Chapter 24

“When thou dost hear a toll or knellThen think upon thy passing-bell.”

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]

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 lessin 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 becomeA kneaded clod; and the delighted spiritTo bathe in fiery floods, or to resideIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,And blown with restless violence round aboutThe pendent world.”[732]

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 rounesAnd after a bytter wynde comesWhich gothe through the soules with eyre;Fends with pokes pulle theyr flesshe ysondre,They fight and curse, and eche on other wonder.”

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.

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 Patrumwas 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]

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 goldWere poured down their throats.”

Crassus was so punished by the Parthians.[736]

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 useTo say, the dead are well: bring it to that,The gold I give thee will I melt, and pourDown 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.”

“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 twelveand 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 xithdaye 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 xvithdaie, being Sondaie, at evening prayer, the hired preacher maid ye sermon.”

“The xviithdaie of Maie, at xii. of ye clock at noon, being lowe water, Mrs. Barbara Mitford died, and was buried the xviiithdaie of Maie, at ix. of the clocke. Mr. Holsworth maid ye sermon.”

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 beforeThat 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 Phœbus never be beheldOf 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 retainits 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 lackThe flower that’s like thy face, pale primrose, norThe azur’d hare-bell, like thy veins; no, norThe 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 goWith 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]

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 rosemaryOn 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 overWith 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 homeOf bell and burial.”

—crants[739]meaning garlands. It may be noted that no other instance has been found of this word in English. Thesegarlands are thus described by Gay:

“To her sweet mem’ry flow’ry garlands strung,On her now empty seat aloft were hung.”

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.

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 vaultWhere 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.”

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 regardedAs the most noble corse that ever heraldDid follow to his urn,”

the allusion being to the public funeral of English princes, at the conclusion of which a herald proclaimed the style ofthe 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 monumentHang 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 mouthSpeak 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; notmerely without an inscription sculptured in stone, but unworshipped, unhonoured, even by a waxen epitaph.”[743]

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 thecæna feralisof 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 meatsDid 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 timesof 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]

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 meWhere 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.

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 fillWith sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,In Fulvia’s death, how mine receiv’d shall be.”

This is another interesting instance of Shakespeare’sknowledge 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 madeFor 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 woeIn 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 trueDid 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 meIn one of those same sheets”

—a wish, indeed, which her cruel fate so speedily caused tobe 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 voicesHave got the mannish crack, sing him to the ground,As once our mother; use like note and words,Save that Euriphile must be Fidele.”

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 homeOf 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 isof 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.”

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 outContagion 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 preciseviews 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]

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 timeTo give thee hallow’d to thy grave, but straightMust cast thee, scarcely coffin’d, in the ooze;Where, for a monument upon thy bones,And aye-remaining lamps, the belching whaleAnd humming water must o’erwhelm thy corpse,Lying with simple shells.”

Again, in “Troilus and Cressida” (iii. 2), we find a furtherreference 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 burnTo 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 fromperpetual 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 useTo say, the dead are well.”[752]

“Messenger.First, madam, he is well.

Cleopatra.Why, there’s more gold.But, sirrah, mark, we useTo say, the dead are well.”[752]

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).

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