Franciscan Monk and Child
Franciscan Monk and Child
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| Le mort
Faicte voye vous aves tort
Sus bergier. Apres cordelier
Souvent aves preschie de mort
Si vous devez moing merveillier.
Ia ne sen fault esmay ballier
Il nest si fort que mort nareste.
Si fait bon a morir veillier.
A toute heure la mort est preste
Le cordelier
Quest ce: que de vivre en ce monde.
Nul homme a seurte ny demeure:
Toute vanite y habonde
Puis vient la mort qua tous court sure
Mendicite point ne me assure
Des mesfais fault paier lamende.
En petite heure dieu labeure.
Sage est le pecheur qui samende.
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Death makes a last reply to the previous dancer, the shepherd:
»Faicte voye vous aves tort sus bergier«.
The shepherd wasn't added before 1486 along with the pilgrim,
the promotor and the jailor.
In the original text and in the 1485 edition Death addressed the peasant / laborer:
»Faictes voye: vous aves tort Laboureur«.
Something similar happens with the gendarme,
who was also added in 1486.
The Franciscans were called "Cordeliers"
because of the cord they used as a girdle.
The cord had three knots symbolizing the three vows: Poverty, chastity, and obedience.
| Le mort
Petit enfent na guere ne:
Au monde auras peu de plaisance.
A la danse seras mene
Comme autre. car mort a puissance
Sur tous: du iour de la naissance
Convient chascun a mort offrir:
Fol est qui nen a congnoissance.
Qui plus vit plus a asouffrir
Lenfant
A. a. a. ie ne scay parler
Enfant suis: iay la langue mue.
Hier naquis: huy men fault aller
Ie ne faiz que entree et yssue.
Rien nay mesfait. mais de peur sue
Prendre en gre me fault cest le mieulx
Lordenance dieu ne se mue.
Ainsi tost meurt ieune que vieulx
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Der Doten Dantz mit Figuren
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The child — somewhat contradictory — says he doesn't know how to talk:
»A. a. a. ie ne scay parler«.
He is a child and his tongue is dumb.
The child has almost the same line in Der Doten Dantz mit Figuren (to the right)":
».A.a. ich enkan noch nit sprechen / Hüde geborn hüde müß ich auffbrechen«.
The clever child is actually quoting Jeremiah 1,6:
»And I said: Ah, ah, ah, Lord God: behold, I cannot speak, for I am a child« (Douay-Rheims Bible).
The child's last line,
»Als woill stirbet das iůnge als das alde«,
is also a copy of the French,
»Ainsi tost meurt ieune que
vieulx«.(1)
Various Artists
Footnotes:
(1)
Several scholars have pointed this out:
Maßmann,
Literatur der Totentänze, 1840, page 88,
Florence Warren,
The Dance of Death Edited from Mss Ellesmere, 1931, page 113,
and Sophie Oosterwijk,
Of corpses, constables and kings, page 43.
Der Doten Dantz mit Figuren is from ca. 1486-88,
and Heinrich Knoblochtzer has probably owned a copy of Guy Marchant's books.
Oosterwijk has also written a monograph on Death and the infant
titled "Muoz ich tanzen und kan nit gân?".
Much of Oosterwijk's work (including these two) is available on the Internet.
Dances of death
Danse macabre
Men
Franciscan Monk and child
