The original German (for the reference to which I am indebted to Mr. Campbell Dodgson) is given in Fried. Christoph. Förster's Sängerfahrt (Berlin, 1818, pp. 61-63). It is from an anonymous poem, entitled, "Der Ritter durch Tod und Teufel," which ends with the following lines: "Lass kommen die Hölle mit mir zu streiten, Ich werde durch Tod und durch Teufel reiten." Of course, many different explanations of Dürer's meaning have been offered. It has been suggested that the horseman is not a good knight, but a bad and worldly one, being warned by death, just as in the Mediaeval "Tale of the Three Living and the Three Dead" the great and powerful of this world are represented as being reminded of the inevitable end (see Part I. B.). It has also been suggested that the horseman represents Franz von Sickingen (1481-1523), the great knight of the reformation in Germany, and that the letter S. on the tablet was meant by Dürer to stand for Sickingen, and that the castle in the distance was meant for Sickingen's Castle of Ebernburg, near Kreuznach. But the features of the horseman do not resemble those of Sickingen in his known portraits. On this whole subject see Joseph Heller's Das Leben und die Werke A. Dürers, Bamberg, 1827, vol. ii. p. 503. On page 151 of the same work Heller describes a painting at Brussels, which has been named both "Der Ritter durch Tod und Teufel" and "Franz von Sickingen," and was probably the work of another artist, though based on Dürer's engraving in question. The painting at Brussels inspired the German poem Der Ritter durch Tod und Teufel," which I have above referred to, and which is quoted by Heller at length (loc. cit., p. 504). I have already mentioned (Part I. B.) that the German author De la Motte-Fouqué (1777-1843) wrote his story, Sintram und seine Gefährten, as a kind of explanation of the same engraving. 66 The Psychostasia scenes on Greek vases, &c., described in Part IV., have much to do with this Heading, and so, strictly speaking, have all representations of Doom (Ker, or the "Keres "), Necessity, and Inexorable Fate (Atropos and the other Moirae or Parcae). The doctrine of predestination was frequently used in the best ancient Classical Literature for the purpose of consolation, but not as an excuse for assuming a lazy, passive attitude in life. XVII. PESSIMISM. ASPECTS OF DEATH FROM STANDPOINTS OF PESSIMISM IN REGARD THANATOPHILIA. This aspect, which should really have followed No. iv., may be contrasted with Nos. xiv. and xv. (optimistic views). A somewhat cynical or mocking attitude towards the "eternal riddle "-the meaning of life and death-or rather towards endeavours to answer the riddle-was assumed by Heinrich Heine 66 'Sagt mir, was bedenkt der Mensch? Woher ist er gekommen? Wo geht er hin? 66 Cf. the following anonymous Greek epigram (Anthol. Graec. Palat., x. 118), translated by W. R. Paton: How was I born? Whence am I? Why came I here? To depart again? How can I learn aught, knowing nothing? I was nothing and was born; again I shall be as at first. Nothing and of no worth is the race of men. But serve me the merry fountain of Bacchus; for this is the antidote of ills." Cf. also Anthol. Graec. Palat., vii. 339. The following famous epigram by Palladas from the Greek Anthology (Anth. Graec. Palat., x. 58) is hardly a desirable development of Solon's ὅρα τέλος μακροῦ βίου (referred to under medals in Part III.)— Γῆς ἐπέβην γυμνός, γυμνός θ' ὑπὸ γαῖαν ἄπειμι· Καὶ τί μάτην μοχθῶ, γυμνὸν ὁρῶν τὸ τέλος; Latin versions of it have been given by Janus Pannonius (died 1472), William Lily (died 1522), and Sir Thomas More (died 1535), the last one as follows:- "Nudus ut in terram veni, sic nudus abibo. Cf. Job i. 21: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither"; also the First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy vi. 7: "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." St. John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), in regard to his persecution by the Empress Eudoxia (through whose influence over her husband, Arcadius, Emperor of the East, Chrysostom was exiled in A.D. 404), made light of all the harm she could possibly do him, and amongst other things said: "Be it she confiscates my goods, naked came I unto the world and naked must I return." A rather happy turning of the epigrams of the Intravi nudus type is given by Longfellow in his Tales of a Wayside Inn :— Longfellow's English version seems, however, to have been taken from that of John Edwin (1749–1790):: "A man's ingress into the world is naked and bare, His progress through the world is trouble and care; And lastly, his egress out of the world, is nobody knows where. I can tell you no more if I preach a whole year." In a somewhat similar way Sir Rabindranath Tagore reasons: "Because I love this life, I know I shall love death as well." In regard to "man's ingress and egress" the following curious epigram of the time of King James I of England is quoted in Brand's Popular Antiquities, edition of 1849, vol. ii. p. 275: "Nature, which headlong into life did throng us, With our feet forward to our grave doth bring us; Sir Thomas Browne in his Hydriotaphia (1658) also alluded to this custom of carrying the corpse with the feet forwards at funerals. Palladas (Anth. Grace. Palat., x. 85) refers to us mortals as being kept and reared up for Death, like a herd of swine to be slaughtered. Compare Marian Evans Cross ("George Eliot ") in the Spanish Gipsy (Book ii.): "Death is the king of this world: 'tis his park Where he breeds life to feed him. Cries of pain Another pessimistic epigram by Palladas in the Greek Anthology is that (x. 45) in which man is reminded that he is made of dust, though "dreaming Plato" gave him pride by calling him "immortal" and a "heavenly plant." For other more or less pessimistic epigrams by Palladasan epigrammatist whom the learned Erasmus specially admired-cf. Anthol. Grace. Palat., x. 75, 77, 80, 81, 82, 84, 96, and xi. 300, 349. An epigram in the Greek Anthology, attributed to Simonides, refers pessimistically and cynically to the perpetual succession of heirs, each heir in turn rejoicing when his predecessor dies. Marcus Aurelius, however, in his "Meditations," reflects that men seldom die without others thereby becoming, or fancying themselves, the better off; and he puts this forward as a kind of consolation, to be added to other consolations, for the prospect of one's death. With this may be contrasted an epigram by Simonides in the Greek Anthology (x. 105): "A certain Theodorus is glad because I am dead. Another will be glad when he is dead. We are all owed to death." There may be pessimists (as there doubtless have been many) who think life cruel because they fear that the soul with all its noble aspirations must decay and die with the body. W. S. Walsh quotes the following epitaph by Professor William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879), the mathematician: "Traveller, pass not by this inscription, but stand, and hear, and learn something before you pass There is no boat of Hades, no boatman Charon, no dog Cerberus, but all the dead are bones and dust and nothing else." This reminds one of the late Latin epitaphs with words such as, Pulvis, cinis, nihil. on. Even the idea of death as a dreamless unending sleep may seem dreadful or sad, as it is represented in the idyl on the death of Bion, formerly attributed to Moschus :- Αἰαῖ, ταὶ μαλάχαι μεν, ἐπὴν κατὰ κᾶπον ὄλωνται, Αμμες δ' οἱ μεγάλοι καὶ καρτεροί, οἱ σοφοὶ ἄνδρες, What is the object of it all, the pessimists have asked ; to what can life and all its strivings lead but to decay and the silent darkness of the grave? Thus on a seal of Chosroës I, the Great, of Persia (Part IV. ii.), there is said to have been an inscription signifying, "The way is very dark, what can I see? One lives once only, what can I desire? Behind me is Death, what can delight me?" In the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Edward FitzGerald's translation, 4th edition, stanza 63) the pessimistic idea is the same, though the context is "Epicurean": "Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise! From this point of view one has to admit that "every life is a tragedy," because life always ends in death. Such an unpleasant conception of life may succeed the naïve idea of the children's fairy tales which end with the words: "And they all lived happily ever afterwards." Nevertheless, with the growth of intellect and knowledge (with or without the support of religious faith) the mental outlook tends to gradually enlarge, and then man becomes inclined to admit: Life is not necessarily a tragedy, even though it necessarily ends in death; perhaps even, could one know all, life would never have the aspect of a real tragedy, and what seems to be a life-tragedy," or a tragic ending of "life," may really be merely a tragic incident or episode in the long unending drama of a soul. Compare Psalm lxxxix. 47, 48, "Remember how short. my time is wherefore hast Thou made all men in vain? What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the grave?" So also the following Latin verses, inscribed on a sun-dial at Monza (Italy), and elsewhere: Quod fuit, est, et erit, perit articulo brevis horae. Esse, fuisse, fore, heu! tria florida sunt sine flore, On a large brass astrolabe and sun-dial, signed by Ieronimus Wulparia, of Florence (1577), in the museum of Perugia,361 are two inscriptions, as follows: "Nil nomen, nil fama juvat, nil candida virtus: Tempus enim rapido singula dente vorat." "Hora fugit, celeri properat mors improba passu." 361 See Mrs. Gatty's Book of Sun-Dials, enlarged edition of 1900. |