DEATH AND BURIAL.
From a very early period there has been a belief in the existence of a
power of prophecy at that period which precedes death. It took its
origin in the assumed fact that the soul becomes divine in the same
ratio as its connection with the body is loosened. It has been urged in
support of this theory that at the hour of death the soul is, as it
were, on the confines of two worlds, and may possibly at the same moment
possess a power which is both prospective and retrospective.
Shakespeare, in "Richard II." (ii. 1), makes the dying Gaunt exclaim,
alluding to his nephew, the young and self-willed king:
"Methinks I am a prophet new inspir'd,
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him."
Again, the brave Percy, in "1 Henry IV." (v. 4), when in the agonies of
death, expresses the same idea:
"O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue."
We may also compare what Nerissa says of Portia's father in "Merchant of
Venice" (i. 2), "Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their
death, have good inspirations."
Curious to say, this notion may be traced up to the time of Homer. Thus
Patroclus prophesies the death of Hector ("Iliad," [Greek: p]. 852):
"You yourself are not destined to live long, for even now death is
drawing nigh unto you, and a violent fate awaits you--about to be slain
in fight by the hands of Achilles." Aristotle tells us that the soul,
when on the point of death, foretells things about to happen. Others
have sought for the foundation of this belief in the 49th chapter of
Genesis: "And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves
together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last
days.... And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he
gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was
gathered unto his people." Whether, however, we accept this origin or
not, at any rate it is very certain that the notion in question has
existed from the earliest times, being alluded to also by Socrates,
Xenophon, and Diodorus Siculus. It still lingers on in Lancashire and
other parts of England.
Among other omens of death may be mentioned high spirits, which have
been supposed to presage impending death. Thus, in "Romeo and Juliet"
(v. 3), Romeo exclaims:
"How oft, when men are at the point of death,
Have they been merry! which their keepers call
A lightning before death."
This idea is noticed by Ray, who inserts it as a proverb, "It's a
lightening before death;" and adds this note: "This is generally
observed of sick persons, that a little before they die their pains
leave them, and their understanding and memory return to them--as a
candle just before it goes out gives a great blaze." It was also a
superstitious notion that unusual mirth was a forerunner of adversity.
Thus, in the last act of "Romeo and Juliet" (sc. 1) Romeo comes on,
saying:
"If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts."
Immediately, however, a messenger enters to announce Juliet's death.
In "Richard III." (iii. 2), Hastings is represented as rising in the
morning in unusually high spirits. Stanley says:
"The lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,
Were jocund, and suppos'd their state was sure,
And they, indeed, had no cause to mistrust;
But yet, you see, how soon the day o'ercast."
This idea, it may be noted, runs throughout the whole scene. Before
dinner-time, Hastings was beheaded.
Once more, in "2 Henry IV." (iv. 2), the same notion is alluded to in
the following dialogue:
"_Westmoreland._ Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray.
_Mowbray._ You wish me health in very happy season;
For I am, on the sudden, something ill.
_Archbishop._ Against ill chances men are ever merry;
But heaviness foreruns the good event.
_Westmoreland._ Therefore be merry, coz; since sudden sorrow
Serves to say thus, 'Some good thing comes to-morrow.'
_Archbishop._ Believe me, I am passing light in spirit.
_Mowbray._ So much the worse, if your own rule be true."
Tytler, in his "History of Scotland," thus speaks of the death of King
James I.: "On this fatal evening (Feb. 20, 1437), the revels of the
court were kept up to a late hour. The prince himself appears to have
been in unusually gay and cheerful spirits. He even jested, if we may
believe the contemporary manuscript, about a prophecy which had declared
that a king that year should be slain." Shelley strongly entertained
this superstition: "During all the time he spent in Leghorn, he was in
brilliant spirits, to him a sure prognostic of coming evil."
Again, it is a very common opinion that death announces its approach by
certain mysterious noises, a notion, indeed, which may be traced up to
the time of the Romans, who believed that the genius of death announced
his approach by some supernatural warning. In "Troilus and Cressida"
(iv. 4), Troilus says:
"Hark! you are call'd: some say, the Genius so
Cries 'Come!' to him that instantly must die."
This superstition was frequently made use of by writers of bygone times,
and often served to embellish, with touching pathos, their poetic
sentiment. Thus Flatman, in some pretty lines, has embodied this
thought:
"My soul, just now about to take her flight,
Into the regions of eternal night,
Methinks I hear some gentle spirit say,
Be not fearful, come away."
Pope speaks in the same strain:
"Hark! they whisper, angels say,
Sister spirit, come away."
Shakespeare, too, further alludes to this idea in "Macbeth" (ii. 3),
where, it may be remembered, Lennox graphically describes how, on the
awful night in which Duncan is so basely murdered:
"Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death;
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion, and confus'd events,
New hatch'd to the woful time."
As in Shakespeare's day, so, too, at the present time, there is perhaps
no superstition so deeply rooted in the minds of many people as the
belief in what are popularly termed "death-warnings." Modern folk-lore
holds either that a knocking or rumbling in the floor is an omen of a
death about to happen, or that dying persons themselves announce their
dissolution to their friends in such strange sounds.[728] Many families
are supposed to have particular warnings, such as the appearance of a
bird, the figure of a tall woman, etc. Such, moreover, are not confined
to our own country, but in a variety of forms are found on the
Continent. According to another belief, it was generally supposed that
when a man was on his death-bed the devil or his agents tried to seize
his soul, if it should happen that he died without receiving the
sacrament of the Eucharist, or without confessing his sins. Hence, in "2
Henry VI." (iii. 3), the king says:
"O, beat away the busy meddling fiend
That lays strong siege unto this wretch's soul,
And from his bosom purge this black despair."
[728] Tylor's "Primitive Culture," 1873, vol. i. p. 145.
In the old Office books of the Church, these "busy meddling fiends" are
often represented with great anxiety besieging the dying man; but on the
approach of the priest and his attendants, they are shown to display
symptoms of despair at their impending discomfiture. Douce[729] quotes
from an ancient manuscript book of devotion, written in the reign of
Henry VI., the following prayer to St. George: "Judge for me whan the
moste hedyous and damnable dragons of helle shall be redy to take my
poore soule and engloute it in to theyr infernall belyes."
[729] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1829, pp. 324-326.
Some think that the "passing-bell," which was formerly tolled for a
person who was dying, was intended to drive away the evil spirit that
might be hovering about to seize the soul of the deceased. Its object,
however, was probably to bespeak the prayers of the faithful, and to
serve as a solemn warning to the living. Shakespeare has given several
touching allusions to it. Thus, in Sonnet lxxi. he says:
"No longer mourn for me when I am dead,
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world."
In "2 Henry IV." (i. 1), Northumberland speaks in the same strain:
"Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
Hath but a losing office: and his tongue
Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
Remember'd knolling a departing friend."
We may quote a further allusion in "Venus and Adonis" (l. 701):
"And now his grief may be compared well
To one sore sick that hears the passing-bell."
In a statute passed during the reign of Henry VIII., it is ordered "that
clarks are to ring no more than the passing bell for poare people, nor
less for an honest householder, and he be a citizen; nor for children,
maydes, journeymen, apprentices, day-labourers, or any other poare
person." In 1662, the Bishop of Worcester[730] asks, in his visitation
charge: "Doth the parish clerk or sexton take care to admonish the
living, by tolling of a passing-bell, of any that are dying, thereby to
meditate of their own deaths, and to commend the other's weak condition
to the mercy of God?" It was, also, called the "soul-bell," upon which
Bishop Hall remarks: "We call it the soul-bell because it signifies the
departure of the soul, not because it helps the passage of the soul."
Ray, in his "Collection of Proverbs," has the following couplet:
"When thou dost hear a toll or knell
Then think upon thy passing-bell."
[730] "Annals of Worcester," 1845.
It was formerly customary to draw away the pillow from under the heads
of dying persons, so as to accelerate their departure--an allusion to
which we find in "Timon of Athens" (iv. 3), where Timon says:
"Pluck stout men's pillows from below their heads."
This, no doubt, originated in the notion that a person cannot die
happily on a bed made of pigeons' feathers. Grose says: "It is
impossible for a person to die whilst resting on a pillow stuffed with
the feathers of a dove; but that he will struggle with death in the most
exquisite torture. The pillows of dying persons are therefore frequently
taken away when they appear in great agonies, lest they may have
pigeon's feathers in them." Indeed, in Lancashire, this practice is
carried to such an extent that some will not allow dying persons to lie
on a feather bed, because they hold that it very much increases their
pain and suffering, and actually retards their departure.[731]
[731] Harland and Wilkinson's "Lancashire Folk-Lore," 1869, p.
268; see "English Folk-Lore," 1878, pp. 99, 100; also "Notes
and Queries," 1st series, vol. iv. p. 133.
The departure of the human soul from this world, and its journey to its
untried future, have become interwoven with an extensive network of
superstitions, varying more or less in every country and tribe.
Shakespeare has alluded to the numerous destinations of the disembodied
spirit, enumerating the many ideas prevalent in his time on the subject.
In "Measure for Measure" (iii. 1), Claudio thus speaks:
"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world."[732]
[732] Cf. Milton's "Paradise Lost," v. 595-683.
We may compare also the powerful language of Othello (v. 2):
"This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!
Even like thy chastity.--
O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!"
Douce[733] says that in the former passage it is difficult to decide
whether Shakespeare is alluding to the pains of hell or purgatory. Both
passages are obscure, and have given rise to much criticism. It seems
probable, however, that while partly referring to the notions of the
time, relating to departed souls, Shakespeare has in a great measure
incorporated the ideas of what he had read in books of Catholic
divinity. The passages quoted above remind us of the legend of St.
Patrick's purgatory, where mention is made of a lake of ice and snow
into which persons were plunged up to their necks; and of the
description of hell given in the "Shepherd's Calendar:"
"a great froste in a water rounes
And after a bytter wynde comes
Which gothe through the soules with eyre;
Fends with pokes pulle theyr flesshe ysondre,
They fight and curse, and eche on other wonder."
[733] See "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, pp. 82, 83.
We cannot here enter, however, into the mass of mystic details
respecting "the soul's dread journey[734] by caverns and rocky paths and
weary plains, over steep and slippery mountains, by frail bank or giddy
bridge, across gulfs or rushing rivers, abiding the fierce onset of the
soul-destroyer or the doom of the stern guardian of the other world."
Few subjects, indeed, have afforded greater scope for the imagination
than the hereafter of the human soul, and hence, as might be expected,
numerous myths have been invented in most countries to account for its
mysterious departure in the hour of death, from the world of living men
to its unseen, unknown home in the distant land of spirits.
[734] Tylor's "Primitive Culture," vol. ii. p. 46.
Shakespeare several times uses the word "limbo" in a general
signification for hell, as in "Titus Andronicus" (iii. 1):
"As far from help as limbo is from bliss."
And in "All's Well that Ends Well" (v. 3), Parolles says: "for, indeed,
he was mad for her, and talked of Satan, and of limbo, and of furies,
and I know not what." In "Henry VIII." (v. 4), "in Limbo Patrum" is
jocularly put for a prison; and, again, in "Comedy of Errors" (iv. 2),
"he's in Tartar limbo." "According to the schoolmen, _Limbus Patrum_ was
the place, bordering on hell, where the souls of the patriarchs and
saints of the Old Testament remained till the death of Christ, who,
descending into hell, set them free."[735]
[735] Dyce's "Glossary," p. 246.
One of the punishments invented of old for the covetous and avaricious,
in hell, was to have melted gold poured down their throats, to which
allusion is made by Flaminius, in "Timon of Athens" (iii. 1), who,
denouncing Lucullus for his mean insincerity towards his friend Timon,
exclaims, on rejecting the bribe offered him to tell his master that he
had not seen him:
"May these add to the number that may scald thee!
Let molten coin be thy damnation."
In the "Shepherd's Calendar," Lazarus declares himself to have seen
covetous men and women in hell dipped in caldrons of molten lead. Malone
quotes the following from an old black-letter ballad of "The Dead Man's
Song:"
"Ladles full of melted gold
Were poured down their throats."
Crassus was so punished by the Parthians.[736]
[736] Singer's "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. viii. p. 291.
There is possibly a further allusion to this imaginary punishment in
"Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 5), where Cleopatra says to the messenger:
"But, sirrah, mark, we use
To say, the dead are well: bring it to that,
The gold I give thee will I melt, and pour
Down thy ill-uttering throat."
According to a well-known superstition among sailors, it is considered
highly unlucky to keep a corpse on board, in case of a death at sea.
Thus, in "Pericles" (iii. 1), this piece of folk-lore is alluded to:
"_1 Sailor._ Sir, your queen must overboard; the sea works
high, the wind is loud, and will not lie till the ship be
cleared of the dead.
_Pericles._ That's your superstition.
_1 Sailor._ Pardon us, sir; with us at sea it hath been still
observed; and we are strong in custom. Therefore briefly yield
her; for she must overboard straight."
It was also a popular opinion that death is delayed until the ebb of the
tide--a superstition to which Mrs. Quickly refers in "Henry V." (ii. 3);
speaking of Falstaff's death, she says: "'A made a finer end, and went
away, an it had been any christom child; 'a parted even just between
twelve and one, even at the turning o' the tide." Hence, in cases of
sickness, many pretended that they could foretell the hour of the soul's
departure. It may be remembered how Mr. Peggotty explained to David
Copperfield, by poor Barkis's bedside, that "people can't die along the
coast except when the tide's pretty nigh out. They can't be born unless
it's pretty nigh in--not properly born till flood. He's a-going out with
the tide--he's a-going out with the tide. It's ebb at half arter three,
slack-water half an hour. If he lives till it turns he'll hold his own
till past the flood, and go out with the next tide." Mr. Henderson[737]
quotes from the parish register of Heslidon, near Hartlepool, the
subjoined extracts of old date, in which the state of the tide at the
time of death is mentioned:
"The xith daye of Maye, A.D. 1595, at vi. of ye clocke in the
morninge, being full water, Mr. Henrye Mitford, of Hoolam, died
at Newcastel, and was buried the xvith daie, being Sondaie, at
evening prayer, the hired preacher maid ye sermon."
"The xviith daie of Maie, at xii. of ye clock at noon, being
lowe water, Mrs. Barbara Mitford died, and was buried the
xviiith daie of Maie, at ix. of the clocke. Mr. Holsworth maid
ye sermon."
[737] "Folk-Lore of Northern Counties," 1880, p. 58.
According to Mr. Henderson, this belief is common along the east coast
of England, from Northumberland to Kent. It has been suggested that
there may be "some slight foundation for this belief in the change of
temperature which undoubtedly takes place on the change of tide, and
which may act on the flickering spark of life, extinguishing it as the
ebbing sea recedes."
We may compare, too, the following passage in "2 Henry IV." (iv. 4),
where Clarence, speaking of the approaching death of the king, says:
"The river hath thrice flow'd, no ebb between;
And the old folk, time's doting chronicles,
Say it did so a little time before
That our great grandsire, Edward, sick'd and died."
This was an historical fact, having happened on October 12, 1411.
The prayers of the Church, which are used for the recovery of the sick,
were, in the olden time, also supposed to have a morbific influence, to
which Gloster attributes the death of the king in "1 Henry VI." (i. 1):
"The church! where is it? Had not churchmen pray'd,
His thread of life had not so soon decay'd."
Once more, the custom of closing the eyes at the moment of death is
touchingly referred to in "Antony and Cleopatra" (v. 2), where Charmian
may be supposed to close Cleopatra's eyes:
"Downy windows, close;
And golden Phoebus never be beheld
Of eyes again so royal."
Passing on from that solemn moment in human life when the soul takes its
flight from the fragile tenement of clay that contained it during its
earthly existence, we find that, even among the lowest savages, there
has generally been a certain respect paid to the dead body; and,
consequently, various superstitious rites have, from time to time, been
associated with its burial, which has been so appropriately termed "the
last act." While occasionally speaking of death, Shakespeare has not
only pictured its solemnity in the most powerful and glowing language,
but, as opportunity allowed, given us a slight insight into those
customs that formerly prevailed in connection with the committal of the
body to its final resting-place in the grave. At the present day, when
there is an ever-growing tendency to discard and forget, as irrational
and foolish, the customs of bygone years, it is interesting to find
chronicled, for all future time, in the immortal pages of our
illustrious poet, those superstitious rites and social usages which may
be said to have been most intimately identified with the age to which
they belonged. One custom, perhaps, that will always retain its old
hold among us--so long as we continue to bury the remains of our departed
ones--is the scattering of flowers on their graves; a practice, indeed,
which may be traced up to pagan times. It is frequently mentioned by
Shakespeare in some of his superb passages; as, for instance, in
"Cymbeline" (iv. 2), where Arviragus says:
"With fairest flowers,
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose, nor
The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath.
* * * * *
Yea, and furr'd moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse."
In "Hamlet" (iv. 5), the poor, bewildered Ophelia sings:
"Larded with sweet flowers;
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers."
Then, further on (v. 1), there is the affecting flower-strewing scene,
where the Queen, standing over the grave of Ophelia, bids her a long
farewell:
"Sweets to the sweet: farewell!
I hop'd thou should'st have been my Hamlet's wife;
I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid,
And not have strew'd thy grave."
In "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 5), Capulet says:
"Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse."
And further on (v. 3) the Page says:
"He came with flowers to strew his lady's grave."[738]
[738] Cf. "Winter's Tale," iv. 4.
Once more, in "Pericles" (iv. 1), Marina is introduced, entering with a
basket of flowers, uttering these sad words:
"No, I will rob Tellus of her weed,
To strew thy green with flowers; the yellows, blues,
The purple violets, and marigolds,
Shall, as a carpet, hang upon thy grave,
While summer days do last."
Flowers, which so soon droop and wither, are, indeed, sweet emblems of
that brief life which is the portion of mankind in this world, while, at
the same time, their exquisite beauty is a further type of the glory
that awaits the redeemed hereafter, when, like fair flowers, they shall
burst forth in unspeakable grandeur on the resurrection morn. There is a
pretty custom observed in South Wales on Palm Sunday, of spreading fresh
flowers upon the graves of friends and relatives, the day being called
Flowering Sunday.
The practice of decorating the corpse is mentioned by many old writers.
In "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 5), Friar Laurence says:
"Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church."
Queen Katharine, in "Henry VIII." (iv. 2), directs:
"When I am dead, good wench,
Let me be us'd with honour: strew me over
With maiden flowers."
It was formerly customary, in various parts of England, to have a
garland of flowers and sweet herbs carried before a maiden's coffin, and
afterwards to suspend it in the church. In allusion to this practice,
the Priest, in "Hamlet" (v. 1), says:
"Yet here she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial."
--crants[739] meaning garlands. It may be noted that no other instance
has been found of this word in English. These garlands are thus
described by Gay:
"To her sweet mem'ry flow'ry garlands strung,
On her now empty seat aloft were hung."
[739] The word in German is _kranz_, in other Teutonic dialects
_krants_, _krans_, and _crance_--the latter being Lowland
Scotch--and having _cransies_ for plural. Clark and Wright's
"Hamlet," 1876, p. 216.
Nichols, in his "History of Lancashire" (vol. ii. pt. i. p. 382),
speaking of Waltham, in Framland Hundred, says: "In this church, under
every arch, a garland is suspended, one of which is customarily placed
there whenever any young unmarried woman dies." Brand[740] tells us he
saw in the churches of Wolsingham and Stanhope, in the county of Durham,
specimens of these garlands; the form of a woman's glove, cut in white
paper, being hung in the centre of each of them.
[740] "Pop. Antiq." vol. ii. p. 303.
The funerals of knights and persons of rank were, in Shakespeare's day,
performed with great ceremony and ostentation. Sir John Hawkins observes
that "the sword, the helmet, the gauntlets, spurs, and tabard are still
hung over the grave of every knight." In "Hamlet" (iv. 5), Laertes
speaks of this custom:
"His means of death, his obscure burial,--
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment, o'er his bones,
No noble rite, nor formal ostentation,--
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question."
Again, in "2 Henry VI." (iv. 10), Iden says:
"Is't Cade that I have slain, that monstrous traitor?
Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed,
And hang thee o'er my tomb when I am dead."
The custom of bearing the dead body in its ordinary habiliments, and
with the face uncovered--a practice referred to in "Romeo and Juliet"
(iv. 1)--appears to have been peculiar to Italy:
"Then, as the manner of our country is,
In thy best robes uncover'd on the bier,
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie."
In Coryat's "Crudities" (1776, vol. ii. p. 27) the practice is thus
described: "The burials are so strange, both in Venice and all other
cities, towns, and parishes of Italy, that they differ not only from
England, but from all other nations whatever in Christendom. For they
carry the corse to church with the face, hands, and feet all naked, and
wearing the same apparel that the person wore lately before he died, or
that which he craved to be buried in; which apparel is interred together
with the body."[741] Singer[742] says that Shakespeare no doubt had seen
this custom particularly described in the "Tragicall History of Romeus
and Juliet:"
"Another use there is, that, whosoever dies,
Borne to the church, with open face, upon the bier he lies,
In wonted weed attir'd, not wrapt in winding sheet."
[741] See Staunton's "Shakespeare," 1864, vol. i. p. 305.
[742] "Shakespeare," 1875, vol. ix. pp. 209, 210.
He alludes to it again in Ophelia's song, in "Hamlet" (iv. 5):
"They bore him barefac'd on the bier."
It was, in bygone times, customary to bury the Danish kings in their
armor; hence the remark of Hamlet (i. 4), when addressing the Ghost:
"What may this mean,
That thou, dead corse, again, in complete steel,
Revisit'st thus the glimpses of the moon,
Making night hideous?"
Shakespeare was probably guilty of an anachronism in "Coriolanus" (v. 6)
when he makes one of the lords say:
"Bear from hence his body,
And mourn you for him: let him be regarded
As the most noble corse that ever herald
Did follow to his urn,"
the allusion being to the public funeral of English princes, at the
conclusion of which a herald proclaimed the style of the deceased.
We may compare what Queen Katharine says in "Henry VIII." (iv. 2):
"After my death I wish no other herald,
No other speaker of my living actions,
To keep my honour from corruption,
But such an honest chronicler as Griffith."
It seems to have been the fashion, as far back as the thirteenth
century, to ornament the tombs of eminent persons with figures and
inscriptions on plates of brass; hence, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (i.
1), the King says:
"Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register'd upon our brazen tombs."
In "Much Ado About Nothing" (v. 1), Leonato, speaking of his daughter's
death, says:
"Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,
And sing it to her bones: sing it to-night."
And also in a previous scene (iv. 1) this graceful custom is noticed:
"Maintain a mourning ostentation,
And on your family's old monument
Hang mournful epitaphs."
It was also the custom, in years gone by, on the death of an eminent
person, for his friends to compose short laudatory verses, epitaphs,
etc., and to affix them to the hearse or grave with pins, wax, paste,
etc. Thus, in "Henry V." (i. 2), King Henry declares:
"Either our history shall with full mouth
Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,
Like Turkish mute, shall have a tongueless mouth,
Not worshipp'd with a waxen epitaph,"
meaning, says Gifford, "I will either have my full history recorded with
glory, or lie in an undisturbed grave; not merely without an
inscription sculptured in stone, but unworshipped, unhonoured, even by a
waxen epitaph."[743]
[743] Notes on "Jonson's Works," vol. ix. p. 58.
We may also compare what Lucius says in "Titus Andronicus" (i. 1):
"There lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,
Till we with trophies do adorn thy tomb!"
The custom was still general when Shakespeare lived; many fine and
interesting examples existing in the old Cathedral of St. Paul's, and
other churches of London, down to the time of the great fire, in the
form of pensil-tables of wood and metal, painted or engraved with
poetical memorials, suspended against the columns and walls.
"Feasts of the Dead," which have prevailed in this and other countries
from the earliest times, are, according to some antiquarians, supposed
to have been borrowed from the _cæna feralis_ of the Romans--an offering,
consisting of milk, honey, wine, olives, and strewed flowers, to the
ghost of the deceased. In a variety of forms this custom has prevailed
among most nations--the idea being that the spirits of the dead feed on
the viands set before them; hence the rite in question embraced the
notion of a sacrifice. In Christian times, however, these funeral
offerings have passed into commemorative banquets, under which form they
still exist among us. In allusion to these feasts, Hamlet (i. 2),
speaking of his mother's marriage, says:
"The funeral bak'd meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables."
Again, in "Romeo and Juliet" (iv. 5), Capulet narrates how:
"All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral:
Our instruments, to melancholy bells;
Our wedding cheer, to a sad burial feast."
Mr. Tylor,[744] in discussing the origin of funeral feasts, and in
tracing their origin back to the savage and barbaric times of the
institution of feast of departed souls, says we may find a lingering
survival of this old rite in the doles of bread and drink given to the
poor at funerals, and "soul-mass cakes," which peasant girls beg for at
farmhouses, with the traditional formula,
"Soul, soul, for a soul cake,
Pray you, mistress, a soul cake."[745]
[744] "Primitive Culture," vol. ii. p. 43.
[745] See "British Popular Customs," p. 404; Brand's "Pop.
Antiq.," 1849, vol. ii. pp. 237, 246; Douce's "Illustrations of
Shakespeare," 1839, p. 439.
In the North of England the funeral feast is called an "arval," and the
loaves that are sometimes distributed among the poor are termed "arval
bread."
Among other funeral customs mentioned by Shakespeare, may be mentioned
his allusion to the burial service. Originally, before the reign of
Edward VI., it was the practice for the priest to throw earth on the
body in the form of a cross, and then to sprinkle it with holy water.
Thus, in the "Winter's Tale" (iv. 4), the Shepherd says:
"Some hangman must put on my shroud, and lay me
Where no priest shovels in dust,"
implying, "I must be buried as a common malefactor, out of the pale of
consecrated ground, and without the usual rites of the dead"--a whimsical
anachronism, as Mr. Douce[746] points out, when it is considered that
the old Shepherd was a pagan, a worshipper of Jupiter and Apollo.
[746] See Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 222.
In "Antony and Cleopatra" (i. 3), we find an allusion to the
lachrymatory vials filled with tears which the Romans were in the habit
of placing in the tomb of a departed friend. Cleopatra sorrowfully
exclaims:
"O most false love!
Where be the sacred vials thou shouldst fill
With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,
In Fulvia's death, how mine receiv'd shall be."
This is another interesting instance of Shakespeare's knowledge of the
manners of distant ages, showing how varied and extensive his knowledge
was, and his skill in applying it whenever occasion required.
The winding or shrouding sheet, in which the body was wrapped previous
to its burial, is alluded to in "Hamlet" (v. 1), in the song of the
clown:
"A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet."
Again, in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (v. 1), Puck says:
"the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud."
Ophelia speaks of the shroud as white as the mountain snow ("Hamlet,"
iv. 5). The following song, too, in "Twelfth Night" (ii. 4), mentions
the custom of sticking yew in the shroud:
"Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath:
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it!"
To quote two further illustrations. Desdemona ("Othello," iv. 2) says to
Emilia: "Lay on my bed my wedding-sheets," and when in the following
scene Emilia answers:
"I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed,"
Desdemona adds:
"If I do die before thee, pr'thee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets"
--a wish, indeed, which her cruel fate so speedily caused to be realized.
And in "3 Henry VI." (i. 1) we have King Henry's powerful words:
"Think'st thou, that I will leave my kingly throne,
Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?
No: first shall war unpeople this my realm;
Ay, and their colours,--often borne in France,
And now in England, to our heart's great sorrow,--
Shall be my winding-sheet."
The custom, still prevalent, of carrying the dead to the grave with
music--a practice which existed in the primitive church--to denote that
they have ended their spiritual warfare, and are become conquerors,
formerly existed very generally in this country.[747] In "Cymbeline"
(iv. 2), Arviragus says:
"And let us, Polydore, though now our voices
Have got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,
As once our mother; use like note and words,
Save that Euriphile must be Fidele."
[747] See Brand's "Pop. Antiq.," 1849, vol ii. pp. 267-270.
The tolling of bells at funerals is referred to in "Hamlet" (v. 1),
where the priest says of Ophelia:
"she is allow'd her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial."
It has been a current opinion for centuries that places of burial are
haunted with spectres and apparitions--a notion, indeed, that prevailed
as far back as the times of heathenism. Ovid speaks of ghosts coming out
of their sepulchres and wandering about: and Vergil, quoting the popular
opinion of his time, tells us how Moeris could call the ghosts out of
their sepulchres ("Bucol." viii. 98):
"Moerim, sæpe animas imis excire sepulchris,
Atque satas alio vidi traducere messis."
Indeed, the idea of the ghost remaining near the corpse is of world-wide
prevalence; and as Mr. Tylor[748] points out, "through all the changes
of religious thought from first to last, in the course of human history,
the hovering ghosts of the dead make the midnight burial-ground a place
where men's flesh creeps with terror." In "A Midsummer-Night's Dream"
(v. 1), Puck declares:
"Now it is the time of night,
That the graves, all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the church-way paths to glide."
[748] "Primitive Culture," vol. ii. p. 30.
In the same play, too (iii. 2), Puck, speaking of "Aurora's harbinger,"
says:
"At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards: damned spirits all,
That in cross-ways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone;
For fear lest day should look their shames upon."
In this passage two curious superstitions are described; the ghosts of
self-murderers, who are buried in cross-roads, and of those who have
been drowned at sea, being said to wander for a hundred years, owing to
the rites of sepulture having never been properly bestowed on their
bodies.
We may further compare Hamlet's words (iii. 2):
"'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world."
From the earliest period much importance has been attached to the
position of the grave, the popular direction being from east to west,
that from north to south being regarded as not only dishonorable, but
unlucky. Thus, in "Cymbeline" (iv. 2), Guiderius, when arranging about
the apparently dead body of Imogen, disguised in man's apparel, says:
"Nay, Cadwal, we must lay his head to the east;
My father had a reason for't."
Indeed, the famous antiquary Hearne had such precise views in this
matter that he left orders for his grave to be made straight by a
compass, due east and west. This custom was practised by the ancient
Greeks, and thus, as Mr. Tylor points out,[749] it is not to late and
isolated fancy, but to the carrying on of ancient and widespread solar
ideas, that we trace the well-known legend that the body of Christ was
laid with the head towards the west, thus looking eastward, and the
Christian usage of digging graves east and west, which prevailed through
mediæval times, and is not yet forgotten. The rule of laying the head to
the west, and its meaning that the dead shall rise looking towards the
east, are perfectly stated in the following passage from an
ecclesiastical treatise of the 16th century:[750] "Debet autem quis sic
sepeliri ut capite ad occidentem posito, pedes dirigat ad Orientem, in
quo quasi ipsa positione orat: et innuit quod promptus est, ut de occasu
festinet ad ortum: de mundo ad seculum."[751]
[749] "Primitive Culture," 1873, vol. ii. p. 423.
[750] Durandus, "De Officio Mortuorum," lib. vii. chap. 35-39.
[751] Dr. Johnson thought the words of the clown in "Hamlet"
(v. 1), "make her grave straight," meant, "make her grave from
east to west, in a direct line parallel to the church." This
interpretation seems improbable, as the word straight in the
sense of immediately occurs frequently in Shakespeare's plays.
Within old monuments and receptacles for the dead perpetual lamps were
supposed to be lighted up, an allusion to which is made by Pericles
(iii. 1), who, deploring the untimely death of Thaisa at sea, and the
superstitious demand made by the sailors that her corpse should be
thrown overboard, says:
"Nor have I time
To give thee hallow'd to thy grave, but straight
Must cast thee, scarcely coffin'd, in the ooze;
Where, for a monument upon thy bones,
And aye-remaining lamps, the belching whale
And humming water must o'erwhelm thy corpse,
Lying with simple shells."
Again, in "Troilus and Cressida" (iii. 2), we find a further reference
in the words of Troilus:
"O, that I thought it could be in a woman,
To feed for aye her lamp and flames of love."
Pope, too, in his "Eloisa to Abelard," has a similar allusion (l. 261,
262):
"Ah, hopeless lasting flames, like those that burn
To light the dead, and warm th' unfruitful urn!"
D'Israeli, in his "Curiosities of Literature," thus explains this
superstition: "It has happened frequently that inquisitive men,
examining with a flambeau ancient sepulchres which have just been
opened, the fat and gross vapors engendered by the corruption of dead
bodies kindled as the flambeau approached them, to the great
astonishment of the spectators, who frequently cried out 'A miracle!'
This sudden inflammation, although very natural, has given room to
believe that these flames proceeded from _perpetual lamps_, which some
have thought were placed in the tombs of the ancients, and which, they
said, were extinguished at the moment that these tombs opened, and were
penetrated by the exterior air." Mr. Dennis, however, in his "Cities and
Cemeteries of Etruria" (1878, vol. ii. p. 404), says that the use of
sepulchral lamps by the ancients is well known, and gave rise to the
above superstition. Sometimes lamps were kept burning in sepulchres long
after the interment, as in the case of the Ephesian widow described by
Petronius ("Satyr," c. 13), who replaced the lamp placed in her
husband's tomb.
A common expression formerly applied to the dead occurs in the "Winter's
Tale" (v. 1), where Dion asks:
"What were more holy,
Than to rejoice the former queen is well?"
So in "Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 5):
"_Messenger._ First, madam, he is well.
_Cleopatra._ Why, there's more gold.
But, sirrah, mark, we use
To say, the dead are well."[752]
[752] See Malone's note, Variorum edition, xiv. 400.
Lastly, commentators have differed as to the meaning of the words of
Julia in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (i. 2):
"I see you have a month's mind to them."
Douce says she refers to the mind or remembrance days of our popish
ancestors; persons in their wills having often directed that in a month,
or at some other specific time, some solemn office, as a mass or a
dirge, should be performed for the repose of their souls. Thus Ray
quotes a proverb: "To have a month's mind to a thing," and mentions the
above custom. For a further and not improbable solution of this
difficulty, the reader may consult Dyce's "Glossary" (p. 277).