Folk-lore of Shakespeare

“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.727 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 fiendThat lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul,And from his bosom purge this black despair.”

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. Douce728 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.”

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 bellGive warning to the world that I am fledFrom this vile world.”

In “2 Henry IV.” (i. 1), Northumberland speaks in the same strain:

“Yet the first bringer of unwelcome newsHath but a losing office: and his tongueSounds 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 wellTo 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 Worcester729 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 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.730

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 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.”731

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!”

Douce732 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 journey733 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 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.”734

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.735

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.”

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. Henderson736 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.”

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 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 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.”737

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.”

– crants738 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.”

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.” Brand739 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.”740 Singer741 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 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 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; not merely without an inscription sculptured in stone, but unworshipped, unhonoured, even by a waxen epitaph.”742

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 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,743 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.”744

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. Douce745 points out, when it is considered that the old Shepherd was a pagan, a worshipper of Jupiter and Apollo.