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The nobleman | |
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Dot, ik bidde di umme Respijt; |
Death, I beg you for respite.(1) |
Death answers the nobleman | |
Haddestu gedelt van dinem Gode |
Had you shared your goods |
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There's a big confusion concerning the order of the verses. The painting (which is a copy from 1701) shows the next 3 persons as mayor, canon and nobleman - and this is the order, in which Jacob von Melle wrote them down.
However, the text that Jakob von Melle left us makes no sense. For instance Wilhelm Mantels pointed out that the nobleman is the one who has lived most against the overall moral — having exploited his hardworking subjects in order to obtain money for idle pleasures, and yet Death answers: "Great wages shall you receive. For your work that you have done, God will reward you thousandfold".
Mantels instead suggested that the order should rather be nobleman, canon and mayor. This solution is universally accepted and is being applied on these pages. For lots of details about this puzzle, see the pages about von Melle who wrote down the verses and Mantels who made sense of it.
To sum up: The painting, the High German text and von Melle's text has mayor, canon and nobleman. The text on these pages follows the original sequence, which is nobleman, canon and mayor.
This means that the character showed at the top of this page is the mayor of Lübeck.
Footnotes: (1) (2) (3) (4)
The word "respit" also gives associations to Jehan le Fèvre's book "Le Respit de la mort" from 1376. This was the first book ever to mention the phrase "danse macabre".
I'm guessing a bit here. "Verhalen" in Low Germana means to drag, including using ropes to drag a boat.
In Dutch, "verhalen" has the same meanings, but also means "to tell/relate".
But maybe the nobleman just wanted to drag out time?
to vullenbringen - To Lust . . .: Baethcke thinks the second "To" is superfluous and should be dropped. Mantels replaces the second "To" with "De" without explanation. Seelmann and Stammler replace "To" with "Jutto" whatever that's supposed to mean.
I prefer to treat the structure as an apposition: "to satisfy - to lust".