Note 35 — LECTURE IV. PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
Reading edition
This incident is not of Orcagna's invention, it is variously represented in much earlier art. There is a curious and graphic drawing of it, circa 1300, in the MS. Arundel 83, Brit. Mus., in which the three dead persons are walking, and are met by three queens, who severally utter the sentences,
"Ich am aferd." "Lo, whet ich se?" "Me thinketh hit beth develes thre."
To which the dead bodies answer—
"Ich wes wel fair." "Such scheltou be." "For Godes love, be wer by me."
It is curious, that though the dresses of the living persons, and the "I was well fair" of the first dead speaker, seem to mark them distinctly to be women, some longer legends below are headed "primus rex mortuus," etc.