And also in a previous scene (iv. 1) this graceful custom is noticed:
“Maintain a mourning ostentation,
And on your family’s old monument
Hang 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 mouth
Speak 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.”[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 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 meats
Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.”