Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 76

"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 bra.s.s; 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 hea.r.s.e 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 "t.i.tus 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 _caena 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 pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tution 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-ma.s.s 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 "Ill.u.s.trations 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 "Ill.u.s.trations 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 ill.u.s.trations. Desdemona ("Oth.e.l.lo," 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.