Mourning, a distinctive garment worn to express the sadness one has when visited by misfortune, most commonly on the death of a person.

The colors and the style of the mourning garments are different in different countries : in China white is worn; in Turkey the mourner wears either blue or violet; in Egypt, yellow; in Ethiopia the color is grey. The ladies of Sparta and Rome wore white garments, as they did in Castille on the occasion of the death of a prince. This practice ended in 1498 with the death of John, called Herrera.

Each nation has had its reason for choosing a certain color to identify the mourner . It can be presumed that white is chosen to signify purity, while yellow or the color of dead leaves attests to death as the end of human life and hopes, since the leaves of trees when they fall and the grass when it withers become yellow. Grey signifies the earth to which the dead return. The black marks the happiness that one hopes the dead are enjoying. And the violet, being a mixture of blue and black, signifies sadness on the one hand and on the other the happiness that one wishes for the dead.

So these are the explanations that have to be regarded as those given to allegorical dreams. Many other even less probable interpretations could be given if, for example, red were worn as a sign of mourning . To conclude, it all depends on the practice of the country concerned, where different colors are assigned to signify joy, tears, and sadness

The Orientals cut their hair as a sign of mourning . By contrast, the Romans let their hair grow as well as their beards. The Greeks have imitated the peoples of the Orient; not merely on the death of their parents and their friends do they cut their hair over their tomb, but also the hair of their horses. They practice the same thing on the occasion of public calamities, after a battle, and so on.