The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 17, March, 1859. Various
to us, it was but in keeping with the spirit of the time, which we call, perhaps with some presumption, the Dark Ages.
The story which is probably the germ of this Dance was called Les Trois Morts et les Trois Vifs,—"The Three Dead and the Three Living." It is of indefinable antiquity and uncertain origin. It is said, that three noble youths, as they returned from hunting, were met in the gloom of the forest by three hideous spectres, in the form of decaying human corpses; and that, as they stood rooted to the ground by this appalling sight, the figures addressed them solemnly upon the vanity of worldly grandeur and pleasure, and admonished them, that, although in the heyday of youth, they must soon become as they (the spectres) were. This story, or dit, "saying," as it was called in French, was exceedingly popular through-out Europe five or six hundred years ago. It is found in the language of every Christian nation of the period, and, extended by means of accessory incidents and much moralizing, is made to cover several pages in more than one old illuminated manuscript. In the Arundel MSS., in England, there is one of the many versions of the legend written in French so old that it is quite as difficult for Frenchmen as for Englishmen to read it. But over an illuminated picture of the incident, in which three kings are shown meeting the three skeletons, are these lines in English, as old, but less obsolete:—
Over the Kings.
"Ich am afert
Lo whet ich see
Methinketh hit be develes thre."
Over the Skeletons.
"Ich wes wel fair
Such schel tou be
For Godes love be wer by me."
In these rude lines is the whole moral of the legend, and of the Dance of Death which grew out of it. That growth was simple, gradual, and natural. In the versions and in the pictorial representations of the legend there soon began to be much variety in the persons who met the spectres. At first three noble youths, they became three kings, three noble ladies, a king, a queen, and their son or daughter, and so on,—the rank of the persons, however, being always high. For, as we shall have occasion to notice hereafter more particularly, the mystery of the Dance had a democratic as well as a religious significance; and it served to bring to mind, not only the irresistible nature of Death's summons, but the real equality of all men; and this it did in a manner to which those of high condition could not object.
The legend was made the subject of a fresco, painted about 1350, by the eminent Italian painter and architect, Orcagna, upon the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa,—which some readers may be glad to be reminded was a cemetery, so called because it was covered with earth brought from the Holy Land. It is remarkable, however, that in this work the artist embodied Death not in the form commonly used in his day, but in the old Etruscan figure before mentioned. Orcagna's Death is a female, winged like a bat, and with terrible claws. Armed with a scythe, she swoops down upon the earth and reaps a promiscuous harvest of popes, emperors, kings, queens, churchmen, and noblemen. In the rude manner of the time, Orcagna has divided his picture into compartments. In one of these we see St. Macarius, one of the first Christian hermits, an Egyptian, sitting at the foot of a mountain; before him are three kings, who have returned from the chase accompanied by a gay train of attendants. The Saint calls the attention of the kings to three sepulchres in which lie the bodies of three other kings, one of which is much decomposed. The three living kings are struck with horror; but the painter has much diminished the moral effect of his work, for this century, at least, by making one of them hold his nose;—which is regarded by Mr. Ruskin as an evidence of Orcagna's devotion to the truth; but in this case that brilliant writer, but most unsafe critical guide, commits an error of a kind not uncommon with him. The representation of so homely an action, in such a composition, merely shows that the painter had not arrived at a just appreciation of the relative value of the actual,—and that he failed to see that by introducing this unessential incident he diverted attention from his higher purpose, dragged his picture from a moral to a material plane, and went at a bound far over the narrow limit between the horrible and the ludicrous.
St. Macarius is frequently introduced in the pictures of this subject; and some antiquaries suppose that hence the Dance of Death derived the name, Dance Macabre, by which it used to be generally known. Others derive it from the Arabic mac-bourah,—a cemetery. Neither derivation is improbable; but it is of little consequence to us which is correct.
It may seem strange that such a legend as this of "The Three Dead and the Three Living," with such a moral, should become the origin of a dance. But we should remember that in many countries dancing has been a religious ceremony. It was so with the Greeks and Romans, and also with the Hebrews, among whom, however, saltatory worship seems, on most occasions, to have been performed spontaneously, and by volunteers. All will remember the case of Miriam, who thus danced to the sound of her timbrel after the passage of the Red Sea; and who that has read it can forget the account of the dance which King David executed before the ark, dancing with all his might, and girded only with a linen ephod? Dancing has always seemed to us to be an essentially ridiculous transaction,—for a man, at least; and we confess that we sympathize with David's wife, Michal, who, seeing this extraordinary pas seul from her window, "despised David in her heart," and treated him to a little conjugal irony when he came home. What would the lovely Eugénie have thought, if, after the fall of Sebastopol, she had seen his Majesty, the Emperor of the French, "cutting it down," in broad daylight, before the towers of Notre Dame, girded only with a linen ephod,—though that's not exactly the name we give the garment now-a-days? But David was master, not only in Israel, but in his own household, (which is not the case with all kings and great men,) and he said to Michal,—"It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father and before all his house;…. therefore will I play before the Lord;…. and of the maid-servants which thou hast spoken of, of them shall I be had in honor." And Michal all her life repented bitterly the offence that she had given her husband.
But dancing was not one of the regular ceremonies of the Christian Church, even in its corruptest days; and yet dances were performed four hundred years ago in the churches and in church-yards, as a part of, or an appendage to, entertainments of a religious character. These were the Mysteries and Moralities, which are the origin of our drama;—and it is remarkable that in all countries the drama has been at first a religious ceremony. These Mysteries and Moralities were religious plays of the rudest kind: the Mysteries being a representation, partly by dumb show and partly by words, of some well-known incident related in the Bible; and the Moralities, a kind of discussion and enforcement of religious doctrine or moral truth by allegorical personages. They were performed at first almost entirely in the churches, upon scaffolds erected for the purpose.
In a Mystery called "Candlemas Day, or the Killing of the Children of Israel," which represented the Massacre of the Innocents, and in which Herod, Simeon, Joseph, the Virgin Mary, Watkin, a comic character, and Anna the Prophetess, appeared, there was a general dance of all the characters after the Prologue; and at the close of the play, there is a stage-direction for another, in response to a command of Anna the Prophetess, who says,—
"Shewe ye sume plesur as ye can
In the worship of Jesu, our Lady, and St. Anne."
And thereupon King Herod, Simeon, Joseph, the Virgin Mary, Watkin the funny man, and the Prophetess well stricken in years, proceed to forward four, and end with a promenade all around. Indeed, our ancestors seem to have found it edifying, not to say entertaining, to go to a cathedral to see Satan and an Archbishop dance a hornpipe with the Seven Deadly Sins and the Five Cardinal Virtues.
A Morality called "Every Man," written about 1450, has a direct connection with the subject which we are considering. Every Man, the principal personage of the piece, is an allegorical representation of all mankind; and the purpose of the play is told in this sentence, which introduces it:—
"Here begynneth a Treatyse how the Hye Fader of Heven sendeth Dethe to somon every creature to come & gyve a count of theyr lyves in this worlde, & is in maner of a Morall Playe."
On the title-page of an edition printed in 1500, only one copy of which exists, is a very rude wood-cut, in which an individual, who is labelled