during Eliz.'s reign' retained 'many of
the traditional ceremonies and rites of pre-Reformation