The Dance of Death.

27

l traced for thele painting at theof Charles VII.y called " Chorea1 the before citedicon. Even the)oet of the four-•nnected with thefferent nature,for the origin oford Macaber, asbe necessary tohat have alreadyhe several nameseven Macrobius. 6let. The learnedian of the royalr acabre is derived, or magabir, all:ms to think thatrd to the Dance^ent librarian wasveil as the moralthe Mahometanfell calculated toct, is that of M.id verting to the,ed to have beenof the Innocentse, he unceremo-nce was likewiseled of the words,mology is referredirning the city of\ de Danse, articleimprobable hasrquis de Paulmy,1 Macabre in his

icabre. 5 Journd

7 Peignot, Recher-

fine library, now in the arsenal at Paris, very seriously statesthat Macaber is derived from two Greek words, whichdenote its meaning to be an infernal dance;* but if theGreek 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 hisaccount of the edition of the Danse Macabre, printed byMarchant, i486, has stated that the verses have beenattributed to Michel Marot; but the book is dated beforeMarot was born. 9

Again,—As to the connexion between the word Macaberwith the Dance itself.

In the course of the thirteenth century there appeared aFrench metrical work under the name of " Li trois Mors etli trois Vis," u e. Les trois Morts et les trois Vifs. In thenoble library of the Duke de la Valliere, there were threeapparently coeval manuscripts of it, differing, however,from each other, but furnishing the names of two authors,Baudouin de Conde and Nicolas de Marginal. 10 Thesepoems relate that three noble youths when hunting in aforest were intercepted by the like number of hideousspectres or images of Death, from whom they received aterrific lecture on the vanity of human grandeur. A veryearly, and perhaps the earliest, allusion to this vision, seemsto occur in a painting by Andrew Orgagna in the CampoSanto at Pisa; and although it varies a little from thedescription in the above-mentioned poems, the story isevidently the same. The painter has introduced threeyoung men on horseback with coronets on their caps,and who are attended by several domestics whilst pursuingthe amusement of hawking. They arrive at the cell ofSaint Macarius an Egyptian Anachorite, who with onehand presents to them a label with this inscription, aswell as it can be made out, " Se nostra mente fia ben mortatenendo risa qui la vista afhtta la vana gloria ci sara sconfitta]a superbia e sara da morte;" and with the other points tothree open coffins, in which are a skeleton and two deadbodies, one of them a king.

A similar vision, but not immediately connected with the

8 Melange d'une Grande Bibliotheqne, torn. vii. p. 22. 9 BibL

Instruc. No. 3109. 10 Catal. La Valliere, 2736—22.