a man doth of a Death's-head or a memento mori:
I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire......"
1 Henry IV (III, iii)
Shakespeare's quick-witted and overfed Falstaff, ever-expansive in more ways than one, finds Bardolph's face to be useful as a memento mori (Latin for "a reminder of death"). Since time out of mind, people have felt a need to be reminded of their own mortality, the fleeting nature of time and the transitory pleasures that this world offers. The Elizabethans took to heart the biblical reminder that man is dust "and to dust you shall return." There was a revival of medievalism during Shakespeare's lifetime, and some of Shakespeare's characters, like Hamlet, are death-obsessed. Hamlet refers to death as "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns" (with "bourn" meaning "boundary").
Pictured above is an English memento mori painting dating to the 16th century, in the collection of Agecroft Hall. It measures about 23 x 17 inches. Created with oil paint on a wood panel by an unknown artist, it is an allegorical painting of a young man holding a flower and an old bearded man in black costume holding a skull and prayer book. The two figures face each other on either side of a tablet with a morality verse, surmounted by a winged figure of Father Time. In the foreground is a skeleton in a coffin, with two morality verses written on its side. The overall message of this memento mori could hardly be made more clear: time passes inexorably, and we must come to bones and dust. One must live righteously while there are still days left in one's life to do so.
Besides memento mori paintings, tomb relief carvings, skull pendants, and the like, there were also the macabre transi, or cadaver tombs, that included a carved depiction of the body of the deceased in an advanced state of decomposition. Tombs of this type, many quite chilling in appearance, were carved primarily during the late Middle Ages, before Shakespeare's time.
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