CLOSING THE EYES.
For the Table Book.
A GIPSY’S FUNERAL.
Epping Forest.
It was considered a mark of the strongest affection by the ancients, that a son, when his father was dying, should lean over him and receive his last gasp,
“and kiss his spirit into happy rest.”
The Jews, Greeks, and Romans, esteemed it a high privilege for the nearest relative to close the eyes of the deceased body; as in Genesis, when Jacob’s sun was setting, “Joseph shall put his hands upon thine eyes.” And in another place,—“The memory of the father is preserved in the son.” Again, (contra) “I have no son to keep my name in remembrance.” And in Homer, “Let not the glory of his eyes depart, without the tender hand to move it silently to peace.” Ovid says, “Ille meos oculos comprimat, ille tuos.” The performing this ceremony was so valued, that to die without friends to the due observance of this affectionate and last testimony, was thought an irreparable affliction.
The sudden death of a man was attributed to Apollo; of a woman, to Diana. If any relation were present, a vessel of brass was procured, and beaten loudly in the ears of the deceased to determine the point. The ringing of bells by the Romans, and others to this day is practised. The Irish wake partakes also of this usage. When the moon was in eclipse, she was thought asleep, and bells were rung to wake her: the eclipse having past, and the moon recovered her light, faith in this noisy custom became strengthened. Euripides says, when Hyppolitus was dying, he called on his father to close his eyes, cover his face with a cloth, and put a shroud over the corpse. Cassandra, desirous of proving the Trojan cause better than that of the Greeks, eulogizes their happy condition in dying at home, where the obsequies might be performed for them by their nearest relatives. Medea tells her children she once hoped they would have performed the duty for her, but she must do it for them. If a father, or the mother died a widow, the children attended to it: if the husband died, the wife performed it; which the Greeks lamented could not be done if they died at Troy. The duty devolved on the sister if her brother died; which caused Orestes to exclaim, when he was to suffer death so far from his home—“Alas! how shall my sister shroud me now?”
Last month I was gratified by observing the funereal attentions of the gipsy tribes to Cooper, then lying in state on a common, near Epping forest. The corpse lay in a tent clothed with white linen; candles were lighted over the body, on which forest flowers and blossoms of the season were strewn and hung in posies. Cooper’s wife, dressed in black, perceiving I did not wish to see the face of her husband, said in perfect naïveté, “Oh, sir, don’t fear to look at him, I never saw his countenance so pleasant in all my life.” A wit might have construed this sentence otherwise; but too much kindness emanated from this scene of rustic association to admit of levity. Her partner was cold, and her heart beat the pulsations of widowhood. The picture would have caught an artist’s eye. The gipsy-friends and relations sat mutely in the adjoining tents; and, like Job and his comforters, absorbed their grief in the silence of the summer air and their breasts. When Cooper was put in his coffin, the same feeling of attachment pervaded the scene. A train of several pairs, suitably clothed, followed their friend to the grave, and he was buried at the neighbouring church in quiet solemnity.
In addition to this, I transcribe a notice from a MS. journal, kept by a member of my family, 1769, which confirms the custom above alluded to. “Here was just buried in the church, (Tring,) the sister of the queen of the gipsies, to whom it is designed by her husband, to erect a monument to her memory of 20l. price. He is going to be married to the queen (sister to the deceased.) He offered 20l. to the clergyman to marry him directly; but he had not been in the town a month, so could not be married till that time. When this takes place, an entertainment will be made, and 20l. or 30l. spent. Just above esquire Gore’s park these destiny readers have a camp, at which place the woman died; immediately after which, the survivors took all her wearing apparel and burnt them, including silk gowns, rich laces, silver buckles, gold earrings, trinkets, &c.,—for such is their custom.”
J. R. P. June, 1827.