In four of its six Shakespearean occurrences the word 'foredo' collocates with 'despair' or 'desperate' and refers to female suicide. More specifically, it appears in the context of the erotic entanglements that link the fates of the families of the king and his chief counsellor in Hamlet and Lear. Polonius almost gives a definition of this Shakespearean context restriction in his response to Ophelia when she tells him about Hamlet's distraught appearance in her room:
98 Come, go with me. I will go seek the King.
99 This is the very ecstasy of love,
100 Whose violent property fordoes itself,
101 And leads the will to desperate undertakings
102 As oft as any passions under heaven
103 That does afflict our natures. (Ham. 2.1.98-103)
It is of course Ophelia who kills herself in the end, and Hamlet uses the word about her:
218 The Queen, the courtiers. Who is this they follow?
219 And with such maimed rites? This doth betoken
220 The corse they follow did with desp'rate hand
221 Foredo it own life. 'Twas of some estate. (Ham. 5.1.218-221)
In King Lear Edmund had planned to make Cordelia's death look like suicide:
253 He hath commission from thy wife and me
254 To hang Cordelia in the prison, and
255 To lay the blame upon her own despair,
256 That she fordid herself. (KiL 5.3.253-256)
A little later Kent says to Lear:
292 Your eldest daughters have foredone themselves,
293 And desperately are dead. (KiL 5.3.292-293)
The two other occurrences of the word (MND 5.1.374, Oth. 5.1.128.129) do not fit into this pattern.
29 July 1999
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