Despues de la prima · la ora passada,
En el mes de Enero · la noche primera
En cccc e veiynte · durante la hera,
Estando acostado alla · en mi posada, etc.
The first of January, 1420, of the Spanish Era, when the scene is laid, corresponds to A. D. 1382. A copy of the poem printed at Madrid, 1848, 12mo, pp. 13, differs from my manuscript copy, but is evidently taken from one less carefully made.
[145] Hist. of Eng. Poetry, Sect. 24, near the end. It appears also in French very early, under the title of “Le Débat du Corps et de l’Ame,” printed in 1486. (Ebert, Bib. Lexicon, Nos. 5671-5674.) The source of the fiction has been supposed to be a poem by a Frankish monk (Hagen und Büsching, Grundriss, Berlin, 1812, 8vo, p. 446); but it is very old, and found in many forms and many languages. See Latin Poems attributed to Walter Mapes, and edited for the Camden Society by T. Wright (1841, 4to, pp. 95 and 321). It was printed in the ballad form in Spain as late as 1764.
[146] Castro, Bibl. Española, Tom. I. p. 200. Sanchez, Tom. I. pp. 182-185, with Tom. IV. p. xii. I suspect the Spanish Dance of Death is an imitation from the French, because I find, in several of the early editions, the French Dance of Death is united, as the Spanish is in the manuscript of the Escurial, with the “Débat du Corps et de l’Ame,” just as the “Vows over the Peacock” seems, in both languages, to have been united to a poem on Alexander.
[147] In what a vast number of forms this strange fiction occurs may be seen in the elaborate work of F. Douce, entitled “Dance of Death,” (London, 1833, 8vo,) and in the “Literatur der Todtentänze,” von H. F. Massmann (Leipzig, 1840, 8vo). To these, however, for our purpose, should be added notices from the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek, (Berlin, 1792, Vol. CVI. p. 279,) and a series of prints that appeared at Lubec in 1783, folio, taken from the paintings there, which date from 1463, and which might well serve to illustrate the old Spanish poem. See also K. F. A. Scheller, Bücherkunde der Sässisch-niederdeutschen Sprache, Braunschweig, 1826, 8vo, p. 75. The whole immense series, whether existing in the paintings at Basle, Hamburg, etc., or in the old poems in all languages, one of which is by Lydgate, were undoubtedly intended for religious edification, just as the Spanish poem was.
[148] I have a manuscript copy of the whole poem, made for me by Professor Gayangos, and give the following as specimens. First, one of the stanzas translated in the text:—
A esta mi Danza traye de presente