Copenhagen's Dance of Death, Part 37

   
 
The Journeyman

Døden taler til Embitzsuenden.

Du EmbitzGeselle holt ved min Haand,
Du maat nu til it andet Land.

Embitzsuenden suarer.

Wat Land, wat Land skal ick vandren,
Ick quam nu kortz fra westen vt Flandren.

  

Nu kommer døden met sin macht
paa hannem haffde ieg ingen acht
Ieg er saa siug ieg kand icke gaa
Hielp mig Gud som alting formaa

Flower Døden Suarer.

Læg nu aff din Spanske kappe
Padder oc Orm skulle dine Tarme nappe

Enden paa denne Dødedantz(4)

The Preacher
 
   

Death speaks to the Journeyman.

You Journeyman hold on to my hand,
you must now to another land.

The Journeyman answers.

Wat Land, wat Land skal ick vandren,
Ick quam nu kortz fra westen vt Flandren.(1)

Now Death comes with his power;
I had not paid heed to him.
I am so sick, I cannot walk,
Help me God, who is capable of everything(2)

Death answers.

Now lay down your Spanish cloak.(3)
Toads and worms shall nip your bowels.

The end of this dance of death(4)

The End of this dance of death The journeyman appears to be widely travelled. Until rather recently it was not unusual for young craftsmen to walk around from country to country for a few years.

Click the little picture to the right to see the original page.

One leaf is missing and the text on the left side has once again been taken from Dødedantz. The question is which picture was used in Copenhagen's Dance of Death — there's no picture of the journeyman in Dodendantz. For this reconstruction I've used a picture of the young nobleman /journeyman from Des dodes dantz. Admittedly he's a bit overdressed for being a journeyman, but craftsmen have always made good money.

In Des dodes dantz the same picture was used for both the journeyman and the young nobleman. Let's hope a table will make it clear:

Des Dodes Dantz (1489)Dodendantz (1520)Copenhagen's Dance of Death
DukeThe dukeThe dukeThe Duke
Young noblemanThe young noblemanThe young noblemanThe duke
JourneymanThe young nobleman(No picture)(page missing)

Regarding the sequence of wet nurse and journeyman: See the note on the previous page.

Both Lauritz Nielsen and Meyer are uncertain as to whether one or two leaves are missing here, but as we can see from the short text in Dødedantz, there can only be one leaf missing. The Danish Royal Library seem to agree with me, because hey have only placed one blank leaf here when they bound the volume.

The picture on the right hand side is the same as was used in the introduction. Originally it was Prologus introducing the play — now it is Epilogus closing the show. Read the comments about this woodcut in the introduction.

Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4)

The journeyman's words (and his title, EmbitzGeselle) are in Low German and taken almost verbatim from Dodendantz. In English it means:

What land, what land shall I wander [to]
I came straight from the west from Flanders.

In Dodendantz, the journeyman longs for the alehouses he used to frequent but shall never see again: "I would rather go to inns with my companions - to The White Owl or to The Red Rooster.". In contrast, the journeyman's last words in Copenhagen are a pious prayer to God.

This "censorship" is probably caused by the Danish translator interchanging the wetnurse and the journeyman. In Dodendantz the journeyman is the penultimate dancer, whereas in Copenhagen's Dance of Death he's the very last, and it won't do for a moral play to have the last dancer's last words be on the subject of pubs.

Members of Lübeck's senate
Members of Lübeck's council, 1913
The reference to a "Spanish cloak" is a bit confusing. In Lübeck, Spanish cloaks were reserved for the senators / members of the council (picture to the right), but this is probably irrelevant, since the "Spanish cloak" only appears in the Danish text.

Meyer has a few other guesses, but his explanations are made less relevant, because he mistakenly thinks it's the Epilocus (instead of the journeyman) that's talking.

This might be an indication that the original title has been "Dødedantz"?

Wet nurse and child Final summary and admonition Up to Copenhagen's Dance of Death

Copenhagen's Dance of Death The dance of death Lübeck Books Copenhagen's Dance of Death Part 37