"It was the early wish of Pope," says Dr. Knox, "that when he died, not
a stone might tell where he lay. It is a wish that will commonly be
granted with reluctance. The affection of those whom we leave behind us
is at a loss for methods to display its wonted solicitude, and seeks
consolation under sorrow, in doing honour to all that remains. It is
natural that filial piety, parental tenderness, and conjugal love,
should mark, with some fond memorial, the clay-cold spot where the form,
still fostered in the bosom, moulders away. And did affection go no
farther, who could censure? But, in recording the virtues of the
departed, either zeal or vanity leads to an excess perfectly ludicrous.
A marble monument, with an inscription palpably false and ridiculously
pompous, is far more offensive to true taste, than the wooden memorial
of the rustic, sculptured with painted bones, and decked out with
death's head in all the colours of the rainbow. There is an elegance and
a classical simplicity in the turf-clad heap of mould which covers the
poor man's grave, though it has nothing to defend it from the insults of
the proud but a bramble. The primrose that grows upon it is a better
ornament than the gilded lies on the oppressor's tombstone."
The Greeks had a custom of bedecking tombs with herbs and flowers, among
which parsley was chiefly in use, as appears from Plutarch's story of
Timoleon, who, marching up an ascent, from the top of which he might
take a view of the army and strength of the Carthaginians, was met by a
company of mules laden with parsley, which his soldiers conceived to be
a very ill boding and fatal occurrence, that being the very herb
wherewith they adorned the sepulchres of the dead. This custom gave
birth to that despairing proverb, when we pronounce of one dangerously
sick, that he has need of nothing but parsley; which is in effect to
say, he's a dead man, and ready for the grave. All sorts of purple and
white flowers were acceptable to the dead; as the amaranthus, which was
first used by the Thessalians to adorn Achilles's grave. The rose, too,
was very grateful; nor was the use of myrtle less common. In short,
graves were bedecked with garlands of all sorts of flowers, as appears
from Agamemnon's daughter in Sophocles:--
"No sooner came I to my father's tomb,
But milk fresh pour'd in copious streams did flow,
And _flowers_ of ev'ry sort around were strow'd."
Several other tributes were frequently laid upon graves, as ribands;
whence it is said that Epaminondas's soldiers being disanimated at
seeing the riband that hung upon his spear carried by the wind to a
certain Lacedæmonian sepulchre, he bid them take courage, for that it
portended destruction to the Lacedæmons, it being customary to deck the
sepulchres of their dead with ribands. Another thing dedicated to the
dead was their hair. Electra, in Sophocles, says, that Agamemnon had
commanded her and Chrysosthemis to pay this honour:--
"With drink-off'rings and _locks of hair_ we must,
According to his will, his _tomb_ adorn."
It was likewise customary to perfume the grave-stones with sweet
ointments, &c.