668 



DANAKIL 



DANCE OF DEATH 



for safety's sake, shut her up in a dungeon, where, 

 nevertheless, she was visited by Zeus in a shower 

 of gold, and so became the mother of Perseus. 

 Acrisius next put both the mother and child into a 

 chest, and exposed them on the sea. The chest, 

 however, drifted ashore on the island of Seriphos, 

 and Danae and her child were saved. She remained 

 in the island until Perseus (q.v.) had grown up and 

 become a hero famous for his exploits ; afterwards 

 she accompanied him to Argos. On his arrival, 

 Acrisius fled, but was subsequently slain accident- 

 ally by Perseus at Larissa. 



liana kit (singular Dankali), the Arabic and 

 now general name for the numerous nomad and 

 fisher tribes inhabiting the coast of north-east 

 Africa, from Massowah south to Tajurrah Bay, 

 and from there south-west to Shoa. They belong 

 to the Ethiopic Hamites, and are well built and 

 slender, with features indicating an intermixture 

 of Arab blood. In a country of waterless plains, 

 they are generally nomads, living partly by caravan 

 traffic and the slave-trade, but mostly on the milk 

 of their flocks. For the language, see Isenberg's 

 Vocabulary (Lond. 1840) ; see also Scaramucci and 

 Giglioli, Notizie sui Danachili ( 1884). 



Danatts, in Greek Mythology, the son of Belus 

 and twin-brother of ^Egyptus, originally ruler of 

 Libya. Fearing his brother, he fled to Argos, with 

 his fifty daughters, the Danaides, and here he was 

 chosen king, in place of Gelanor. The fifty sons of 

 yEgyptus followed him, and under the pretence of 

 friendship, sought the hand of his daughters in 

 marriage. Danaus consented, but on the bridal 

 night he gave his daughters each a dagger, and 

 urged them to murder their bridegrooms in revenge 

 for the treatment he had received from ^Egyptus. 

 All did so, except one, Hypermnestra, who allowed 

 her husband, Lynceus, to escape. The poets tell 

 how in the under-world the Danaides were com- 

 pelled, as a punishment for their crimes, to pour 

 water for ever into a vessel full of holes. From 

 Danaus, the Argives were called Danai. 



Dailbury, one of the capitals of Fairfield 

 county, Connecticut, 69 miles NNE. of New York ; 

 has a sewing-machine factory, and over a dozen 

 manufactories of hats, employing a capital of 

 $1,500,000. Pop. (1870) 8753; (1880) 11,666; (1890) 

 16,552. 



Danby, FRANCIS, A.R.A., landscape-painter, 

 was born near Wexford, Ireland, 16th November 

 1793. In 1812 Ire began to exhibit in Dublin ; in 

 1813, with O'Connor and George Petrie, after- 

 wards president of the Hibernian Academy, he 

 started for London, but at Bristol the means of 

 the party were exhausted, and Danby resolved 

 to settle in that city, where he resided till 1824. 

 His ' Upas Tree,' a large and impressive work, now 

 in the South Kensington Museum, was exhibited 

 in the British Institution ( 1820) ; his ' Disappointed 

 Love,' in the Academy ( 1821 ), as also his ' Delivery 

 of the Israelites out of Egypt' (1825), which 

 gained him his election as an associate. In 1828 

 his ' Opening of the Sixth Seal ' won a premium 

 of 200 at the British Institution ; in the follow- 

 ing year two other important subjects from the 

 Apocalypse appeared in the Academy. At this 

 time a disagreement arose between the artist and 

 the Academy, which, along with other reasons, 

 led to his leaving England. For eleven years he 

 resided on the Continent, mainly in Switzerland, 



Siinting little, and amusing himself with boating, 

 n his return to England, he took up his resi- 

 dence at Exmoiith, and contributed very regularly 

 to the Academy till his death on 9th February 

 1861. His ' Fisherman's House, Sunset' (1846), is 

 now in the National Gallery. His works, of which 

 several have been engraved, are distinguished by 



imagination and poetic feeling. His three sons, 

 John, Thomas, and James Francis, were all land- 

 scape-painters. The last named was born at 

 Bristol in 1816, and died in London, 22d October 

 1875. 



Danby, LORD. See LEEDS (DUKE OF). 



Dance, GEORGE (1700-68), architect, designed 

 the Mansion House ( 1739) and many other London 

 buildings. His son, GEORGE DANCE, the younger 

 (1741-1825), rebuilt Newgate (1770-83), and was 

 one of the original Royal Academicians. 



Dance Of Death ( Lat. Chorea Machabceorum, 

 Fr. La Danse Macabre), a name given to a certain 

 class of allegorical representations, illustrative of 

 the universal power of death, and dating from the 

 14th century. When the introduction of Christi- 

 anity first banished the ancient Germanic conception 

 of a future state, a new description of death-myth- 

 ology arose, partly out of biblical sources, partly out 

 of the popular character itself, wherein the Last 

 Enemy was represented under simple and majestic 

 images, such as that of a husbandman watering 

 the ground with blood, ploughing it with swords, 

 sowing it with corpses, rooting out weeds, plucking 

 up flowers, or felling trees ; or of a monarch assem- 

 bling his armies, making war, taking prisoners, 

 inviting his subjects to a festival, or citing them 

 to judgment. But with a gradual change in 

 national manners came a change in the mode of 

 treating the subject, and it was associated with 

 everyday images, such as the confessional, chess- 

 playing, and above all, with the adjuncts of a 

 festival viz. music and dancing. This tendency 

 to familiarise the theme increased during the con- 

 lusion and turmoil of the 14th century, Avhen the 

 national mind alternated between fits of devotion 

 and license, or blended both elements in satire and 

 humour. Such a mood as this naturally occupied 

 itself with personifying Death, and adopted by 

 preference the most startling and grotesque images 

 it could find that of a musician playing to dancing- 

 men, or a dancer leading them on ; and as the dance 

 and the drama were then intimately connected, 

 and employed on religious occasions, this particular 

 idea soon assumed a dramatic form. 



This drama was most simply constructed, consist- 

 ing of short dialogues between Death and four-and- 

 twenty or more followers, and was undoubtedly 

 enacted in or near churches by religious orders in 

 Germany during the 14th century, and at a rather 

 later period in France. It would appear that the 

 seven (brothers, whose martyrdom is recorded in the 

 7th chapter of the 2d Book of Maccabees, either 

 played an important part in the drama, or the first 

 representation, which took place at Paris in the 

 Monastery of the Innocents, fell upon their festival, 

 and hence the origin of the ancient name, Chorea 

 Machabseorum, or La Danse Macabre. As early as 

 1400, the dramatic poem was imitated in Spain, 

 and appears there in seventy-nine strophes of eight 

 lines each (La Danga General de los Muertos), but 

 it did not spread ; while the French, having a love 

 for pictorial representation, very early affixed an 

 illustration to each strophe, and in 1425 painted the 

 whole series on the churchyard wall of the Monas- 

 tery of the Innocents, where the Dance of Death was 

 habitually enacted. We find the subject treated in 

 painting, sculpture, and tapestry, in the churches 

 of Anjou, Amiens, Angers, Rouen, to say nothing 

 of the numerous woodcuts and accompanying letter- 

 press which succeeded the invention of printing. 

 From Paris, both poem and pictures were trans- 

 planted to London (1430), Salisbury (about 1460), 

 Wortley Hall in Gloucestershire, Hexham, &c. 



But nowhere was the subject so variously and 

 strikingly treated as in Germany. A picture in one 

 of the chapels of the Marienkirche, at Liibeck, 



