Inferior Divine Power

“When I first read for the part of Q., 

it reminded me of a quote that was once said of Lord Byron — 

and that was, that

He was 

“Mad, Bad, and 

Dangerous to Know.”

— John De Lancie

A skeleton parodies human happiness by playing a hurdy-gurdy while the wheels of his cart crush a man as if his life is of no importance. 

A woman has fallen in the path of the death cart; she has a slender thread which is about to be cut by the scissors in her other hand —

Bruegel’s interpretation of Atropos. 

Nearby another woman in the path of the cart, 

holds in her hand a spindle and distaff, 

classical symbols of the fragility of human life— 

another Bruegel interpretation of Clotho and Lachesis; 

a starving dog nibbles at the face of a dead child she holds. 

Just beside her, a cardinal is helped towards his fate 

by a skeleton who mockingly wears the red hat, 

while a dying king’s barrels of gold and silver coins 

are looted by yet another skeleton; 

oblivious to the fact that a skeleton is warning him with an empty hourglass that his life is about to literally run out of time, the foolish and miserly monarch’s last thoughts still compel him to reach out for his useless and vain wealth, 

seeming unaware of the need for repentance. 

In the centre, an awakening religious pilgrim 

has his throat cut by a robber-skeleton for his money purse; 

above the murder, skeleton-fishermen catch people in a net.

In the bottom right-hand corner, 

a dinner has been broken up and the diners are putting up a futile resistance. 

They have drawn their swords in order to fight the skeletons dressed in winding-sheets; 

no less hopelessly, the court jester takes refuge beneath the dinner table. 

The backgammon board 

and the playing cards 

have been scattered, 

while a skeleton thinly disguised with a mask 

(possibly the face of a corpse) 

empties away the wine flasks. 

Of the menu of the interrupted meal, 

all that can be seen are 

a few pallid rolls of bread 

and an appetiser apparently consisting of a pared human skull. 

Above the table are two women-the one on the left struggles in vain 

while being embraced by a skeleton in a hideous parody of after-dinner amorousness. 

The woman on the right is horrified with the realisation of mortality when a skeleton in a hooded robe mockingly seems to bring another dish, also consisting of human bones, to the table.

In the bottom right-hand corner a musician who plays a lute while his lady sings; both are oblivious to the fact that behind both of them, a skeleton that plays along is grimly aware that the couple can not escape their inevitable doom. 

A cross sits in the centre of the painting. 

The painting shows aspects of everyday life in the mid-sixteenth century, when the risk of plague was very severe. 

Clothes are clearly depicted, as are pastimes such as playing cards and backgammon. 

It shows objects such as musical instruments, an early mechanical clock, scenes including a funeral service, and various methods of execution, including the breaking wheel, the gallows, burning at the stake, and the headsman about to behead a victim who has just taken wine and communion. 

In one scene a human is the prey of a skeleton-hunter and his dogs. In another scene at the left, skeletons drag victims down to be drowned in a pond; a man with a grinding stone around his neck is about to be thrown into the pond by the skeletons—an echoing of Matthew 18.6 and Luke 17.2; on the bridge just above at the right a skeleton is about to strike a prostrate victim with a Falchion.