Danse Macabre

I first became familiar with the Danse Macabre through the music of Saint-Saens, who wrote a tone poem by that name.  I thought it a rather jaunty tune, though in a minor key and so thereby a bit unusual, perhaps even grotesque but in an entertaining manner.  I didn't know when I first heard and enjoyed it that it was greeted with something approaching outrage when it was first performed; something I find difficult to believe, but all too believable.

I knew enough even at the time I first heard it to be aware of its association with death.  Perhaps it's jauntiness in that association is what critics and audiences alike objected to in the 19th century.  The use of a xylophone must have been particularly irritating back then.  But it is after all a dance, even if a dance led by Death, and it seems that dance involved hopping or skipping judging from paintings, engravings and drawings by which it was depicted.  So it seems to me "jaunty" well describes the part of Death in it, at least, cavorting as it leads us into....what?

In the Middle Ages when it seems the dance appeared as an object of artistic representation which became, if we can use the word, "popular", the dance as represented had much the same features everywhere it was displayed.  A skeleton or skeletons, sometimes decked out in the garb we associate with the Grim Reaper, leads men and women and children identifiable by their dress as Emperors, Kings, Popes, Bishops, nobility, merchants and peasants--all of the kinds of people of Europe at the time--in the dance of death.  The meaning and purpose of these works is clear enough.  We will all die, and will do so regardless of our status when alive.  Being one of the rich and mighty won't protect us from our inevitable dissolution.  We all come to the same end, die and decay.

At that stage of humanity's "progress" death was more familiar than it is now.  Life spans were short, medicine primitive, sickness rampant.  The Black Plague and other diseases ran through whole communities.  There was no escape from death.  There's no escape now, of course, but seldom was the phrase "here today, gone tomorrow" more applicable.

Clear enough what was meant, then.  But what was the reaction to the message?  Reaction would vary, one would think.  In pagan times it likely meant something different.  There are old Roman funeral inscriptions which state one reaction; that is, to eat, drink and be merry while we can.  That may have been the reaction of some in the Middle Ages as well.  But with the advent of Christianity came a different view of the Danse.  Eating, drinking and being merry were frowned upon at least to a certain extent; to the extent, that is, they were sins or caused sins to take place.  And so the Danse  impressed on many the need to pray for forgiveness, to repent, perhaps even to do good deeds.  This would not be thought to do much if any good, though, in some circles, where only those were saved who were saved by the grace of God, not their own acts.  Also, of course, there would be the reaction that one must do right by the Church and its rules.

In both pagan and Christian times, however, there must have been those few who reacted to the Danse as indicating the vanity of our concerns and actions,  All fame, power and money came to nought.  Marcus Aurelius wrote more than once of the fact that our words and deeds will not be remembered in the future and meant nothing to the world, which we may now call the universe.

How react to the Danse now, though?  Some no doubt react now as others did then.  Some would react like Marcus did.  Most Stoics would know what he knew.  To a Stoic it would serve as a reminder that we should treat things beyond the control of our will as indifferent.  To do as Epictetus said, and do the best we can with what we have and take the rest as it comes.  To understand that our deaths are according to nature, and not to be feared.  Instead to be accepted.

But this time is peculiar in its selfishness, I think.  At least, I think that's the case here in our Great Republic.  We're encouraged not to care about others--and certainly not to do anything for them.  Particularly those who are different.  It's perfectly all right with many of us that some are poor, or can't afford health care, etc.  Perhaps it's our Protestant background, and the myth of rugged individualism that make us uncaring.  Or, perhaps we merely resent that others may get something we don't have "for free."

Our selfishness causes a different reaction to the Danse.  I think that reaction is anger.  We're angry that we, and what we want, will end.   For some of us, that makes it easy enough to do violence, to others.