Folk-lore of Shakespeare, Thomas Firminger Thiselton Dyer [e reader comics TXT] 📗
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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:
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]
We may compare also the powerful language of Othello (v. 2):
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:”
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.”
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):
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]
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:
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:”
Were 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:
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.”
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:
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):
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:
And golden Phœbus 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:
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.
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Yea, and furr’d moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.”
In “Hamlet” (iv. 5), the poor, bewildered Ophelia sings:
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:
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:
And further on (v. 3) the Page says:
Once more, in “Pericles” (iv. 1), Marina is introduced, entering with a basket of flowers, uttering these sad words:
To strew
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