Note 53 — THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE [49]

In opposition to these may, it is true, be cited Othello's words to Desdemona—Othello, V. 2: the Duke's remark about putting the unrepentant Barnardine to death—Measure for Measure, IV. 3: the dying speeches of Buckingham and Catharine in Henry VIII., II. 1; IV. 2: Laertes on Ophelia,—Hamlet, V. 1. But these passages, and others like them, cannot be cited as evidence to the contrary; they are merely dramatic utterances.