In the past, each aspect of lay funerary ritual had multiple levels of practical justification and traditional meaning. The eyelids are generally the first part of the body to set in rigor mortis , just before the jaw, hours after death. A corpse whose eyes refused to close was traditionally believed to presage further deaths, so closing the eyes was imperative to forestall the omen , and to prevent survivors' unease.
在过去，丧葬仪式的所有流程都具有多层面的实际理由和传统意义。人死数小时后，眼睑通常是最先僵直的，然后是颌部。传统上认为，尸体不闭眼预示着新的死亡，故而死者必须闭眼，预先阻止凶兆和生者的不安。
The dead body is an object of great potency , with a powerful presence of its own. Part of this effect derives from its embodiment of the power of death, part from the strangeness death works upon it. British funeral practices reveal that there existed a conception of a transitional period between death and burial in which the body was regarded as 'neither alive nor fully dead'.
尸体蕴含伟大的力量，其形体依然存在。这种效应部分源于死亡力量的形象化，部分源于死亡的肃穆。英国的丧葬仪式表明，在死亡和下葬之间存在一个过渡时期的概念，在此期间，尸体“非生亦非死”。
In a physical sense, of course, we are all familiar with this notion —in the currently continuing difficulty in defining the precise moment of death, the possibility of resuscitation , and in the phenomenon of organs, which, though extracted from corpses, are yet sufficiently alive to support life again in the body of another. Old British customs and beliefs—such as the belief that a signature taken while the corpse is still warm had the same status as in life, that a corpse could indicate displeasure if a will read before it was false, or that it would bleed if a murderer came into its vicinity —seem to attribute sentience to the dead body.
从形体意义上说，当然，我们都熟悉这一概念——现在依然难以准确确定死亡时、复活的可能性；从尸体可以提取器官，它们并未死亡并足以拯救其他人的生命。旧的英国风俗和迷信——比如在尸体温度尚存时署名就和人没死效果是一样的，在尸体前宣读假的遗嘱它会表达不满，如果凶手前来尸体会流血——似乎是赋予尸体以知觉。
