The Dance of Death. Douce Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ 1453, nuper lapsa hora misse in ecclesia S. Joannis Evangeliste propter capitulum provinciale fratrum Minorum.”36 This document then will set the matter completely at rest.

      At what time the personified exhibition of this pageant commenced, or when it was discontinued cannot now be correctly ascertained. If, from a moral spectacle, it became a licentious ceremony, as is by no means improbable, in imitation of electing a boy-bishop, of the feast of fools, or other similar absurdities, its termination may be looked for in the authority of some ecclesiastical council at present not easily to be traced.

      CHAPTER II

      Places where the Dance of 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.

Imperator

      Quid fers? Induperator ego, et moderamina rerum

      Gesto manu, domuit mors impia sceptra potentum.

Rex Rhomanus

      Quid fers? en ego Rhomulidum rex. Mors manet omnes.

Papa

      En ego Pontificum primus, signansque resignans.

      Et cœlos oraque locos. Mors te manet ergo.

Cardinalis

      Cardineo fulgens ego honore, et Episcopus ecce

      Mors manet ecce omnes, Phrygeus quos pileus ornat.

Episcopus

      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

      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.

Canonicus

      En ego melotam gesto. Mors sæva propinquat.

Pastor

      En parochus quoque pastor ego, mihi dulce falernum

      Notius æde sacra: scortum mihi charius ipsa

      Est animæ cura populi. Mors te manet ergo.

Abbas

      En abbas venio, Veneris quoque ventris amicus.

      Cœnobii rara est mihi cura, frequentior aula

      Magnorum heroum. Chorea saltabis eadem.

Prior

      En prior, ornatus longa et splendente cuculla,

      Falce cades mortis. Mors aufert nomina honoris.

Pater Vestalium

      Nympharum pater ecce ego sum ventrosior, offis

      Pinguibus emacerans corpus. Mors te manet ipsa.

Vestalis Nympha

      En monialis ego, Vestæ servire parata.

      Non te Vesta potest mortis subducere castris.

Legatus

      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.

Dominus Doctor

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