This is another interesting instance of Shakespeare’s knowledge of the manners of distant ages, showing how varied and extensive his knowledge was, and his skill in applying it whenever occasion required.
The winding or shrouding sheet, in which the body was wrapped previous to its burial, is alluded to in “Hamlet” (v. 1), in the song of the clown:
“A pick-axe, and a spade, a spade,
For and a shrouding sheet:
O, a pit of clay for to be made
For such a guest is meet.”
Again, in “A Midsummer-Night’s Dream” (v. 1), Puck says:
“the screech-owl, screeching loud,
Puts the wretch that lies in woe
In remembrance of a shroud.”
Ophelia speaks of the shroud as white as the mountain snow (“Hamlet,” iv. 5). The following song, too, in “Twelfth Night” (ii. 4), mentions the custom of sticking yew in the shroud:
“Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath:
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it!”
To quote two further illustrations. Desdemona (“Othello,” iv. 2) says to Emilia: “Lay on my bed my wedding-sheets,” and when in the following scene Emilia answers:
“I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed,”
Desdemona adds: