The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing.
– William Shakespeare
Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 2. Hamlet indulges in some "crazy" talk with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who want him to say where the body of Polonius is and also go with them to the King. What he says may sound like madness to them. But Hamlet is using legal jargon and wordplay: the King, in his own body, can enforce the King’s laws; you can’t stop obeying the King’s laws when the king is dead, because the King is not just a body, but a principle.