Totentanz

Schedel, Hartmann, 1410-1485

Woodcut from Liber Chronicarum (also known as Nuremberg Chronicle), written by physician Hartmann Schedel and illustrated by painter Michael Wolgemut. The translated title reads, “The Seventh Age of the World: The Image of Death.”
The translated verse reads:

Nothing is better than Death, nor anything worse than an unfair Life,
O great Death, you are men’s eternal rest from labor,
You relax the yoke for the aged, God willing,
And remove the heavy fetters from the necks of the vanquished,
You lift exile and break open the doors of prison,
You rescue from indignities, assigning good things to the just by lots,
And you remain unmoved, implacable by any technique,
On that day preset from the beginning, all these things you command
the peaceful soul to bear, the end of its labors having been promised,
Without you the life of the suffering is a perennial prison.

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