The Bishop

Death to The Bishop

Ewr wirde vnd ere hot sich vorkart Her byschoff weyze vnd wol gelart Ich wil euch an den reyen czyen Do ir den tot nicht mogit entpflyen	Your dignity and honour have turned wrong, Mr. Bishop, wise and well learned. I will draw you to the dance, where you cannot flee Death.

Ich byn wirdiglich geerit wurden Dy weyle ich lebete yn byschofs orden Nw czyen mich dy vngeschaffen Czu dem tode als eynen affen	I have been worthily honoured while I lived in a bishop's office. Now the misshapen are drawing me to Death as a monkey.

This book exchanges the sequence of bishop and duke. Normally the dance will change between laymen and and clergy, but in this case the bishop is the fourth ecclesiastical in a row.

The dialogue is a prime example of how The High German Four-lined Dance of Death differs from other dances of death - like those in Lübeck and Berlin.

The biskop is picked up by a corpse who drags him into a "reye", a German word which has several meanings such as row, series, line, (chain)dance, round dance and noisy merriment.

The corpse says that in this "row" the bishop will not be able to flee Death. The corpse then is not Death himself, and he's not alone: Apparently several beings are dragging the bishop, who refers to them as "the misshapen".

For further details, see Death's Dance, or Line of the Dead.