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 Worcester[730] 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 knell
Then 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 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 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):
“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:”