Mortales igitur memores modo vivite laeti Instar venturi furis, discrimine nullo Cunctos rapturi passim ditesque inopesque.

Stultus et insipiens vita qui sperat in ista, Instar quae fumi perit et cito desinit esse.

Fac igitur tota virtuti incumbito mente, Quae nescit mortem, sed scandit ad ardua coeli.

Quo nos a fatis ducat rex Juppiter, Amen.

Plaudite nunc, animum cuncti retinete faventes.

FINIS.

Antwerpiae apud Michaelem Hillenium M.D.XXXIIII. Mense Maio.

A very early allusion to the Dance of Death occurs in a Latin poem, that seems to have been composed in the twelfth century by our celebrated countryman Walter de Mapes, as it is found among other pieces that carry with them strong marks of his authorship. It is intitled "Lamentacio et deploracio pro Morte et consilium de vivente Deo."[37] In its construction there is a striking resemblance to the common metrical stanzas that accompany the Macaber Dance. Many characters, commencing with that of the Pope, are introduced, all of whom bewail the uncontrolable influence of Death. This is a specimen of the work, extracted from two manuscripts:

Cum mortem meditor nescit mihi causa doloris, Nam cunctis horis mors venit ecce cito.

Pauperis et regis communis lex moriendi, Dat causam flendi si bene scripta leges.

Gustato pomo missus transit sine morte Heu missa sorte labitur omnis homo.

Vado mori Papa qui jussu regna Vado mori, Rex sum, quod honor, subegi quod gloria regum, Mors mihi regna tulit eccine vado Est via mors hominis regia vado mori. mori.

Then follow similar stanzas, for presul, miles, monachus, legista, jurista, doctor, logicus, medicus, cantor, sapiens, dives, cultor, burgensis, nauta, pincerna, pauper.

In Sanchez's collection of Spanish poetry before the year 1400,[38]

mention is made of a Rabbi Santo as a good poet, who lived about 1360. He was a Jew, and surgeon to Don Pedro. His real name seems to have been Mose, but he calls himself Don Santo Judio de Carrion. This person is said to have written a moral poem, called "Danza General." It commences thus:

"_Dise la Muerte._

"Yo so la muerte cierta a todas criaturas, Que son y seran en el mundo durante: Demando y digo O ame! porque curas De vida tan breve en punto passante?" &c.

He then introduces a preacher, who announces Death to all persons, and advises them to be prepared by good works to enter his Dance, which is calculated for all degrees of mankind.

"Primaramente llama a su danza a dos doncellas, A esta mi danza trax de presente, Estas dos donzellas que vades fermosas: Ellas vinieron de muy malamente A oir mes canciones que son dolorosas, Mas non les valdran flores nin rosas, Nin las composturas que poner salian: De mi, si pudiesen parterra querrian, Mas non proveda ser, que son mis esposas."

It may, however, be doubted whether the Jew Santo was the author of this Dance of Death, as it is by no means improbable that it may have been a subsequent work added to the manuscript referred to by Sanchez.

In 1675, Maitre Jacques Jacques, a canon of the cathedral of Ambrun, published a singular work, intitled "Le faut mourir et les excuses inutiles que l'on apporte a cette necessite. Le tout en vers burlesques."

Rouen, 1675, 12mo. It is written much in the style of Scarron and some other similar poets of the time. It commences with a humorous description given by Death of his proceedings with various persons in every part of the globe, which is followed by several dialogues between Death and the following characters: 1. The Pope. 2. A young lady betrothed. 3. A galley slave. 4. Guillot, who has lost his wife. 5. Don Diego Dalmazere, a Spanish hidalgo. 6. A king. 7. The young widow of a citizen. 8. A citizen.

9. A decrepit rich man. 10. A canon. 11. A blind man. 12. A poor peasant.

13. Tourmente, a poor soldier in the hospital. 14. A criminal in prison.

15. A nun. 16. A physician. 17. An apothecary. 18. A lame beggar. 19. A rich usurer. 20. A merchant. 21. A rich merchant. As the book is uncommon, the following specimen is given from the scene between Death and the young betrothed girl:

LA MORT.

A vous la belle demoiselle, Je vous apporte une nouvelle, Qui certes vous surprendra fort.

C'est qu'il faut penser a la mort, Tout vistement plies bagage, Car il faut faire ce voyage.

LA DEMOISELLE.

Qu'entends-je? Tout mon sens se perd, Helas! vous me prener sans verd; C'est tout a fait hors de raison Mourir dedans une saison Que je ne dois songer qu'a rire, Je suis contrainte de vous dire, Que tres injuste est vostre choix, Parce que mourir je ne dois, N'estant qu'en ma quinzieme annee, Voyez quelque vielle echinee, Qui n'ait en bouche point de dent; Vous l'obligerez grandement De l'envoyer a l'autre monde, Puis qu'ici toujours elle gronde; Vous la prendrez tout a propos, Et laissez moi dans le repos, Moi qui suis toute poupinette, Dans l'embonpoint et joliette, Qui n'aime qu'a me rejouir, De grace laissez moi jouir, &c.

CHAPTER III.

_Macaber not a German or any other poet, but a nonentity.--Corruption and confusion respecting this word.--Etymological errors concerning it.--How connected with the Dance.--Trois mors et trois vifs.--Orgagna's painting in the Campo Santo at Pisa.--Its connection with the trois mors et trois vifs, as well as with the Macaber dance.--Saint Macarius the real Macaber.--Paintings of this dance in various places.--At Minden; Church-yard of the Innocents at Paris; Dijon; Basle; Klingenthal; Lubeck; Leipsic; Anneberg; Dresden; Erfurth; Nuremberg; Berne; Lucerne; Amiens; Rouen; Fescamp; Blois; Strasburg; Berlin; Vienna; Holland; Italy; Spain._

The next subject for investigation is the origin of the name of Macaber, as connected with the Dance of Death, either with respect to the verses that have usually accompanied it, or to the paintings or representations of the Dance itself; and first of the verses.

It may, without much hazard, be maintained that, notwithstanding these have been ascribed to a German poet called Macaber, there never was a German, or any poet whatever bearing such a name. The first mention of him appears to have been in a French edition of the Danse Macabre, with the following title, "Chorea ab eximio Macabro versibus Alemannicis edito, et a Petro Desrey emendata. Parisiis per Magistrum Guidonem Mercatorem pro Godefrido de Marnef. 1490, folio." This title, from its ambiguity, is deserving of little consideration as a matter of authority; for if a comma be placed after the word Macabro, the title is equally applicable to the author of the verses and to the painter or inventor of the Dance. As the subject had been represented in several places in Germany, and of course accompanied with German descriptions, it is possible that Desrey might have translated and altered some or one of these, and, mistaking the real meaning of the word, have converted it into the name of an author. It may be asked in what German biography is such a person to be found? how it has happened that this _famous_ Macaber is so little known, or whether the name really has a Teutonic aspect? It was the above title in Desrey's work that misled the truly learned Fabricius inadvertently to introduce into his valuable work the article for Macaber as a German poet, and in a work to which it could not properly belong.[39]

M. Peignot has very justly observed that the Danse Macabre had been very long known in France and elsewhere, not as a literary work, but as a painting; and he further remarks that although the verses are German in the Basil painting, executed about 1440, similar verses in French were placed under the dance at the Innocents at Paris in 1424.[40]

At the beginning of the text in the early French edition of the Danse Macabre, we have only the words "la danse Macabre sappelle," but no specific mention is made of the author of the verses. John Lydgate, in his translation of them from the French, and which was most probably adopted in many places in England where the painting occurred, speaks of "the Frenche Machabrees daunce," and "the daunce of Machabree." At the end, "Machabree the Doctoure," is abruptly and unconnectedly introduced at the bottom of the page. It is not in the French printed copy, from the text of which Lydgate certainly varies in several respects. It remains, therefore, to ascertain whether these words belong to Lydgate, or to whom else; not that it is a matter of much importance.

The earliest authority that has been traced for the name of "Danse Macabre," belongs to the painting at the Innocents, and occurs in the MS.

diary of Charles VII. under the year 1424. It is also strangely called "Chorea Machabaeorum," in 1453, as appears from the before cited document at St. John's church at Besancon. Even the name of one _Maccabrees_, a Provencal poet of the 14th century, has been injudiciously connected with the subject, though his works are of a very different nature.

Previously to attempting to account for the origin of the obscure and much controverted word Macaber, as applicable to the dance itself, it may be necessary to advert to the opinions on that subject that have already appeared. It has been disguised under the several names of Macabre,[41]

Maccabees,[42] Maratre,[43] and even Macrobius.[44] Sometimes it has been regarded as an epithet. The learned and excellent M. Van Praet, the guardian of the royal library at Paris, has conjectured that _Macabre_ is derived from the Arabic _Magbarah_, magbourah, or magabir, all signifying a church-yard. M. Peignot seems to think that M. Van Praet intended to apply the word to the Dance itself,[45] but it is impossible that the intelligent librarian was not aware that personified sculpture, as well as the moral nature of the subject, cannot belong to the Mahometan religion.

Another etymology extremely well calculated to disturb the gravity of the present subject, is that of M. Villaret, the French historian, when adverting to the spectacle of the Danse Macabre, supposed to have been given by the English in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris. Relying on this circumstance, he unceremoniously decides that the name of the dance was likewise English; and that _Macabree_ is compounded of the words, to _make_ and to _break_. The same silly etymology is referred to as in some historical dictionary concerning the city of Paris by Mons.

Compan in his Dictionaire de Danse, article _Macaber_; and another which is equally improbable has been hazarded by the accomplished Marquis de Paulmy, who, noticing some editions of the Danse Macabre in his fine library, now in the arsenal at Paris, very seriously states that Macaber is derived from two Greek words, which denote its meaning to be an _infernal dance_;[46] but if the Greek language were to be consulted on the occasion, the signification would turn out to be very different.

It must not be left unnoticed that M. De Bure, in his account of the edition of the Danse Macabre, printed by Marchant, 1486, has stated that the verses have been attributed to Michel Marot; but the book is dated before Marot was born.[47]

Again,--As to the connexion between the word Macaber with the Dance itself.

In the course of the thirteenth century there appeared a French metrical work under the name of "Li trois Mors et li trois Vis," _i. e._ Les trois Morts et les trois Vifs. In the noble library of the Duke de la Valliere, there were three apparently coeval manuscripts of it, differing, however, from each other, but furnishing the names of two authors, Baudouin de Conde and Nicolas de Marginal.[48] These poems relate that three noble youths when hunting in a forest were intercepted by the like number of hideous spectres or images of Death, from whom they received a terrific lecture on the vanity of human grandeur. A very early, and perhaps the earliest, allusion to this vision, seems to occur in a painting by Andrew Orgagna in the Campo Santo at Pisa; and although it varies a little from the description in the above-mentioned poems, the story is evidently the same. The painter has introduced three young men on horseback with coronets on their caps, and who are attended by several domestics whilst pursuing the amusement of hawking. They arrive at the cell of Saint Macarius an Egyptian Anachorite, who with one hand presents to them a label with this inscription, as well as it can be made out, "Se nostra mente fia ben morta tenendo risa qui la vista affitta la vana gloria ci sara sconfitta la superbia e sara da morte;" and with the other points to three open coffins, in which are a skeleton and two dead bodies, one of them a king.

A similar vision, but not immediately connected with the present subject, and hitherto unnoticed, occurs at the end of the Latin verses ascribed to Macaber, in Goldasti's edition of the Speculum omnium statuum a Roderico Zamorensi. Three persons appear to a hermit, whose name is not mentioned, in his sleep. The first is described as a man in a regal habit; the second as a civilian, and the third as a beautiful female decorated with gold and jewels. Whilst these persons are vainly boasting of their respective conditions, they are encountered by three horrible spectres in the shape of dead human bodies covered with worms, who very severely reprove them for their arrogance. This is evidently another version of the "Trois mors et trois vifs" in the text, but whether it be older or otherwise cannot easily be ascertained. It is composed in alternate rhymes, in the manner, and probably by the author of Philibert or Fulbert's vision of the dispute between the soul and the body, a work ascribed to S. Bernard, and sometimes to Walter de Mapes. There are translations of it both in French and English.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

For the mention of S. Macarius as the hermit in this painting by Orgagna, we are indebted to Vasari in his life of that artist; and he had, no doubt, possessed himself of some traditionary information on the subject of it. He further informs us, that the person on horseback who is stopping his nostrils, is intended for Andrea Uguzzione della fagivola. Above is a black and hideous figure of Death mowing down with his scythe all ranks and conditions of men. Vasari adds that Orgagna had crowded his picture with a great many inscriptions, most of which were obliterated by time.

From one of them which he has preserved in his work, as addressed to some aged cripples, it should appear that, as in the Macaber Dance, Death apostrophizes the several characters.[49] Baldinucci, in his account of Orgagna, mentions this painting and the story of the Three Kings and Saint Macarius.[50] Morona, likewise, in his Pisa illustrata, adopts the name of Macarius when describing the same subject. The figures in the picture are all portraits, and their names may be seen, but with some variation as to description, both in Vasari and Morona.[51]

Now the story of _Les trois mors et les trois vifs_, was prefixed to the painting of the Macaber Dance in the church-yard of the Innocents at Paris, and had also been sculptured over the portal of the church, by order of the Duke de Berry in 1408.[52] It is found in numerous manuscript copies of Horae and other service books prefixed to the burial office. All the printed editions of the Macaber Dance contain it, but with some variation, the figure of Saint Macarius in his cell not being always introduced. It occurs in many of the printed service books, and in some of our own for the use of Salisbury. The earliest wood engraving of it is in the black book of the "15 signa Judicii," where two of the young men are running away to avoid the three deaths, or skeletons, one of whom is rising from a grave. It is copied in Bibliotheca Spenceriana, vol. i. p.

xxx.

From the preceding statement then there is every reason to infer that the name of Macaber, so frequently, and without authority, applied to an unknown German poet, really belongs to the Saint, and that his name has undergone a slight and obvious corruption. The word _Macabre_ is found only in French authorities, and the Saint's name, which, in the modern orthography of that language, is _Macaire_, would, in many ancient manuscripts, be written _Macabre_ instead of _Macaure_, the letter _b_ being substituted for that of _u_ from the caprice, ignorance, or carelessness of the transcribers.

As no German copy of the verses describing the painting can, with any degree of certainty, be regarded as the original, we must substitute the Latin text, which may, perhaps, have an equal claim to originality. The author, at the beginning, has an address to the spectators, in which he tells them that the painting is called the Dance of Macaber. There is an end, therefore, of the name of Macaber, as the author of the verses, leaving it only as applicable to the painting, and almost, if not altogether confirmatory of the preceding conjecture. The French version, from which Lydgate made his translation, nearly agrees with the Latin.

Lydgate, however, in the above address, has thought fit to use the word _translator_ instead of _author_, but this is of no moment, any more than the words _Machabree the Doctour_, which, not being in the French text, are most likely an interpolation. He likewise calls the work _the daunce_; and it may, once for all, be remarked, that scarcely any two versions of it will be found to correspond in all respects, every new editor assuming fresh liberties, according to the usual practice in former times.

The ancient paintings of the Macaber Dance next demand our attention. Of these, the oldest on record was that of Minden in Westphalia, with the date 1383, and mentioned by Fabricius in his Biblioth. med. et infimae aetatis, tom. v. p. 2. It is to be wished that this statement had been accompanied with some authority; but the whole of the article is extremely careless and inaccurate.