The Dance of Death. Douce Francis
Death was sculptured or depicted. – Usually accompanied by verses describing the several characters. – Other Metrical Compositions on the Dance.
The subject immediately before us was very often represented, not only on the walls, but in the windows of many churches, in the cloisters of monasteries, and even on bridges, especially in Germany and Switzerland. It was sometimes painted on church screens, and occasionally sculptured on them, as well as upon the fronts of domestic dwellings. It occurs in many of the manuscript and illuminated service books of the middle ages, and frequent allusions to it are found in other manuscripts, but very rarely in a perfect state, as to the number of subjects.
Most of the representations of the Dance of Death were accompanied by descriptive or moral verses in different languages. Those which were added to the paintings of this subject in Germany appear to have differed very materially, and it is not now possible to ascertain which among them is the oldest. Those in the Basle painting are inserted in the editions published and engraved by Mathew Merian, but they had already occurred in the Decennalia humanæ peregrinationis of Gaspar Landismann in 1584. Some Latin verses were published by Melchior Goldasti at the end of his edition of the Speculum omnium statuum, a celebrated moral work by Roderic, Bishop of Zamora, 1613, 4to. He most probably copied them from one of the early editions of the Danse Macabre, but without any comment whatever, the above title page professing that they are added on account of the similarity of the subject.
A Provençal poet, called Marcabres or Marcabrus, has been placed among the versifiers, but none of his works bear the least similitude to the subject; and, moreover, the language itself is an objection. The English metrical translation will be noticed hereafter. Whether any of the paintings were accompanied by descriptive verses that might be considered as anterior to those ascribed to the supposed Macaber, cannot now be ascertained.
There are likewise some Latin verses in imitation of those above-mentioned, which, as well as the author of them, do not seem to have been noticed by any biographical or poetical writer. They occur at the end of a Latin play, intitled Susanna, Antverp. apud Michaelem Hillenium, MDXXXIII. As the volume is extremely rare, and the verses intimately connected with the present subject, it has been thought worth while to reprint them. After an elegy on the vanity and shortness of human life, and a Sapphic ode on the remembrance of Death, they follow under this title, “Plausus luctificæ mortis ad modum dialogi extemporaliter ab Eusebio Candido lusus. Ad quem quique mortales invitantur omnes, cujuscujus sint conditionis: quibusque singulis Mors ipsa respondet.”
Luctificæ mortis plausum bene cernite cuncti.
Dum res læta, mori et viventes discite, namque
Omnes ex æquo tandem huc properare necessum.
Hic inducitur adolescens quærens, et mors vel philosophus respondens.
Vita quid est hominis? Fumus super aream missus.
Vita quid est hominis? Via mortis, dura laborum
Colluvies, vita est hominis via longa doloris
Perpetui. Vita quid est hominis? cruciatus et error,
Vita quid est hominis? vestitus gramine multo,
Floribus et variis campus, quem parva pruina
Expoliat, sic vitam hominum mors impia tollit.
Quamlibet illa alacris, vegeta, aut opulenta ne felix,
Icta cadit modica crede ægritudine mortis.
Et quamvis superes auro vel murice Crœsum,
Longævum aut annis vivendo Nestora vincas,
Omnia mors æquat, vitæ meta ultima mors est.
Quid fers? Induperator ego, et moderamina rerum
Gesto manu, domuit mors impia sceptra potentum.
Quid fers? en ego Rhomulidum rex. Mors manet omnes.
En ego Pontificum primus, signansque resignans.
Et cœlos oraque locos. Mors te manet ergo.
Cardineo fulgens ego honore, et Episcopus ecce
Mors manet ecce omnes, Phrygeus quos pileus ornat.
Insula splendidior vestit mea, tempora latum
Possideo imperium, multi mea jura tremiscunt.
Me dicant fraudis docti, producere lites.
Experti, aucupium docti nummorum, et averni
Causidici, rixatores, rabulæque forenses.
Hos ego respicio, nihil attendens animarum,
Ecclesiæ mihi commissæ populive salutem
Sed satis est duros loculo infarcisse labores
Agricolûm, et magnis placuisse heroibus orbis.
Non tamen effugies mortis mala spicula duræ.
Ecclesiæ prælatus ego multis venerandus
Muneribus sacris, proventibus officiorum.
Comptior est vestis, popina frequentior æde
Sacra, et psalmorum cantus mihi rarior ipso
Talorum crepitu, Veneris quoque voce sonora.
Morte cades, annos speras ubi vivere plures.
En ego melotam gesto. Mors sæva propinquat.
En parochus quoque pastor ego, mihi dulce falernum
Notius æde sacra: scortum mihi charius ipsa
Est animæ cura populi. Mors te manet ergo.
En abbas venio, Veneris quoque ventris amicus.
Cœnobii rara est mihi cura, frequentior aula
Magnorum heroum. Chorea saltabis eadem.
En prior, ornatus longa et splendente cuculla,
Falce cades mortis. Mors aufert nomina honoris.
Nympharum pater ecce ego sum ventrosior, offis
Pinguibus emacerans corpus. Mors te manet ipsa.
En monialis ego, Vestæ servire parata.
Non te Vesta potest mortis subducere castris.
Legatus venio culparum vincla resolvemus
Omnia pro auro, abiens cœlum vendo, infera claudo
Et quicquid patres sanxerunt, munere solvo
Juribus à mortis non te legatio solvet.
Quid fers? Ecce sophus, divina humanaque jura
Calleo, et à populo doctor Rabbique salutor,
Te manet expectans mors ultima linea rerum.
En ego sum medicus, vitam producere gnarus,
Venis lustratis morborum nomina dico,
Non poteris duræ mortis vitare sagittas.
En ego stellarum motus et sydera novi,
Et fati genus omne scio prædicere cœli.
Non potis es mortis duræ præscire sagittas.
En me Rhoma potens multis suffarsit onustum
Muneribus sacris, proventibus,