CHAPTER VI

TRAGEDY: LODGE, KYD, MARLOWE, _Arden of Feversham_ 193

APPENDIX

THE ELIZABETHAN STAGE 270

INDEX 277

CHAPTER I

EARLY CHURCH DRAMA ON THE CONTINENT

The old Classical Drama of Greece and Rome died, surfeited with horror

and uncleanness. Centuries rolled by, and then, when the Old Drama was

no more remembered save by the scholarly few, there was born into the

world the New Drama. By a curious circumstance its nurse was the same

Christian Church that had thrust its predecessor into the grave.

A man may dig his spade haphazard into the earth and by that act

liberate a small stream which shall become a mighty river. Not less

casual perhaps, certainly not less momentous in its consequences, was

the first attempt, by some enterprising ecclesiastic, to enliven the

hardly understood Latin service of the Church. Who the innovator was is

unrecorded. The form of his innovation, however, may be guessed from

this, that even in the fifth century human tableaux had a place in the

Church service on festival occasions. All would be simple: a number of

the junior clergy grouped around a table would represent the 'Marriage

at Cana'; a more carefully postured group, again, would serve to portray

the 'Wise Men presenting gifts to the Infant Saviour'. But the reality

was greater than that of a painted picture; novelty was there, and,

shall we say, curiosity, to see how well-known young clerics, members of

local families, would demean themselves in this new duty. The

congregations increased, and earnest or ambitious churchmen were

incited to add fresh details to surpass previous tableaux.

But the Church is conservative. It required the lapse of hundreds of

years to make plain the possibility of action and its advantages over

motionless figures. Just before this next step was taken, or it may have

been just after, two of the scholarly few mentioned as having not quite

forgotten the Classical Drama, made an effort to revive its methods

while bitting and bridling it carefully for holy purposes. Some one

worthy brother (who was certainly not Gregory Nazianzene of the fourth

century), living probably in the tenth century, wrote a play called

_Christ's Passion_, in close imitation of Greek tragedy, even to the

extent of quoting extensively from Euripides. In the same century a good

and zealous nun of Saxony, Hroswitha by name, set herself to outrival

Terence in his own realm and so supplant him in the studies of those who

still read him to their souls' harm. She wrote, accordingly, six plays

on the model of Terence's Comedies, supplying, for his profane themes,

the histories of suffering martyrs and saintly maidens. It was a noble

ambition (not the less noble because she failed); but it was not along

the lines of her plays or of _Christ's Passion_ that the New Drama was

to develop. It is doubtful whether they were known outside a few

convents.

In the tenth century the all-important step from tableau to dialogue and

action had been taken. Its initiation is shrouded in obscurity, but may

have been as follows. Ever since the sixth century Antiphons, or choral

chants in which the two sides of the choir alternately respond to each

other, had been firmly established in the Church service. For these,

however, the words were fixed as unchangeably as are the words of our

old Psalms. Nevertheless, the possibility of extending the application

of antiphons began to be felt after, and as a first stage in that

direction there was adopted a curious practice of echoing back

expressive 'ah's' and 'oh's' in musical reply to certain vital passages

not fitted with antiphons. Under skilful training this may have sounded

quite effective, but it is natural to suppose that, the antiphonal

extension having been made, the next stage was not long delayed.

Suitable lines or texts (_tropes_) would soon be invented to fill the

spaces, and immediately there sprang into being a means for providing

dramatic dialogue. If once answers were admitted, composed to fit into

certain portions of the service, there could be little objection to the

composition of other questions to follow upon the previous answers.

Religious conservatism kept invention within the strictest limits, so

that to the end these liturgical responses were little more than slight

modifications of the words of the _Vulgate_. But the dramatic element

was there, with what potentiality we shall see.

So much for dramatic dialogue. Dramatic action would appear to have

grown up with it, the one giving intensity to the other. The development

of both, side by side, is interesting to trace from records preserved

for us in old manuscripts. Considering the occasion first--for these

'attractions' were reserved for special festivals--we know that Easter

was a favourite opportunity for elaborating the service. The events

associated with Easter are in themselves intensely dramatic. They are

also of supreme importance in the teaching of the Church: of all points

in the creed none has a higher place than the belief in the

Resurrection. Therefore the 'Burial' and the 'Rising again' called for

particular elaboration. One of the earliest methods of driving these

truths home to the hearts of the unlearned and unimaginative was to

bury the crucifix for the requisite three days (a rite still observed

in many churches by the removal of the cross from the altar), and then

restore it to its exalted position; the simple act being done with much

solemn prostration and creeping on hands and knees of those whose duty

it was to bear the cross to its sepulchre. This sepulchre, it may be

explained, was usually a wooden structure, painted with guardian

soldiers, large enough to contain a tall crucifix or a man hidden, and

occupying a prominent position in the church throughout the festival.

Not infrequently it was made of more solid material, like the carved

stone 'sepulchre' in Lincoln Cathedral.

A trope was next composed for antiphonal singing on Easter Monday, as

follows:

Quem quaeritis?

Jhesum Nazarenum.

Non est hic; surrexit sicut praedixerat: ite, nuntiate quia

surrexit a mortuis.

Alleluia! resurrexit Dominus.

Now let us observe how action and dialogue combine. One of the clergy is

selected to hide, as an angel, within the sepulchre. Towards it advance

three others, to represent three women, peeping here, glancing there, as

if they seek something. Presently a mysterious voice, proceeding out of

the tomb, sings the opening question, 'Whom do you seek?' Sadly the

three sing in reply, 'Jesus of Nazareth'. To this the first voice chants

back, 'He is not here; he has risen as he foretold: go, declare to

others that he has risen from the dead.' The three now burst forth in

joyful acclamation with, 'Alleluia! the Lord has risen.' Then from the

sepulchre issues a voice, 'Come and see the place,' the 'angel' standing

up as he sings that all may see him, and opening the doors of the

sepulchre to show clearly that the Lord is indeed risen. The empty

shroud is held up before the people, while all four sing together, 'The

Lord has risen from the tomb.' In procession they move to the altar and

lay the shroud there; the choir breaks into the _Te Deum_, and the bells

in the tower clash in triumph. It is the finale of the drama of Christ.

To illustrate at once the dramatic nature and the limitations of the

dialogue as it was afterwards developed we give below a translation of

part of one of these ceremonies, from a manuscript of the thirteenth

century. The whole is an elaborated _Quem quaeritis_, and the part

selected is that where Mary Magdalene approaches the Sepulchre for the

second time, lamenting the theft of her Lord's body. Two Angels sitting

within the tomb address her in song:

_Angels._ Woman, why weepest thou?

_Mary._ Because they have taken away my Lord,

And I know not where they have laid him.

_Angels._ Weep not, Mary; the Lord has risen.

Alleluia!

_Mary._ My heart is burning with desire

To see my Lord;

I seek but still I cannot find

Where they have laid him.

Alleluia!

[_Meanwhile a certain one disguised as a gardener draws near and

stands at the head of the sepulchre._]

_He._ Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?

_Mary._ Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast

laid him, and I will take him away.

_He._ Mary!

_Mary_ [_throwing herself at his feet_]. Rabboni!

_He_ [_drawing back, as if to avoid her touch_]. Touch me not; for

I am not yet ascended to my Father and your Father, to my God and

your God.

At Christmas a performance similar to the _Quem quaeritis_ took place

to signify the birth of Jesus, the 'sepulchre' being modified to serve

for the Holy Infant's birthplace, and Shepherds instead of women being

signified by those who advanced towards it. The antiphon was in direct

imitation of the other, commencing '_Quem quaeritis in praesepe,

pastores?_' Another favourite representation at the same festival was

that of the Magi. The development of this is of interest. In its

simplest form, the three Magi (or Kings) advance straight up the church

to the altar, their eyes fixed on a small lamp (the Star) lit above it;

a member of the choir stationed there announces to them the birth of a

Saviour; they present their offerings and withdraw. In a more advanced

form the three Magi approach the altar separately from different

directions, are guided by a moving 'star' down the central aisle to an

altar to the Virgin, bestow their gifts there, fall asleep, are warned

by an Angel, and return to the choir by a side aisle. For this version

the service of song also is greatly enlarged. Another rendering of the

story adds to it the interview between the Magi and Herod; yet others

include a scene between Herod and his Councillors, and the announcement

to Herod of the Magi's departure; still another extends the subject to

include the Massacre of the Innocents. Finally the early Shepherd

episode is tacked on at the beginning, the result being a lengthy

performance setting forth in action the whole narrative of the birth and

infancy of Jesus.

Here then is drama in its infancy. A great stride has been taken from

the first crude burying of a crucifix to an animated union of dialogue

and natural action. The scope of the Mystery (for so these

representations were called) has been extended from a single incident to

a series of closely connected scenes. In its fullest ecclesiastical form

it consisted of five Epiphany Plays, of the Shepherds (or _Pastores_),

the Magi (or _Stella_ or _Tres Reges_), the Resurrection (or _Quem

quaeritis_), the Disciples of Emmaus (or _Peregrini_), and the Prophets

(or _Prophetae_), the last perhaps intended as a final proof from the

Old Testament of Christ's Messianic nature. Four points, however,

deserve to be noted. The language used is always Latin. The subject is

always taken from the Bible. Close correspondence is maintained with the

actual words of the _Vulgate_ (compare the Magdalene dialogue with John

xx. 13-17). The Mystery is performed in a church. Each point, it will be

observed, imposes a serious limitation.

There was one play, however, which broke loose from most of these

limitations, a play of _St. Nicholas_, written by one Hilarius early in

the twelfth century. The same author composed a Mystery of _Lazarus_,

and an elaborate representation of _Daniel_, which must have made large

demands on the Church's supply of 'stage properties'. But his _St.

Nicholas_ is the only one that interests us here. To begin with, the

title informs us that the subject is not drawn from the Bible. The

words, therefore, are at the discretion of the author. Further, though

the medium is mostly Latin, the native language of the spectators has

been slipped in, to render a few recurrent phrases or refrains. The

story is quite simple, and humorous, and is as follows:

The image of St. Nicholas stands in a Christian church. Into the church

comes a pagan barbarian; he is about to go on a long journey, and

desires to leave his treasure in a safe place. Having heard of the

reputation of St. Nicholas as the patron of property, he lays his riches

at the foot of the statue, and in four Latin verses of song commits them

to the saint's safe-keeping. No sooner is he gone, however, than thieves

steal in silently and remove the booty. Presently the barbarian returns,

discovers his loss, charges the image with faithlessness, and,

snatching up a whip, threatens it with a thrashing if the treasure is

not brought back. He withdraws, presumably, after this, to give St.

Nicholas an opportunity to amend matters. Whereupon one representing the

real celestial St. Nicholas suddenly appears, perhaps from behind a

curtain at the rear of the image, and seeks out the thieves. He

threatens them with exposure and torment unless they restore their

plunder; they give in; and St. Nicholas goes back to his concealment.

When the barbarian returns, his delight is naturally very great

at perceiving so complete an atonement for the saint's initial

oversight. Indeed his appreciation is so genuine that it only needs

a few words from the reappearing Saint to persuade him to accept

Christianity.--Monologue and dialogue are throughout in song. The

following is one of the three verses in which the barbarian proclaims

his loss; the last two lines in the vernacular are the same for all.

Gravis sors et dura!

Hic reliqui plura,

Sed sub mala cura.

Des! quel dommage!

Qui pert la sue chose purque n'enrage.

A play of this sort, dealing with the wonder-working of a Saint, became

known as a Miracle Play, to differentiate it from the Mystery Plays

based on Bible stories.

_St. Nicholas_ would be performed in a church. But there is a probably

contemporaneous Norman Mystery Play, _Adam_, of unknown authorship,

which shows that the move from the church to the open air was already

being made. This play was performed just outside the church door, and

though the staging remains a matter of conjecture, it may be reasonably

assumed that the church represented Heaven, and that the three parts of

a projecting stage served respectively as Paradise (Eden), Earth, and

Hell (covered in, with side doors). The manuscript of the play (found at

Tours) supplies careful directions for staging and acting, as follows:

A Paradise is to be made in a raised spot, with curtains and cloths

of silk hung round it at such a height that persons in the Paradise

may be visible from the shoulders upwards. Fragrant flowers and

leaves are to be set round about, and divers trees put therein with

hanging fruit, so as to give the likeness of a most delicate spot.

Then must come the Saviour, clothed in a dalmatic, and Adam and Eve

be brought before him. Adam is to wear a red tunic and Eve a

woman's robe of white, with a white silk cloak; and they are both

to stand before the Figure (_God_), Adam the nearer with composed

countenance, while Eve appears somewhat more modest. And the Adam

must be well trained when to reply and to be neither too quick nor

too slow in his replies. And not only he, but all the personages

must be trained to speak composedly, and to fit convenient gesture

to the matter of their speech. Nor must they foist in a syllable or

clip one of the verse, but must enounce firmly and repeat what is

set down for them in due order. Whosoever names Paradise is to look

and point towards it.[1]

Glancing through the story we find that Adam and Eve are led into

Paradise, God first giving them counsel as to what they shall and shall

not do, and then retiring into the church. The happy couple are allowed

a brief time in which to demonstrate their joy in the Garden. Then Satan

approaches from Hell and draws Adam into conversation over the barrier.

His attempt to lure Adam to his Fall is vain, nor is he more successful

the first time with Eve. But as a serpent he over-persuades her to eat

of the forbidden fruit, and she gives it to Adam, with the well-known

result. In his guilt Adam now withdraws out of sight, changes his red

tunic for a costume contrived out of leaves, and reappears in great

grief. God enters from the church and, after delivering his judgment

upon the crime, drives Adam and Eve out of Eden. With spade and hoe they

pass under the curse of labour on the second stage, toiling there with

most disappointing results (Satan sows tares in their field) until the

end comes. Let the manuscript speak for itself again:

Then shall come the Devil and three or four devils with him,

carrying in their hands chains and iron fetters, which they shall

put on the necks of Adam and Eve. And some shall push and others

pull them to hell: and hard by hell shall be other devils ready to

meet them, who shall hold high revel at their fall. And certain

other devils shall point them out as they come, and shall snatch

them up and carry them into hell; and there shall they make a great

smoke arise, and call aloud to each other with glee in their hell,

and clash their pots and kettles, that they may be heard without.

And after a little delay the devils shall come out and run about

the stage; but some shall remain in hell.[2]

Immediately after this conclusion comes a shorter play of Cain and Abel,

followed in its turn by another on the Prophets; but in all three the

catastrophe is the same--mocking, exultant devils, and a noisy, smoky

'inferno'.

The most important characteristics of _Adam_ are the venturesome removal

of the play outside the sacred building, the increase in invented

dialogue beyond the limits of the Bible narrative, and the 'by-play'

conceded to popular taste. The last two easily followed from the first.

Within a church there is an atmosphere of sanctity, a spirit of

prohibition, which must, even in the Middle Ages, have had a restrictive

effect upon the elements of innovation and naturalness. The good people

of the Bible, the saints, had to live up to their reputation in every

small word and deed so long as their statues, images, and pictures gazed

down fixedly from the walls upon their living representatives. This was

so much a fact that to the very end Bible and Saint plays conceded

licence of action and speech only to those nameless persons, such as the

soldiers, Pharisees, and shepherds, who never attained to the

distinction of individual statues, and who could never be invoked in

prayer. Out of sight of these effigies and paintings, however, the

oppression was at once lightened. True, these model folk could not be

permitted to decline from their prescribed standards, but they might be

allowed companions of more homely tastes, and the duly authorized wicked

ones, such as the Devil, Cain, and Herod, might display their iniquity

to the full without offence. Thus it is that in this play we find great

prominence given to the Devil and his brother demons. They would delight

the common people: therefore the author misses no opportunity of

securing applause for his production by their antics. Throughout the

play we meet with such stage directions as 'the devils are to run about

the stage with suitable gestures', or the Devil 'shall make a sally

amongst the people'. In this last the seeing eye can already detect the

presence of that close intimacy between the play and the people which

was to make the drama a 'national possession' in England. The devil,

with his grimaces and gambols, was one of themselves, was a true rustic

at heart, and they shrieked and shouted with delight as he pinched their

arms or slapped them on the back. The freer invention in dialogue is

equally plain. Much that is said by Adam and the Devil has no place in

the scriptural account of the Fall, and the importance of this for the

development of these dramas cannot be exaggerated.

The move into the open air was not accidental. Every year these sacred

plays drew larger congregations to the festival service. Every year the

would-be spectators for whom the church could not find standing room

grumbled more loudly. In the churchyard (which was still within the holy

precincts) there was ample space for all. So into the churchyard the

performers went. The valuable result of this was the creation of a

raised stage, made necessary for the first time by the crushing of the

people. But alas, what could be said for the sanctity of the graves when

throngs trampled down the well-kept grass, and groups of men and women

fought for the possession of the most recent mounds as highest points of

vantage? Those whose dead lay buried there raised effectual outcries

against this desecration. To go back into the church seemed impossible.

The next move had to be into the street. It was at this point that there

set in that alienation of the Church from the Stage which was never

afterwards removed. Clerical actors were forbidden to play in the

streets. As an inevitable consequence, the learned language, Latin, was

replaced more and more by the people's own tongue. Soon the festivals

assumed a nature which the stricter clergy could not view with approval.

From miles around folk gathered together for merriment and trading.

There were bishops who now denounced public plays as instruments of the

devil.

Thus the drama, having outgrown its infancy, passed from the care of the

Church into the hands of the Laity. It took with it a tradition of

careful acting, a store of Biblical subjects, a fair variety of

characters--including a thundering Herod and a mischievous Devil--and

some measure of freedom in dialogue. It gained a native language and a

boundless popularity. But for many long years after the separation the

_Epiphany Plays_ continued to be acted in the churches, and by their

very existence possibly kept intact the link with religion which

preserved for the public Mysteries and Miracles an attitude of soberness

and reverence in the hearts of their spectators. The so-called _Coventry

Play_ of the fifteenth century is a testimony to the persistence of the

serious religious element in the final stage of these popular Bible

plays.

[Footnote 1: Mr. E.K. Chambers's translation.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. E.K. Chambers's translation.]

CHAPTER II

ENGLISH MIRACLE PLAYS

Most of what has been said hitherto has referred to the rise of

religious plays on the continent. The first recorded presentation of a

play in England occurred in Dunstable--under the management of a

schoolmaster, Geoffrey--about the year 1110. Probably, therefore, the

drama was part of the new civilization brought over by the Normans, and

came in a comparatively well-developed form. The title of Geoffrey's

play, _St. Katherine_, points to its having been of the _St. Nicholas_

type, a true Miracle Play, belonging to a much later stage of

development than the early _Pastores_ or _Quem Quaeritis?_. We need not

look, then, for shadowy gropings along the dramatic path. Instead we may

expect to find from the very commencement a fair grasp of essentials and

a rapidly maturing belief that the people were better guardians of the

new art than the Church.

We know nothing of _St. Katherine_ except its name. Of contemporary

plays also we know practically nothing. A writer of the late twelfth

century tells us that Saint Plays were well favoured in London. This

statement, coupled with the fact that all sacred plays, saintly

wonder-workings and Bible stories alike, were called Miracles in

England, gives a measure of support to Ten Brink's suggestion that the

English people at first shrank from the free treatment of Bible stories

on the stage, until their natural awe and reverence had become

accustomed to presentations of their favourite saints.

Passing over the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, therefore, as

centuries in which the idea of the drama was filtering through the

nation and adapting itself to its new audiences, we take up the story

again in the fourteenth century, before the end of which we know that

there were completed the four great plays still preserved to us--the

_Chester_, _Wakefield_, _York_, and _Coventry Miracles_. Early in that

century the Pope created the festival of Corpus Christi (about the

middle of June). To this festival we must fix most of our attention.

Glancing back a few pages we shall recall the elaboration of the play of

the _Magi_ from one bare incident to what was really a connected series

of episodes from the scene of the 'Shepherds' to the 'Massacre of the

Innocents'. It grew by the addition of scene to scene until the series

was complete. But the 'Massacre of the Innocents' only closed the

Christmas story. For the festival of Easter fresh ground must be broken

in order that the 'Passion' might be fittingly set forth, and, in fact,

we know that both stories in full detail eventually found a place in the

more ambitious churches, any difficulty due to their length being

overcome by extending the duration of the festivals. Then a time came

when, even as St. Matthew was anxious to lay the foundations of his

Gospel firm and sure in the past, so some writer of Bible plays desired

to preface his life of Jesus with a statement of the reason for His

birth, and the 'Fall of Man' was inserted. In writing such an

introductory play he set going another possible series. To explain the

Serpent's part in the 'Fall' there was wanted a prefatory play on

'Satan's Revolt in Heaven', and to demonstrate the swift consequence of

the 'Fall', another play on 'Cain and Abel'; the further story of the

'Flood' would represent the spread of wickedness over the earth; in

fact, the possible development could be bounded only by the wide limits

of the entire Bible, and, of more immediate influence, by the

restrictions of time. That this extension of theme was not checked until

these latter limits had been reached may be judged from the fact that in

one place it was customary to start the play between four or five

o'clock in the morning, acting it scene after scene until daylight

failed. But this was when the Corpus Christi festival had become the

chief dramatic season, combining in its performances the already lengthy

series associated respectively with Christmas and Easter. Between the

'Massacre of the Innocents' and the 'Betrayal' (the point at which the

Easter play usually started) a few connecting scenes were introduced,

after which the Corpus Christi play could fairly claim to be a complete

story of 'The Fall and Redemption of Man'. Admittedly of crude literary

form, yet full of reverence and moral teaching, and with powers of

pathos and satire above the ordinary, it became one single play, the

sublimest of all dramas. To regard it as a collection of separate small

plays is a fatal mistake--fatal both to our understanding of the single

scenes and to our comprehension of the whole.

Yet the space at our disposal forbids our dealing here with every scene

of any given play (or cycle, as a complete series is commonly called).

The most that can be done is to give a list of the subjects of the

scenes, and specimens of the treatment of a selected few. This list,

however, should not be glanced through lightly and rapidly. The title of

each scene should be paused over and the details associated with the

title recalled. In no other way can the reader hope to comprehend the

play in its fullness.

Here are the scenes of the _Coventry Play_.

1. The Creation.

2. The Fall of Man.

3. Cain and Abel.

4. Noah's Flood.

5. Abraham's Sacrifice.

6. Moses and the Two Tables.

7. The Prophets.

8. The Barrenness of Anna.

9. Mary in the Temple.

10. Mary's Betrothment.

11. The Salutation and Conception.

12. Joseph's Return.

13. The Visit to Elizabeth.

14. The Trial of Joseph and Mary.

15. The Birth of Christ.

16. The Adoration of the Shepherds.

17. The Adoration of the Magi.

18. The Purification.

19. The Slaughter of the Innocents.

20. Christ Disputing in the Temple.

21. The Baptism of Christ.

22. The Temptation.

23. The Woman taken in Adultery.

24. Lazarus.

25. The Council of the Jews.

26. The Entry into Jerusalem.

27. The Last Supper.

28. The Betraying of Christ.

29. King Herod.

30. The Trial of Christ.

31. Pilate's Wife's Dream.

32. The Condemnation and Crucifixion of Christ.

33. The Descent into Hell.

34. The Burial of Christ.

35. The Resurrection.

36. The Three Maries.

37. Christ Appearing to Mary.

38. The Pilgrim of Emaus.

39. The Ascension.

40. The Descent of the Holy Ghost.

41. The Assumption of the Virgin.

42. Doomsday.

One dominant characteristic is observed by every student of the original

play, namely, the maintenance of a lofty elevation of tone wherever the

sacredness of the subject demands it. The simple dramatic freedom of

that day brought God and Heaven upon the stage, and exhibited Jesus in

every circumstance of his life and death; yet on no occasion does the

play descend from the high standard of reverence which such a subject

demanded, or derogate from the dignity of the celestial Father and Son.

That this was partly due to the Bible will be admitted at once. But

there is great credit due to the writer (or writers) who could keep so

true a sense of proportion that in scenes even of coarse derision,

almost bordering on buffoonery, the central figure remained unsoiled and

unaffected by his surroundings. A writer less filled with the religious

sense must have been strongly tempted to descend to biting dialogue, in

which his hero should silence his adversaries by superiority in the use

of their own weapon. A truer instinct warned our author that any such

scene must immediately tend to a lowering of character. He refused, and

from his pen is sent forth a Man whose conduct and speech are

unassailably above earthly taint, who is, amongst men, Divine.

Observe the impressive note struck in the opening verse. God stands

amidst his angels, prepared to exercise his sovereign wisdom in the work

of creation.

My name is knowyn, God and kynge,

My werk for to make now wyl I wende[3],

In myself restyth my reynenge,

It hath no gynnyng ne non ende;

And alle that evyr xal have beynge[4],

It is closyd in my mende,

Whan it is made at my lykynge,

I may it save, I may it shende[5],

After my plesawns[6].

So gret of myth[7] is my pousté[8],

Alle thyng xal be wrowth[9] be me,

I am oo[10] God in personys thre,

Knyt in oo substawns.

But before the world can be made, a rebellion has to be stamped out, and

the same scene presents the overthrow of Satan--not after days of

doubtful battle as Milton later pictured it, but in a moment at the word

of the Almighty, 'I bydde the ffalle from hefne to helle'. At once

follows the creation of the world and man.

_Scene 2_ brings Adam and Eve before us, rejoicing in the abundant

delights of Eden. The guiding principle of the scene is the folly and

wickedness of the Fall. Here is no thought of excuse for silly Eve. With

every good around her, and with God's prohibition unforgotten, she

chooses disobedience, and drags Adam after her. But Adam's guilt is no

less than hers. The writer had not Milton at his elbow to teach him how

to twist the Bible narrative into an argument for the superiority of

man. Adam yields to the same sophistry as led Eve astray; and sin,

rushing in with the suddenness of swallowed poison, finds its first home

not in her breast but in his. The awful doom follows. In the desolation

that succeeds, the woman's bitter sorrow is allowed to move our pity at

last. Eating at her heart is the thought, 'My husbond is lost because of

me', so that in her agony she begs Adam to slay her.

Now stomble we on stalk and ston,

My wyt awey is fro me gon,

Wrythe on to my necke bon,

With hardnesse of thin honde.

Adam says what he can to console her, but without much success. The

scene ends with her lamenting.

The foul contagion, spreading over the earth, has been washed out in the

Flood and a fresh start made before _Scene 5_ introduces Abraham. In an

earlier paragraph we have spoken of the pathos of which these plays were

capable. Here in this scene it may be found. Abraham is, before all

things else, a father; Isaac is the apple of his eye. When as yet no

cloud fills the sky with the gloom of sacrifice, the old man exults in

his glorious possession, a son. Isaac is standing a little apart when

his father turns with outstretched arms, exclaiming

Now, suete sone, ffayre fare thi fface,

fful hertyly do I love the,

ffor trewe herty love now in this place,

My swete childe, com, kysse now me.

Holding him still in his arms the fond parent gives him good counsel, to

honour Almighty God, to 'be sett to serve oure Lord God above'. And

then, left alone for a while, Abraham, on his knees, thanks God for His

exceeding favour in sending him this comfort in his old age.

Ther may no man love bettyr his childe,

Than Isaac is lovyd of me;

Almyghty God, mercyful and mylde,

ffor my swete son I wurchyp the!

I thank the, Lord, with hert ful fre,

ffor this fayr frute thou hast me sent.

Now, gracyous God, wher so he be,

To save my sone evyr more be bent.

'To save my sone'--that is the petition of his full heart on the eve of

his trial. Almost at once the command comes, to kill the well-beloved as

an offering to his Giver. And Abraham bows low in heartbroken obedience.

Well may the child say, as he trots by the old man's side with a bundle

of faggots on his shoulder, and looks up wonderingly at the wrinkled

face drawn and blanched with anguish, 'ffayr fadyr, ye go ryght stylle;

I pray yow, fadyr, speke onto me.' At such a time a man does well to

bind his tongue with silence. Yet when at last the secret is confessed,

it finds the lad's spirit brave to meet his fate. Perhaps the writer had

read, not long before, of the steadfastness with which children met

persecution in the days of the Early Christian Church. For he gives us,

in Isaac, a boy ready to die if his father wills it so, happy to

strengthen that will by cheerful resignation if God's command is behind

it. At the rough altar's side Abraham's resolution fails him; from his

lips bursts the half-veiled protest, 'The ffadyr to sle the sone! My

hert doth clynge and cleve as clay'. But the lad encourages him, bidding

him strike quickly, yet adding sympathetically that his father should

turn his face away as he smites. The conquest is won. Love and duty

conflict no longer. Only two simple acts remain for love's performance:

'My swete sone, thi mouth I kys'; and when that last embrace is over,

'With this kerchere I kure (_cover_) thi face', so that the priest may

not see the victim's agony. Then duty raises the knife aloft, and as it

pauses in the air before its fearful descent the Angel speaks--and

saves.

The moving character of the opening, leading up to the sudden

catastrophe and, by its tragic contrast with what follows, throwing a

vivid ray into the very centre and soul of that wonderful trial of

faith; the natural sequence and diversity of emotions, love, pride,

thankfulness, horror, submission, grief, resolution, and final joy and

gratitude following each other like light and shadow; the little

touches, the suggestion to turn the face aside, the last kiss, the

handkerchief to hide the blue eyes of innocence; these are all, however

crude the technique, of the very essence of the highest art.

As will be seen from the list, only two scenes more refer to Old

Testament history, and then Jesus, whom the author has already intended

to foreshadow in Isaac (whence the lad's submission to his father's

will), begins to loom before us. The writer's religious creed prompted

him to devote considerable space to Mary, the mother of Jesus; for she

is to be the link between her Son and humanity, and therefore must be

shown free from sin from her birth. The same motive gives us a clue to

the character of Joseph. That nothing may be wanting to give whiteness

to the purity of Mary, she is implicitly contrasted with the crude

rusticity and gaffer-like obstinacy of her aged husband. He is just such

an old hobbling wiseacre as may be found supporting his rheumatic joints

with a thick stick in any Dorsetshire village. He is an old man before

he is required to marry her, and his protests against the proposed

union, accompanied with many a shake of the head, recall to modern

readers the humour of Mr. Thomas Hardy. This is how he receives the

announcement when at length his bowed legs have, with sundry rests by

the wayside, covered the distance between his home and the Temple where

Mary and the Priest await him:

What, xuld I wedde? God forbede!

I am an old man, so God me spede,

And with a wyff now to levyn in drede,

It wore neyther sport nere game.

He is told that it is God's will. Even the beauty of the bride-elect is

delicately referred to as an inducement. In vain. To all he replies:

A! shuld I have here? ye lese my lyff:

Alas! dere God, xuld I now rave?

An old man may nevyr thryff

With a yonge wyff, so God me save!

Nay, nay, sere, lett bene,

Xuld I now in age begynne to dote,

If I here chyde she wolde clowte my cote,

Blere myn ey, and pyke out a mote,

And thus oftyn tymes it is sene.

Eventually, of course, he is won over; but the author promptly packs him

into a far district as soon as the ceremony is over, nor does he permit

him to return to Mary's side until long after the Annunciation.

'The Adoration of the Magi' (_Scene 17_) introduces us to a very notable

person, no other than Herod, the model of each 'robustious periwig-pated

fellow' who on the stage would 'tear a passion to tatters, to very

rags', and so out-herod Herod. He is of old standing, a veteran of the

Church Epiphany plays, and has already learnt 'to split the ears of the

groundlings' with the stentorian sound of his pompous rhetoric. Hear him

declaim:

As a lord in ryalté in non regyon so ryche,

And rulere of alle remys[11], I ryde in ryal aray;

Ther is no lord of lond in lordchep to me lyche,

Non lofflyere, non lofsumere[12],--evyr lestyng is my lay:

Of bewté and of boldnes I bere evermore the belle;

Of mayn and of myght I master every man;

I dynge with my dowtynes the devyl down to helle,

ffor bothe of hevyn and of herthe I am kynge sertayn.

In _Scene 19_ we hear him issuing his cruel order for the killing of the

children. But when the foul deed is done there await the murderer two

kings whom he cannot slay, Death and the Devil. A banquet is in full

swing, Herod's officers are about him, the customary rant and bombast is

on his lips when those two steal in. 'While the trumpets are sounding,

Death slays Herod and his two soldiers suddenly, and the Devil receives

them'--so runs the terse Latin stage-direction.

Of the Devil we have more than enough in _Scene 22_, for it opens with

an infernal council, Sathanas, Belyalle, and Belsabub debating the best

means of testing the divinity of Jesus and of thereby making sure

whether or no another lord has been placed over them. The plan decided

upon is the Temptation. But great is Satan's downfall. 'Out, out,

harrow! alas! alas!' is the cry (one that had become very familiar to

his audience) as he hastens back to Hell, leaving the Heavenly Hero

crowned with glorious victory. This is one of several scenes chosen by

the author for the glorifying of his central character. Perhaps they

culminate in 'The Entry into Jerusalem'.

The scenes that now succeed each other, marking each stage of the

sorrowful descent to death, are notable chiefly for that quality to

which attention has already been drawn, namely, the dignity which

surrounds the character of the Hero. This dignity is not accidental. On

the contrary it would have been easy to fall into the error of exciting

so much compassion that the sufferer became a pitiably crushed victim of

misfortune. With much skill the writer places his most pathetic lines in

the mouths of the two Maries, diverts upon them the sharpest edge of our

pity, and never for a moment allows Jesus to appear overwhelmed. When a

Jew, in 'The Trial of Christ', speaks in terms of low insolence,

addressing him as 'thou, fela (_fellow_)' and striking him on the cheek,

Jesus replies:

Yf I have seyd amys,

Thereof wytnesse thou mayst bere;

And yf I have seyd but weyl in this,

Tho dost amys me to dere[13].

Again, in answer to Cayphas's outrageous scream of fury, 'Spek man,

spek! spek, thou fop!... I charge the and conjure, be the sonne and the

mone, that thou telle us and (_if_) thou be Goddys sone!', Jesus says

calmly, 'Goddys sone I am, I sey not nay to the!' Still later in the

same scene, the silence of Jesus before Herod (sustained through forty

lines or more of urging and vile abuse, besides cruel beatings) lifts

Him into infinite superiority over the blustering, bullying judge and

his wretched instruments. It is true that the Bible gives the facts, but

with the freedom allowed to the dramatist the excellence of the original

might have been so easily spoilt.

To Mary is reserved perhaps the deepest note of pathos within the play.

The scene is 'The Crucifixion of Christ', and she is represented lying

at the foot of the Cross. Jesus has invoked God's forgiveness for His

murderers, He has promised salvation to the repentant thief, but to her

He has said nothing, and the omission sends a fear to her heart like the

blackness of midnight. Has she, unconsciously, by some chance word or

deed, lost His love at the close of life? The thought is too terrible.

O my sone! my sone! my derlyng dere!

What[14] have I defendyd[15] the?

Thou hast spoke to alle tho[16] that ben here,

And not o word thou spekyst to me!

To the Jewys thou art ful kende,

Thou hast forgeve al here[17] mysdede;

And the thef thou hast in mende,

For onys haskyng mercy hefne is his mede.

A! my sovereyn Lord, why whylt thou not speke

To me that am thi modyr in peyn for thi wrong?

A! hert! hert! why whylt thou not breke?

That I were out of this sorwe[18] so stronge!

The remaining scenes bring on the final triumph of the Hero over Death

and Hell, and the culmination of the great theme of the play in the

Redemption of Man. Adam is restored, not indeed to the Garden of Eden,

but to a supernal Paradise.

Certain common features of the Miracles remain to be pointed out before

we close our volume of the _Coventry Play_, for it will provide us with

examples of most of them.

One of the first things that strike us is the absence of dramatic rules.

Not an absence of dramatic cohesion. To its audience, for whom the story

of the Mission of Jesus still retained its freshness, each scene

unfolded a further stage in the rescue of man from the bondage of Hell.

It is not a mere matter of chronology. The order may be the order of the

sacred chronicle, but to these early audiences it was also the order of

a sacred drama. The 'Sacrifice of Isaac' is not merely the next event of

importance after the 'Flood': it is a dramatic forecast of the last

sacrifice of all, the Sacrifice of Christ. Even though we admit, as in

some cases we must, that the Plays are heterogeneous products of many

hands working separately, and therefore without dramatic regard for

other scenes, it is not unreasonable to suppose that when the official

text was decided upon, the several scenes may have been accommodated to

the interests of the whole. Moreover, the innate relationship of scenes

drawn from the Bible gives of itself a certain dramatic cohesion. Of the

so-called Dramatic Unities of Time and Place, however, there is no

suggestion; there is no unity of characters; there is no consideration

of what may be shocking, what pleasing as a spectacle. Whoever saw the

whole play through was hurried through thousands of years, was carried

from heaven to earth and down to hell; he beheld kings, shepherds, high

priests, executioners, playing their parts with equal effect and only

distinguished by the splendour or meanness of their apparel; he was a

witness to Satan's overthrow, to Abel's death, and was a spectator at

the flogging and crucifixion of Jesus. It is easy for those acquainted

with the later drama (of Greene especially) to see the direct line of

descent from these Miracles to the Shakespearian stage.

One interesting feature of these plays is the frequent appearance of

Angels and Devils on the stage. This accustomed the audience to the

entrance of the supernatural, in solid form, into the realm of the

natural; and paved the way for those most substantial ghosts which

showed themselves so much at home on the Elizabethan stage. We should be

not far wrong, perhaps, in describing the later introduction of the

Senecan Ghost into English drama as an innovation only in name: the

supernatural had been a familiar factor in heightening dramatic interest

long before _The Misfortunes of Arthur_ or _The Spanish Tragedy_ were

written.--Of the Devils even more may be said. Their picturesque

attire,[19] their endless pranks (not set down in the text), their

reappearance and disappearance at the most unexpected times, their howls

and familiar 'Harrow and owt! owt and alas!' were a constant delight,

and preserved their popularity unexhausted for two hundred years,

securing for them a place in the later forms of drama when the Miracles

were supplanted by Moralities and Interludes. The Devil's near cousin,

Herod, attained to a similar reputation and longevity. Has even modern

melodrama quite lost that immortal type of the ranting, bombastic tyrant

and villain?

The women in the play deserve notice. With the exception of Noah's wife,

who was commonly treated in a broadly humorous vein, the principal

female characters possess that sweet naturalness, depth and constancy

of affection, purity and refinement which an age that had not yet lost

the ideals of chivalry accepted as the normal qualities of a good woman.

The mothers, wives, and daughters of that day would appear to have been

before all things womanly, in an unaffected, instinctive way. Isaac (in

the _Chester Miracle Play_), thinking, in the hour of death, of his

mother's grief at home, says, 'Father, tell my mother for no thinge.'

When Mary is married (_Coventry Play_) and must part from her mother,

they bid farewell in this wise:

_Anna._ I pray the, Mary, my swete chylde,

Be lowe[20] and buxhum[21], meke and mylde,

Sad and sobyr and nothyng wylde,

And Goddys blessynge thou have....

Goddys grace on you sprede,

ffarewel, Mary, my swete fflowre,

ffareweyl, Joseph, and God you rede[22],

ffareweyl my chylde and my tresowre,

ffarewel, my dowtere yyng.[23]

_Maria._ ffarewel, fadyr and modyr dere,

At you I take my leve ryght here,

God that sytt in hevyn so clere,

Have you in his kepyng.

The heartbroken words of Mary at the foot of the Cross have already been

quoted. In the reconciliation between Joseph and Mary (_Scene 12_), in

Mary's patient endurance of Joseph's bad temper on the journey to

Bethlehem (_Scene 15_), in the mother's unrestrained misery at the loss

of the boy Jesus and rapture on finding Him in the Temple (_Scene 20_),

in the two sisters' forced cheerfulness by the bedside of the dying

Lazarus and their sorrow at his death--nor do these by any means exhaust

the number of favourable instances--there may be seen the basic

elements, as it were, which, more deftly handled and blended, gave to

the English stage the world's rarest gallery of noble women.

Darkness and grief are so woven into the substance of the Bible

narrative that we should indeed have been surprised if the tragic note

had not been sounded often throughout the play. That it could be sounded

well, too, will have been seen from various references and from the

Scene of Abraham's Sacrifice. Nevertheless, tragedy is a less

interesting, less original, less English element than the comedy which

pops up its head here, there, and everywhere. It is really a part of

that absence of dramatic rules already indicated, this easy conjunction

of tragedy and comedy in the same scene. English audiences never could

be persuaded to forgo their laugh. After all, it was near neighbour to

their tears throughout life; then why not on the stage? A funeral was

not the less a warning to the living because it was rounded off with a

feast. Nor was Jesus on the Cross robbed of any of the majesty and

silent eloquence of vicarious suffering by the vulgar levity of those

who bade him 'Take good eyd (_heed_) to oure corn, and chare (_scare_)

awey the crowe'. The strong sentiment of reverence set limits to the

application of this humour. Only minor characters were permitted to

express themselves in this way. The soldiers at the Sepulchre, the

Judaeans at the Cross, the 'detractors' in _Scene 14_, certain mocking

onlookers in _Scene 40_, these and others of similar stage rank spoke

the coarse jests that set free the laugh when tears were too near the

surface.--These common fellows, by the way, are the prototypes of the

familiar Citizens, Soldiers, Watch, of a later date: the Miracles were

fertile in 'originals'.--Some characters there were, however, more

individual, more of consequence than these, who attained to an

established reputation for their humour. The Devil's pranks have been

referred to; Joseph's rusticity also; and the obstinacy of Noah's wife

has been obscurely hinted at. Her gift lay in preferring the company of

her good gossips to the select family gathering assembled in the Ark,

and in playing with Noah's ears very soundingly when at length she was

forcibly dragged into safety. Two short extracts from the _Chester

Miracle_ will illustrate her humour.

(1)

_Noye._ Wyffe, in this vessel we shall be kepte,

My children and thou; I would in ye lepte.

_Noyes Wiffe._ In fayth, Noye, I hade as leffe thou slepte!

For all thy frynishe[24] fare,

I will not doe after thy reade[25].

_Noye._ Good wyffe, doe nowe as I thee bydde.

_Noyes Wiffe._ Be Christe! not or I see more neede,

Though thou stande all the daye and stare.

_Noye._ Lorde, that wemen be crabbed aye,

And non are meke, I dare well saye;

This is well seene by me to daye,

In witnesse of you ichone[26].

(2)

_Jeffate._ Mother, we praye you all together,

For we are heare, youer owne childer,

Come into the shippe for feare of the weither,

For his love that you boughte!

_Noyes Wiffe._ That will not I, for all youer call,

But I have my gossippes all.

_Sem._ In faith, mother, yett you shalle,

Wheither thou wylte or [nought].

_Noye._ Welckome, wiffe, into this botte.

_Noyes Wiffe._ Have thou that for thy note!

_Noye._ Ha, ha! marye, this is hotte!

It is good for to be still.

[The reader will easily supply for himself appropriate

stage-directions.]

But of all these comic characters none developed so excellent a genius

for winning laughter as the Shepherds who 'watched their flocks by

night, all seated on the ground'. To see them at their best we must turn

to the _Wakefield_ (or _Towneley_) _Miracle Play_ and read the pastoral

scene (or, rather, two scenes) there. Here we come face to face with

rustics pure and simple, downright moorland shepherds, homely,

grumbling, coarsely clad, warm-hearted, abashed by a woman's tongue,

rough in their sports. The real old Yorkshire stock of nearly six

hundred years ago rises into life as we read.

In the first scene a beginning is made by the entrance of a single

shepherd, grumpy, frost-bitten, and growling rebelliously against the

probably widely resented practice of purveyance whereby a nobleman might

exact from his farm-tenantry provisions and service for his needs, even

though the farmer's own land should suffer from neglect in consequence.

Thus he says,

No wonder, as it standys, if we be poore,

For the tylthe of oure landys lyys falow as the floore,

As ye ken.

We ar so hamyd[27],

For-taxed[28] and ramyd[29],

We ar mayde hand-tamyd,

Withe thyse gentlery men.

Thus they refe[30] us oure rest, Oure Lady theym wary[31]!

These men that ar lord-fest, thay cause the ploghe tary.

That men say is for the best we fynde it contrary.

Thus ar husbandys opprest, in pointe to myscary,

On lyfe.

By way of excuse for his grumblings he adds in conclusion,

It dos me good, as I walk thus by myn oone,

Of this warld for to talk in maner of mone.

The second shepherd, who enters next, has other grounds for discontent.

He, poor man, has a vixen for a wife.

As sharp as thystille, as rugh as a brere,

She is browyd lyke a brystylle, with a sowre loten chere;

Had she oones well hyr whystyll she couth syng fulle clere

Hyr pater noster.

She is as greatt as a whalle

She has a galon of galle.

Conversation opens between the two, but rapidly comes to a dispute.

Fortunately the timely arrival of a third shepherd dissipates the cloud,

and they are quite ready to hear his complaints--this time of

wide-spreading floods--coupled with further reflections on the hard

conditions of a shepherd's lot. By this time the circle is complete, and

a good supper and song are produced to ratify the general harmony. But

now enters the element of discord which forms the pivot of the second

scene. Mak, a boorish fellow shrewdly suspected of sheep stealing, joins

them, and, after some chaffing, is allowed to share their grassy bed. In

the night he rises, picks out the finest ram from the flock, drives it

home, and hides it in the cradle. He then returns to his place between

two of the shepherds. As he foresaw, morning brings discovery, suspicion

and search. The three shepherds proceed to Mak's home, only to be

confronted with the well concocted story that his wife, having just

become the mother of a sturdy son, must on no account be disturbed. On

this point apparently a compromise is effected, the search to be

executed on tip-toe, for the shepherds do somewhat poke and pry about,

yet under so sharp a fire of abuse as to render them nervous of pressing

their investigations too closely. Thus they pass the cradle by, and all

would have gone well with Mak but for that same warm-heartedness of

which we spoke earlier. They are already out of the house when a true

Christmas thought flashes into the mind of one of them.

_1st Shepherd._ Gaf ye the chyld any thyng?

_2nd Shepherd._ I trow not oone farthyng.

_3rd Shepherd._ Fast agayne wille I flyng,

Abyde ye me there.

[_He returns to the house, the others following._]

Mak, take it no grefe if I com to thi barne.

_Mak._ Nay, thou dos me greatt reprefe, and fowlle has thou

farne.[32]

_3rd Shepherd._ The child wille it not grefe, that lytylle day

starne[33]?

Mak, with youre leyfe, let me gyf youre barne

Bot vj pence.

_Mak._ Nay, do way: he slepys.

_3rd Shepherd._ Me thynk he pepys.

_Mak._ When he wakyns he wepys.

I pray you go hence.

_3rd Shepherd._ Gyf me lefe hym to kys, and lyft up the clowtt.

What the dewille is this? he has a long snowte.

The cat is out of the bag. Mak, with an assurance worthy of a better

cause, declines to believe their report of the cradle's contents, and

his wife comes nimbly to his aid with the startling explanation that it

is her son without doubt, for she saw him transformed by a fairy into

this misshapen changeling precisely on the stroke of twelve. Not so,

however, are the shepherds to be persuaded to disbelieve their eyes.

Instead Mak gets a good tossing in a blanket for his pains, the

exertion of which sentence reduces the three to such drowsiness that

soon they are fast asleep again. From their slumber they are awakened by

the Angel's Song; upon which follows their journey with gifts to the

newborn King.

Peculiar to the Coventry Miracle Play is the introduction of a new type

of character, unhuman, unreal, a mere embodied quality. In _Scene 9_,

where Mary is handed over by her parents to the care of the High Priest

at the Temple, she finds provided for her as companions the five

maidens, Meditation, Contrition, Compassion, Cleanness and Fruition,

while near by await her seven teachers, Discretion, Devotion, Dilection,

Deliberation, Declaration, Determination and Divination, a goodly

company of Doctors indeed. Of all these intangible figures one only,

Milton's 'cherub Contemplation', speaks, but the rest are quite

obviously represented on the stage, though whether all in flesh and

blood may be matter for uncertainty. Much more talkative, on the other

hand, are similar abstractions in _Scene 11_. Here, in the presence of

God, Contemplation and the Virtues having appealed for an extension of

mercy and forgiveness to man, Truth, Pity and Justice discuss the

question of Redemption from their particular points of view until God

interposes with his decision in its favour. Mention of this innovation

in the Miracle Play seems advisable at this point, though its bearing on

later drama will be more clearly seen in the next chapter.

Little need be said of the verse commonly used in Miracles, save to

point out the preference for stanzas and for triple and quadruple

rhymes. An examination of the verses quoted will reveal something as to

the variety of forms adopted. Those cited from _Scenes 1_, _4_, and _32_

illustrate three types, while another favourite of the Coventry author

takes the following structure (A), with a variant in lines of half the

length (B):

(A) _Angelus_.

Wendyth fforthe, ye women thre,

Into the strete of Galylé;

Your Savyour ther xul ye se

Walkynge in the waye.

Your ffleschely lorde now hath lyff,

That deyd on tre with strook and stryff;

Wende fforthe, thou wepynge wyff,

And seke hym, I the saye.

(_Scene 36._)

(B) _Senescallus_ (_to Herod_).

Sere kyng in trone,

Here comyth anone

By strete and stone

Kynges thre.

They bere present,--

What thei have ment.

Ne whedyr they arn bent,

I cannot se.

(_Scene 17._)

Reference to the quotation from the _Wakefield Play_ will discover in

the north country author an even greater propensity to rhyme.

There remains to be discussed the method of production of these plays.

Fortunately we have records to guide us in our suppositions. These date

from the time when the complete Miracle Play was a fully established

annual institution. It is of that period that we shall speak.

Plays had from the first been under official management. When,

therefore, the Church surrendered control it was only natural that

secular officialdom should extend its protection and guidance. Local

corporations, recognizing the commercial advantages of an attraction

which could annually draw crowds of country customers into the towns,

made themselves responsible for the production of the plays. While

delegating all the hard work to the trade guilds, as being the chief

gainers from the invasion, they maintained central control, authorizing

the text of the play, distributing the scenes amongst those responsible

for their presentation, and visiting any slackness with proper pains and

penalties. Under able public management Miracle Plays soon became a

yearly affair in every English town.

When the time came round for the festival to be held--Corpus Christi Day

being a general favourite, though Whitsuntide also had its adherents,

and for some Easter was apparently not too cold--the manuscript of the

play was brought forth from the archives, the probable cost and

difficulties of each scene were considered, the strength or poverty of

the various guilds was carefully weighed, and finally as just an

allocation was made as circumstances would permit. If two guilds were

very poor they were allowed to share the production of one scene. If a

guild were wealthy it might be required to manage two scenes, and those

costly ones. For scenes differed considerably in expense: such

personages as God and Herod, and such places as Heaven or the Temple,

were a much heavier drain on the purse than, say, Joseph and Mary on

their visit to Elizabeth. Where there was no difficulty on the score of

finance, a guild might be entrusted with a scene--if there was a

suitable one--which made special demands on its own craft. Thus, from

the York records we learn that the Tanners were given the Overthrow of

Lucifer and his fellow devils (who would be dressed in brown leather);

the Shipwrights, the Building of the Ark; the Fishmongers and Mariners

jointly, the scene of Noah and his family in the Ark; the Goldsmiths,

the Magi (richly oriental); the Shoers of Horses, the Flight into Egypt;

the Barbers, the Baptism by John the Baptist (in camel's hair); the

Vintners, the Marriage at Cana; the Bakers, the Last Supper; the

Butchers and Poulterers, the Crucifixion.

As soon as a Guild had been allotted its scene it appointed a manager to

carry the matter through. The individual expense was not great,

somewhere between a penny and fourpence for each member. Out of the sum

thus raised had to be paid the cost of dresses and stage-scenery, and

the actors' remunerations (which included food during the period of

rehearsals as well as on the actual playing days). No such crude

simplicity as is made fun of in the _Midsummer Night's Dream_ was

admitted into the plays given in the towns, however natural it may have

been to villages. Training and expense were not spared by rival guilds.

As we saw in the directions for the acting of the old play of _Adam_,

propriety in diction and behaviour on the part of the actors was

insisted upon as early as the tenth century. An interesting record

(dated 1462) in the Beverley archives states that a certain member of

the Weavers' Guild was fined for not knowing his part. It would be quite

a mistake, therefore, to suppose that fifteenth-century acting was an

unstudied art. Similarly, caution must be used in ridiculing the

stage-properties of that day. One has only to peruse intelligently one

of the bald lists of items of expenditure to discover that a placard

bearing such an inscription as 'The Ark' or 'Hell' was not the accepted

means of giving reality to a scene. The Ark was an elaborate structure

demanding a team of horses for its entrance and exit; while Hell-mouth,

copying the traditional representations in mediaeval sculpture, was a

most ingenious contrivance, designed in the likeness of gaping jaws

which opened and shut in fearful style, emitting volumes of sulphurous

smoke, not to mention awesome noises. The 'make-ups' too were far from

being the arbitrary fancies of the wearers. True, they possibly bore no

great resemblance to the originals. But that was due to an ignorance of

history rather than to carelessness about truth. The probability is that

in many cases the images and paintings in the churches were imitated, as

being faithful likenesses. One has merely to call to mind certain

stained-glass windows to guess what sort of realism was reached and to

understand how it came about that Herod appeared in blue satin, Pilate

and Judas respectively in green and yellow, Peter in a wig of solid gilt

(with beard to match), and Angels in white surplices.

For the stage a high platform was used, beneath which, curtained off

from sight, the actors could dress or await their cues. Above the stage

(open on all four sides) was a roof, on which presumably an 'angel'

might lie concealed until the moment arrived for him to descend, when a

convenient rope lent aid to too flimsy wings. Contrariwise, the devil

would lurk in the dressing-room, if Hell-mouth were out of repair, until

the word came for him to thrust the curtains aside, dart out, pull his

victim off the stage and bear him away to torment. The street itself was

quite freely used whenever conditions seemed to require it: messengers,

for example, pushed their way realistically through the crowd; devils

ran merrily about in its open space; and when Herod felt the whole stage

too narrow to contain his fury he sought the ampler bounds of the

market-place to rage in. Sometimes two or more stages were placed in

proximity to accommodate actions that must take place at the same time.

Thus we read in _Scene 25_ ('The Council of the Jews') of the _Coventry

Play_, 'Here xal Annas, shewyn hymself in his stage, be seyn after a

busshop of the hoold lawe, in a skarlet gowne, and over that a blew

tabbard furryd with whyte, and a mytere on his hed, after the hoold

lawe' (the dress is interesting); and a little further on, 'Here goth

the masangere forth, and in the mene tyme Cayphas shewyth himself in his

skafhald arayd lyche to Annas'; while yet a little later appears this,

'Here the buschopys with here (_their_) clerkes and the Phariseus mett,

and (? in) the myd place, and ther xal be a lytil oratory with stolys

and cusshonys clenly be-seyn, lyche as it were a cownsel-hous'. Again,

in _Scene 27_ ('The Last Supper') will be found this direction: 'Here

Cryst enteryth into the hoûs with his disciplis and ete the Paschal

lomb; and in the mene tyme the cownsel-hous beforn-seyd xal sodeynly

onclose, schewyng the buschopys, prestys, and jewgys syttyng in here

astat, lyche as it were a convocacyon.' This last is quoted for the

additional inference that the Coventry stage remained in one place

throughout the play; for the previous reference to the 'cownsel-hous' is

that quoted, two scenes earlier. There was another custom, practised in

Chester, and probably in other towns where the crowd was great. There

the whole stage, dressing-room and all, was mounted on wheels and drawn

round the town, pausing at appointed stations to present its scene. By

this means the crowd could be widely scattered (to the more equitable

advantage of shopkeepers), for a spectator had only to remain at one of

these stations to behold, in due order of procession, the whole play

acted. Thus mounted on wheels the stage took the name of a pageant (or

pagond, in ruder spelling),--a name soon extended to include not only a

stage without wheels but even the stage itself. It is used with the

latter meaning in the Prologue to the _Coventry Play_.

With regard to the time occupied by the play, it is not possible to do

much more than guess, since plays varied considerably in the number of

their scenes. In one town, as we have said, the whole performance was

crowded into a single day, starting as early as 4.30 a.m. Chester, on

the other hand, devoted three days to its festival, while at Newcastle

acting was confined to the afternoons. Humane consideration for the

actors forbade that they should be required to act more than twice a

day. They were well paid, as much as fourpence being given for a good

cock-crower (in 'The Trial of Christ'), while the part of God was worth

three and fourpence: no contemptible sums at a time when a quart of wine

cost twopence and a goose threepence. A little uncertainty exists as to

the professional character of the actors, but the generally approved

opinion seems to be that they were merely members of the Guilds,

probably selected afresh each year and carefully trained for their

parts. The more professional class, the so-called minstrels or vagrant

performers (descendants of the Norman _jongleurs_), possibly provided

the music, which appears to have filled a large and useful part in the

plays.

* * * * *

The Saint-plays, the original miracle-plays, continued, and doubtless

were staged in the same way as the Bible-plays. But the latter so

completely eclipsed them in popularity that they appear never to have

attained to more than a haphazard existence. Their nature was all

against a dramatic subordination of the different plays to each other.

Their subject was fundamentally the same; placed in a series, they could

unroll no larger theme, as could the individual scenes of a Bible-play.

For ambitious town festivals, therefore, they were too short. Few public

bodies considered it worth their while to adopt them; and as a

consequence only one or two have been preserved for our reading.

Those that remain with us, however, contain qualities which may make us

wonder why they did not receive greater recognition. It may be that we

misjudge the extent of their popularity, though survival is usually a

fairly good guide. Certainly they shared, or borrowed, some of the

'attractive' features of their rivals: there was not lacking a liberal

flavour of the horrible, the satanic, the coarse and the comical.

Moreover, they possessed much greater possibilities for purely dramatic

effect. The cohesion of incidents was firmer, the evolution of the plot

more vigorous, the crisis more surprising, the opportunities for

originality more plentiful. The very fact that they could not easily be

welded together as scenes in a larger play is a testimonial to their

art. They are more complete in themselves. They are, that is to say, a

further stage on the way to that Elizabethan drama which only became

possible when all idea of a day-long play had been discarded in favour

of scenes more single and self-contained. The sacredness, also, of the

saintly narrative was less binding than that of the Bible story. Those

who had a compunction in caricaturing or coarsening the unholy or

nameless people of the Scriptures would feel their liberty immensely

widened in a representation of the secular and heathen world which

surrounded their saint. This is clearly seen in the _Miracle of the

Sacrament_, where the figure of Jonathas the Jew is portrayed with

distinct originality. His long recital of his wealth in costly jewels,

and the equally lengthy statement by Aristorius, the corruptible

Christian merchant, of his numerous argosies and profitable ventures,

are early exercises in the style perfected by Marlowe's Barabas. The

whole story, from the stealing of the Sacred Host by Aristorius and its

sale to Jonathas, right on through the villainous assaults, by the Jew

and his confederates, upon its sanctity, and the miraculous

manifestations of its power, to Jonathas's final conversion and the

restoration of the sacrament, is a very fair example of the power which

these Saint Plays possessed in the structure of plots.

[Footnote 3: go.]

[Footnote 4: being.]

[Footnote 5: destroy.]

[Footnote 6: pleasure.]

[Footnote 7: might.]

[Footnote 8: power.]

[Footnote 9: wrought.]

[Footnote 10: one.]

[Footnote 11: realms.]

[Footnote 12: more worthy.]

[Footnote 13: injure.]

[Footnote 14: how.]

[Footnote 15: offended.]

[Footnote 16: those.]

[Footnote 17: their.]

[Footnote 18: sorrow.]

[Footnote 19: See the stage-direction at the end of 'The Trial of

Christ', 'Here enteryth Satan into the place in the most orryble wyse,

and qwyl (_while_) that he pleyth, thei xal don on Jhesus clothis'.]

[Footnote 20: lowly.]

[Footnote 21: obedient.]

[Footnote 22: counsel.]

[Footnote 23: young.]

[Footnote 24: courtly.]

[Footnote 25: counsel.]

[Footnote 26: each one.]

[Footnote 27: crippled.]

[Footnote 28: overtaxed.]

[Footnote 29: overreached.]

[Footnote 30: rob.]

[Footnote 31: curse.]

[Footnote 32: done.]

[Footnote 33: star.]

CHAPTER III

MORALITIES AND INTERLUDES

Miracle (Bible) Plays had three serious faults, not accidental, but

inherent in them. They were far too long. Their story was well known and

strictly confined by the two covers of the Bible. Their characters were

all provided by the familiar narrative. It is true that a few additions

to the canonical list were admitted, such as Cain's servant Garcio,

Pilate's beadle, and Mak the sheep-stealer. Lively characters were also

created out of nonentities like the various Judaeans and soldiers, and

the shepherds. But these were all minors; they had no influence on the

course of the action, and the smallness of their part made anything like

a full delineation impossible. They were real men, recognizable as akin

to local types, but no more; one never knew anything of them beyond

their simplicity or brutality. Meanwhile their superiors, clothed in the

stiff dress of tradition and reverence, passed over the stage with

hardly an idea or gesture to distinguish them from their predecessors of

three centuries before.

The English nation grew tired of Bible Plays. There can be no doubt of

this if we consider the kind of play that for a time secured the first

place in popularity. Only audiences weary of its alternative could have

waxed enthusiastic over _The Castell of Perseverance_ or _Everyman_.

Something shorter was wanted, with an original plot and some fresh

characters. To some extent, as has been shown, the Saint Plays supplied

these requirements, and one is tempted to suspect that in the latter

part of their career there was some subversion of the relative positions

of the two rival types of Miracle. But what was asked for was novelty.

Both forms of the Miracle were hundreds of years old, and both had to

suffer the same fate, of relegation to a secondary place in the Drama.

In letting them pass from our notice, however, we must not exaggerate

their decline. The first Moralities appeared as early as the fifteenth

century, but some of the great Miracles (e.g. of Chester and York)

lasted until near the end of the sixteenth century. For some time,

therefore, the latter must have held their own. Indeed the former

probably met with their complete success only when they had become

merged in the Interludes.

In its purest form the Morality Play was simply the subject of the

Miracle Play writ small, the general theme of the Fall and Redemption of

Man applied to the particular case of an individual soul. The central

figure was a Human Being; his varying fortunes as he passed from

childhood to old age supplied the incidents, and his ultimate destiny

crowned the action. Around him were grouped virtues and vices, at his

elbows were his good and his bad angel, while at the end of life waited

Heaven or Hell to receive him, according to his merits and the mercy of

God. The merits were commonly minimized to emphasize the mercy, with

happy results for the interest of the play.

It is easy to see how all this harmonized with the mediaeval allegorical

element in religion and literature. A century earlier Langland had

scourged wickedness in high places in his famous allegory, _Piers

Plowman_. A century later Spenser was to weave the most exquisite verse

round the defeats and triumphs of the spirit of righteousness in man's

soul. Nor had allegory yet died when Bunyan wrote, for all time, his

story of the battling of Christian against his natural failings. After

all, a Morality Play was only a dramatized version of an inferior

_Pilgrim's Progress_; and those of us who have not wholly lost the

imagination of our childhood still find pleasure in that book. In

judging the Moralities, therefore, we must not forget the audience to

which they appealed. We shall be the more lenient when we discover how

soon they were improved upon.

Influenced at first by the comprehensiveness of the plot in the Miracle

Play, the writers of the early Moralities were satisfied with the

compression of action effected by the change from the general to the

particular theme. This had brought about a reduction in the time

required for the acting; and along with these gains had come the further

advantages of novelty and originality. Accordingly the author of _The

Castell of Perseverance_ (almost the only true Morality handed down to

us) was quite content to let his play run to well over three thousand

lines, seeing that within this space he set forth the whole life of a

man from the cradle to the grave and even beyond. But later writers were

quick to see that this so-called particular theme was still a great deal

too general, leaving only the broadest outlines available for characters

and incidents. By omitting the stages of childhood and early manhood

they could plunge at once into the last stage, where, beneath the shadow

of imminent destiny, every action had an intensified interest. Moreover,

within such narrowed boundaries each incident could be painted in

detail, each character finished off with more realistic traits. It was

doubtless under such promptings that the original Dutch _Everyman_ was

written, and the alacrity with which it was translated and adopted among

English Moralities shows that its principle was welcomed as an artistic

advance. An almost imperceptible step led straight from the _Everyman_

type of Morality to the Interludes.

Before tracing further changes, however, it might be well to have before

us a more definite notion of the contents of _The Castell of

Perseverance_ and _Everyman_ than could be gathered from these general

remarks. For a summary of the former we shall be glad to borrow the

outline given by Ten Brink in his _History of English Literature_.[34]

'_Humanum Genus_ appears as a new-born child, as a youth, as a man, and

as a graybeard. As soon as the child appears upon the stage we see the

Angel of Good and the Angel of Evil coming and speaking to him. He

follows the Evil Angel and is led to Mundus (the World), who gives him

Joy and Folly, and very soon also Slander, for his companions. By the

latter--or, to stick to the literal expression of the poet, by this

latter female personage--_Humanum Genus_ is introduced to Greed, who

soon presents to him the other Deadly Sins. We see the hero, when a

young man, choosing Lust as his bed-fellow; and, in spite of the

endeavours of his Good Angel, he continues in his sinful career until at

length Repentance leads him to Confession. At forty years of age we see

him in the _Castle of Constancy_ [or _Perseverance_], whither he has

been brought by Confession, surrounded by the seven most excellent

Virtues.... The castle is surrounded by the three Evil Powers and the

Seven Deadly Sins, with the Devil at their head, and with foot and horse

is closely besieged. _Humanum Genus_ commends himself to his general,

who died on the cross; but the Virtues valiantly defend the Castle; and

Love and Patience and their sisters cast roses down on the besiegers,

who are thereby beaten black and blue, and forced to retire. But

_Humanum Genus_ in the meantime has become an old man, and now yields to

the seductions of Greed, who has succeeded in creeping up to the castle

walls. The old man quits the Castle and follows the seducer. His end is

nigh at hand. The rising generation, represented by a Boy, demands of

him his heaped-up treasures. And now Death and Soul appear upon the

scene. Soul calls on Mercy for assistance; but the Evil Angel takes

_Humanum Genus_ on its back and departs with him along the road to Hell.

In this critical position of affairs the well-known argument begins,

where Mercy and Peace plead before God on the one side, and Justice and

Truth on the other. God decides in favour of Mercy; Peace takes the soul

of _Humanum Genus_ from the Evil Angel, and Mercy carries it to God, who

then pronounces the judgment--and afterwards the epilogue of the play.'

The plot of _Everyman_ is as follows.

Everyman, in the midst of life's affairs, is suddenly summoned by Death.

Astonished, alarmed, he protests that he is not ready, and offers a

thousand pounds for another twelve years in which to fill up his

'Account'. But no delay is possible. At once he must start on his

journey. Can he among his friends find one willing to bear him company?

He tries. But Fellowship and Kindred and Cousin, willing enough for

other services, decline to undertake this one. Goods (or Wealth)

confesses that, as a matter of fact, his presence would only make things

worse for Everyman, for love of riches is a sin. Finally Everyman seeks

out poor forgotten Good-Deeds, only to find her bound fast by his sins.

In this strait he turns to Knowledge, and under her guidance visits

Confession, who prescribes a penance of self-chastisement. The

administration of this has so liberating an effect on Good-Deeds that

she is able to rise and join Everyman and Knowledge. To them are

summoned Discretion, Strength, Beauty and Five-Wits--friends of

Everyman--and all journey together until, as they draw near the end, the

last four depart. At the grave Knowledge stays outside, but Good-Deeds

enters with Everyman, whose welcome to Heaven is announced directly

afterwards by an angel. The epilogue, spoken by a Doctor, supplies a

pious interpretation of the play.

Such are the stories of the two best known Moralities. From them we can

judge how great a change had come over the drama. Nowhere is there any

incident approaching the nature of 'The Sacrifice of Isaac', nowhere is

there any character worthy to stand beside the Mary of the Miracle Play.

Those are the losses. On the other hand, we perceive a new

compactness--still loose, but much in advance of what existed

before--whereby the central figure is always before us, urged along from

one act and one set of surroundings to another, towards a goal which is

never lost sight of. Also there is the invention which provides for

these two plays different plots, as well as some diversity of

characters. The superiority of the shorter play--_Everyman_ contains

just over nine hundred lines--to the older one is less readily detected

in a comparison of bare plots, though it becomes obvious as soon as one

reads the plays. It lies in a more detailed characterization, in a

deliberate attempt to humanize the abstractions, in the substitution of

something like real conversation for the orderly succession of debating

society speeches. The following extracts will illustrate this

difference.

(1) From _The Castell of Perseverance_.

[GOOD ANGEL _and_ BAD ANGEL, _in rivalry, are trying to secure the

adherence of the juvenile_ HUMANKIND: GOOD ANGEL _has already

spoken._]

_Bad Angel._ Pes aungel, thi wordes are not wyse,

Thou counselyst hym not a-ryth[35].

He schal hym drawyn to the werdes[36] servyse,

To dwelle with caysere, kynge and knyth,

That in londe be hym non lyche.

Cum on with me, stylle as ston:

Thou and I to the werd schul goon,

And thanne thou schalt sen a-non

Whow sone thou schalt be ryche.

_Good Angel._ A! pes aungel, thou spekyst folye!

Why schuld he coveyt werldes goode,

Syn Criste in erthe and hys meynye[37]

All in povert here thei stode?

Werldes wele[38], be strete and stye,

Faylyth and fadyth as fysch in flode,

But hevene ryche is good and trye,

Ther Criste syttyth, bryth as blode,

Withoutyn any dystresse.

To the world wolde he not flyt,

But forsok it every whytt;

Example I fynde in holy wryt,

He wyl bere me wytnesse.

[BAD ANGEL _replies, and then_ HUMANKIND _speaks._]

_Humankind._ Whom to folwe wetyn[39] I ne may,

I stonde in stodye and gynne to rave:

I wolde be ryche in gret aray,

And fayn I wolde my sowle save.

As wynde in watyr I wave.

Thou woldyst to the werld I me toke,

And he wolde that I it forsoke,

Now so God me helpe, and the holy boke,

I not[40] wyche I may have.

(2) From _Everyman_.

[EVERYMAN _has just met_ FELLOWSHIP.]

_Felawshyp._ My true frende, shewe to me your mynde,

I wyll not forsake the to thy lyves ende,

In the way of good company.

_Everyman._ That was well spoken and lovyngly.

_Felawshyp._ Syr, I must nedes knowe your hevynesse.

I have pyte to se you in ony dystresse.

If ony have you wronged ye shall revenged be,

Though I on the grounde be slayne for the,

Though that I knowe before that I sholde dye.

_Everyman._ Veryly, Felawshyp, gramercy.

_Felawshyp._ Tusshe, by thy thankes I set not a strawe,

Shewe me your grefe and saye no more.

_Everyman._ If I my herte sholde to you breke,

And than you to tourne your mynde fro me,

And wolde not me comforte whan ye here me speke,

Then sholde I ten tymes soryer be.

_Felawshyp._ Syr, I saye as I wyll do in dede.

_Everyman._ Than be you a good frende at nede,

I have founde you true herebefore.

_Felawshyp._ And so ye shall evermore,

For, in fayth, and thou go to hell

I wyll not forsake the by the waye.

[EVERYMAN _now explains his need for a companion along the road to

the next world._]

_Felawshyp._ That is mater in dede! Promyse is duty,

But and I sholde take suche vyage on me,

I knowe it well, it sholde be to my payne;

Also it make me aferde, certayne.

But let us take counsell here as well as we can,

For your wordes wolde fere a stronge man.

_Everyman._ Why, ye sayd, yf I had nede,

Ye wolde me never forsake, quycke ne deed,

Though it were to hell, truely.

_Felawshyp._ So I sayd certaynely,

But suche pleasures be set a syde, the sothe to saye;

And also, yf we toke suche a journaye,

Whan sholde we come agayne?

_Everyman._ Naye, never agayne, tyll the daye of dome.

_Felawshyp._ In fayth, than wyll not I come there.

Who hath you these tydynges brought?

_Everyman._ In dede, deth was with me here.

_Felawshyp._ Now, by God that all hathe bought,

If deth were the messenger,

For no man that is lyvynge to daye

I wyll not go that lothe journaye,

Not for the fader that bygate me.

_Everyman._ Ye promysed other wyse, parde.

_Felawshyp._ I wote well I say so, truely,

And yet yf thou wylte ete and drynke and make good chere,

Or haunt to women, the lusty company,

I wolde not forsake you whyle the day is clere,

Trust me veryly.

_Everyman._ Ye, therto ye wolde be redy:

To go to myrthe, solas[41] and playe

Your mynde wyll soner apply

Than to bere me company in my longe journaye.

The difference between the plays is clearer now. Somewhere we have met

such a fellow as Fellowship; at some time we have taken part in such a

conversation, and heard the gushing acquaintance of prosperous days

excuse himself in the hour of trouble. But never in daily life was met

so dull a creature as one of those angels, nor ever was heard

conversation like theirs.

Let us return to trace the change to the Interlude. Quite a short step

will carry us to it.

We have said that Moralities gave to the drama originality in plot and

in characters. This statement invites qualification, for its truth is

confined to rather narrow limits, in fact, to the early days of this new

kind of play. Let a few Moralities be produced and the rest will be

found to be treading very closely in their footsteps. For there are not

possible many divergent variations of a story that must have for its

central figure Man in his three ages and must express itself

allegorically. Nor is the list of Virtues and Vices so large that it can

provide an inexhaustible supply of fresh characters. However ingenious

authors may be, the day is quickly reached when parallelism drives their

audience to a wearisome consciousness that the speeches have all been

heard before, that the next step in the plot can be foretold to a

nicety. Something of this was perceived by the author of _Everyman_.

With bold strokes of the pen he drew a line through two-thirds of the

orthodox plot, crossed off from the list of characters the hackneyed

Good and Bad Angels, and, against the old names that must still remain,

seems to have jotted for himself this reminder, 'Try human types.' So,

at least, we may imagine him doing. The figures that occupy the stage of

the old Morality are for the most part, like the two Angels, mere

mouthpieces for pious or wicked counsels. Fellowship and his companions,

on the other hand, are selected examples from well-known and

clearly-defined classes of mankind. They are not more than that. All we

know of Fellowship is his ready faculty for excusing himself when help

is needed. He has no traits to distinguish him from others of his kind.

If we describe to one another the men or women whom he recalls to our

memory we find that the descriptions differ widely in all but the one

common characteristic. In other words, he is a type. The step which

brings us to the Interludes is the conversion of the type into an

individual with special marks about him peculiar to himself. It is an

ingenious suggestion, that the idea first found expression in an attempt

to excite interest by adding to a character one or two of the

peculiarities of a local celebrity (miser, prodigal, or beggar) known

for the quality typified. If this was so, it was an interesting

reversion to the methods of Aristophanes. But it is only a guess. What

is certain is that in the Interludes we find the 'type' gradually

assuming a greater complexity, a larger measure of those minor features

which make the ordinary man interesting. Significantly enough, the last

thing to be acquired was a name such as ordinary men bear. A few

characters attained to that certificate of individuality, but even

Heywood, the master of the Interlude, preferred class names, such as

Palmer, Pardoner, or Pedlar. This should warn us not to expect too much

from the change. To the very end some features of the earliest

Moralities are discernible: we shall meet Good Angel and Bad Angel in

one of Marlowe's plays. After all, the interval of time is not so very

great. _The Castell of Perseverance_ was written probably about the

middle of the fifteenth century; _Everyman_ may be assigned to the close

of that century or the beginning of the next; one of the earliest

surviving Interludes, _Hick Scorner_, has been dated 'about 1520-25';

and Marlowe's _Doctor Faustus_ belongs probably to the year 1588.

Let us turn to _Hick Scorner_ and see the new principle of

characterization at work. How much of the old is blended with it may be

seen in the opening speech, which is delivered by as colourless an

abstraction as ever advocated a virtuous life in the Moralities. A good

old man, Pity, sits alone, describing himself to his hearers. To him

comes Contemplation, and shortly afterwards Perseverance, both younger

men but just as undeniably 'Virtues'. Each explains his nature to the

audience before discovering the presence of Pity, but they quickly fall

into a highly edifying conversation. Fortunately for us Contemplation

and Perseverance have other engagements, which draw them away. Pity

relapses into a corner and silence. Thereupon two men of a very

different type take the boards. The first comer is Freewill, a careless,

graceless youth by his own account; Imagination, who follows, is worse,

being one of those hardened, ready-witted, quick-tempered rogues whom

providence saves from drowning for another fate. He is sore, this second

fellow, with sitting in the stocks; yet quite unrepentant, boasting,

rather, of his skill in avoiding heavier penalties. That others come to

the gallows is owing to their bad management. As he says,

For, and they could have carried by craft as I can,

In process of years each of them should be a gentleman.

Yet as for me I was never thief;

[i.e. _was never proved one._]

If my hands were smitten off, I can steal with my teeth;

For ye know well, there is craft in daubing[42]:

I can look in a man's face and pick his purse,

And tell new tidings that was never true, i-wis,

For my hood is all lined with lesing[43].

Nevertheless once he was very nearly caught. And he narrates the

incident with so much circumstantial detail that it would be a pity not

to have his own words.

_Imagination._ Yes, once I stall a horse in the field,

And leapt on him for to have ridden my way.

At the last a baily me met and beheld,

And bad me stand: then was I in a fray[44].

He asked whither with that horse I would gone;

And then I told him it was mine own.

He said I had stolen him; and I said nay.

This is, said he, my brother's hackney.

For, and I had not excused me, without fail,

By our lady, he would have lad me straight to jail.

And then I told him the horse was like mine,

A brown bay, a long mane, and did halt behine;

Thus I told him, that such another horse I did lack;

And yet I never saw him, nor came on his back.

So I delivered him the horse again.

And when he was gone, then was I fain[45]:

For and I had not excused me the better,

I know well I should have danced in a fetter.

_Freewill._ And said he no more to thee but so?

_Imagination._ Yea, he pretended me much harm to do;

But I told him that morning was a great mist,

That what horse it was I ne wist:

Also I said, that in my head I had the megrin,

That made me dazzle so in mine eyen,

That I might not well see.

And thus he departed shortly from me.

By this time a third party has approached; for an impatient inquiry for

Hick Scorner immediately brings that redoubtable gentleman upon the

stage, possibly slightly the worse for liquor, seeing that his first

words are those of one on a ship at sea. They may, however, indicate

merely a seafaring man, for he has been a great traveller in his time,

'in France, Ireland, and in Spain, Portingal, Sevile, also in Almaine,'

and many places more, even as far as 'the land of Rumbelow, three mile

out of hell'. He is acquainted with the names of many vessels, of which

'the _Anne_ of Fowey, the _Star_ of Saltash, with the _Jesus_ of

Plymouth' are but a few. With something of a chuckle he adds that a

fleet of these ships bound for Ireland with a crowded company of all the

godly persons of England--'piteous people, that be of sin destroyers',

'mourners for sin, with lamentation', and 'good rich men that helpeth

folk out of prison'--has been wrecked on a quicksand and the whole

company drowned. Next he has an ill-sounding report of his own last

voyage to give. When that is finished Imagination proposes an

adjournment for pleasures more active than conversation, where purses

may be had for the asking.

Every man bear his dagger naked in his hand,

And if we meet a true man, make him stand,

Or else that he bear a stripe;

If that he struggle, and make any work,

Lightly strike him to the heart,

And throw him into Thames quite.

This suggestion meets with the approval of Freewill, who, however, takes

the opportunity to ask after Imagination's father in such unmannerly

terms as at once to rouse his friend's quick temper. In a moment a

quarrel is assured, nor does Hick Scorner's attempted mediation produce

any other reward than a shrewd blow on the head. At this precise

instant, however, old Pity, who has remained unnoticed, and who is

unwarned by the fate of Hick Scorner, pushes forward with an idea of

intervention. As might have been foreseen, the three rascals promptly

unite in rounding upon him. They insult him, they threaten him, they

raise malicious lying charges against him, and finally they clap him in

irons and leave him--Imagination being the ringleader throughout. Left

alone once more Pity sings a lament over the wickedness of the times,

whereof the doleful refrain is 'Worse was it never'. A ray of light in

his affliction comes with the return of Contemplation and Perseverance,

who, releasing him, send him off to fetch his persecutors back. Fortune

is on their side, for scarcely has Pity gone when Freewill enters by

himself with a wonderful account of his latest roguery--the robbing of a

till--for the ears of his audience. Contemplation and Perseverance,

stout enough of limb when they have a mind to use force, listen quietly

to the end and then calmly inform him that he is their prisoner, a fact

which no amount of blustering defiance can alter. Nevertheless, though

he has thus openly confessed his own guilt, they have no wish to proceed

to extremes. If only he will give up his wicked life they will be

content, made happy by the knowledge of his salvation. It is a strange

sort of conversion, Freewill's tongue running constantly, with an

obvious relish, on the various punishments he has endured; but at length

he capitulates, accepting Perseverance as his future guide, and donning

the uniform of virtuous service.

Huff, huff, huff! who sent after me?

I am Imagination, full of jollity.

Lord, that my heart is light!

When shall I perish? I trow, never.

In such a manner does the bolder sinner leap to the front. He scans the

little group in search of his friend and stares wonderingly on

perceiving him in his new dress. Now begins a second tussle for the

winning of a soul. The fashion of it can be inferred from the following

fragment.

_Perseverance._ Imagination, think what God did for thee;

On Good Friday He hanged on a tree,

And spent all His precious blood;

A spear did rive His heart asunder,

The gates He brake up with a clap of thunder,

And Adam and Eve there delivered He.

_Imagination._ What devil! what is that to me?

By God's fast, I was ten year in Newgate,

And many more fellows with me sat,

Yet he never came there to help me ne my company.

_Contemplation._ Yes, he holp thee, or thou haddest not been here now.

_Imagination._ By the mass, I cannot show you,

For he and I never drank together,

Yet I know many an ale stake[46].

In the end, mainly through the personal appeal of his friend,

Imagination too yields and accepts the guidance of Perseverance,

Freewill transferring his allegiance to Contemplation. As Hick Scorner

never returns, the double conversion brings the play to a close.

Rising from the perusal of _Hick Scorner_ we confess that we have made a

new acquaintance: we have met Imagination and have not left him until we

have learnt a good deal about him; how he fled from a catchpole but lost

his purse in the flight, how he and Hick Scorner were shackled together

in Newgate without money to pay for an upper room, how brazen-faced his

lies were, how near he was to hanging, how ingenious were his excuses,

and many other facts besides. We have seen him, too, as the ringleader

in mischief and the arrantest rogue in the play. Freewill and Hick

Scorner make less impression on us; they are more cloudy in outline,

more like types. As for Pity, Contemplation and Perseverance, they are

merely talking-machines. We must keep an eye on Imagination, as

possessing a dramatic value likely to be needed again.

We shall have been disappointed in the plot. That part of the drama

seems to be getting worse. Humankind was at least gaining fresh

experience in _The Castell of Perseverance_; he was even besieged in a

fortress and had the narrowest escape in the world from being carried

off to Hell. Everyman's startling doom, his eager quest for a companion

on his journey, and his zealous self-discipline keep us to the end in a

state of concern for his ultimate fate. But what interest have we in

Contemplation, Freewill and the rest, apart from what they say? No

suggestion is thrown out at the beginning that two of the rogues are to

be reclaimed: their fate concerns us not at all. The quarrel, and the

ill-treatment of poor old Pity, are the merest by-play, with no

importance whatsoever as a step in the evolution of a plot. Indeed it is

open to question whether there is a plot. There are speeches, there is

conversation, there is some scuffling, and there is a happy ending, but

there is no guiding thread running through the story, no discernible

objective steadily aimed at from the start. It looks as though the new

interest in drawing (or seeing) a real human individual has monopolized

the whole attention; that for the time being characterization has driven

plot-building completely into the shade.

A curious, yet not unnatural, thing has happened. In _The Castell of

Perseverance_ Humankind was more acted upon than acting. The real force

of the action lay in the antagonism between the Virtues and Vices, the

Good Angel and the Bad Angel, an antagonism so inveterate that even if

the temporary object of their struggle were removed, the strife would

still break out again from the sheer viciousness of the Vices. This

instinctive hostility between Virtues and Vices supplies the groundwork

of the Interludes. They dismiss Humankind from the stage. He was always

a weak, oscillating sort of creature. Sound, forceful Abstractions and

Types were wanted, which could be worked up into thoroughgoing rascals

or heroes, rascality having all the preference. Any underlying thread,

therefore, that there may be in _Hick Scorner_ is this rivalry and

embitterment between the wicked sort and the virtuous. We shall observe

that already one of the rogues is taking precedence of the others in

dramatic importance, in fullness of portraiture, and, of course, in

villany.

_Like Will to Like_--of an uncertain date prior to 1568 (when it was

printed) but almost certainly a later production than many Interludes

which we omit here, notably Heywood's--illustrates the development of

some of these changes. In brief outline its story is as follows.

Nichol Newfangle receives a commission from Lucifer to go through the

world bringing similar persons together, like to like. Accordingly he

acts as arbiter between Ralph Roister and Tom Tosspot in a dispute as to

which of the two is the greater knave, and, deciding that both are

equal, promises them equal shares in certain property he has at

disposal. Next, meeting Cuthbert Cutpurse and Pierce Pickpurse, he gives

them news of a piece of land which has fallen to them by unexpected

succession. He then adjourns with his friends to an alehouse, leaving

the stage to Virtuous Living, who has already chidden him for his sins

who now, after a long monologue or chant, is rewarded by Good Fame and

Honour, the servants of God's Promise. On the departure of these

Virtues, Newfangle returns, shortly followed by Ralph and Tom, penniless

from a game of dice, and more than ever anxious for the property. This

last proves to be no more than a beggar's bag, bottle and staff,

suitable to their present condition, but so little satisfying, that

Newfangle receives a terrible drubbing for his trick. Judge Severity

arrives on the scene conveniently to lecture him severely and witness

his second knavish device, which is no other than to hand over to the

Judge the two fugitives from justice, Cutpurse and Pickpurse, for the

piece of land of which he spoke is the gallows. Hankin Hangman takes

possession of his victims, and the Devil, entering with a 'Ho, ho, ho!',

carries Newfangle away with him on his back. Virtuous Life, Honour and

Good Fame bring the play to a proper conclusion with prayers for the

Queen, Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, this customary

exhibition of loyalty being rounded off with a hymn.

This play, though so much later in date than _Hick Scorner_, shows no

improvement in plot. Nor, perhaps, ought we to expect that it should. An

Interlude, as its name implies, was originally only a kind of stop-gap,

an entrée of light entertainment between other events; and what so

welcome for this purpose as the inconsequential dialogue, by-play, and

mutual trickery of sundry 'lewd fellows of the baser sort'? When it

extended its sphere from the castle banqueting-hall to the street or

inn-yard no greater excellence was expected from it. Its brevity saved

it from tediousness, and the Virtues, whom the lingering influence of

religion upon the drama saved from the wreck of the Morality Plays, were

given a more and more subordinate place. In this play they serve to

point the moral by showing the reward that comes to righteousness in

sharp contrast to the poverty and vile death that are the meed of

wickedness. But it is noticeable that they are quite apart from the

other group, much more so than was the case in _Hick Scorner_.

Instead of a plot we find an increasing admixture of buffoonery, without

which no Interlude could be regarded as complete. Herein we see the

influence of certain farcical entertainments brought over by the Norman

_jongleurs_ (or travelling minstrel-comedians). Just as the French

_fabliaux_ inspired Chaucer's coarser tales, so the French _farce_

stimulated the natural inclination of the English taste to broad humour

and rough-and-tumble buffoonery on the stage. Held in some restraint by

the dominant religious element, it grew stronger as the latter weakened.

Thus, in _Like Will to Like_ a certain Hance enters half-intoxicated,

roaring out a drinking song until the sudden collapse of his voice

compels him to recite the rest in the thick stutter of a drunken man. He

carries a pot of ale in his hand, from which he drinks to the health of

Tom Tosspot, giving the toast with a 'Ca-ca-carouse to-to-to thee,

go-go-good Tom'--which is but an indifferent hexameter. At the

suggestion of Newfangle 'he danceth as evil-favoured as may be demised,

and in the dancing he falleth down, and when he riseth he must groan',

according to the stage-direction. When he does rise, doubtless with

unlimited comicality of effort, he staggers into a chair and proceeds to

snore loudly. All this is accompanied by a fitting fashion of

conversation. We can only hope that the author's attempts at humour met

with the applause he clearly expected. We believe they did, for he was

only copying a widespread custom.

Of far more importance than Hance, however, are the two characters, the

Devil and Nichol Newfangle. They invite joint treatment by their own

declared relationship and by the close union which stage tradition

quickly gave to them. Most of us will remember Shakespeare's song from

_Twelfth Night_ bearing on these two notorious companions, their quaint

garb, and their laughter-raising antics.

I am gone, sir,

And anon, sir,

I'll be with you again,

In a trice,

Like to the old Vice,

Your need to sustain;

Who, with dagger of lath,

In his rage and his wrath,

Cries, ah, ha! to the devil:

Like a mad lad,

Pare thy nails, dad;

Adieu, goodman devil.

Newfangle is the 'Vice' of the play; 'Nichol Newfangle, the Vice,' says

the list of dramatis personae. We noticed in our consideration of _Hick

Scorner_ that one of the Vices, Imagination, was eminent for his more

detailed character and readier villany. The trick has been adopted; the

favourite has grown fast. He has become _the_ Vice. Compared with him

the rest of the Vices appear foolish fellows whom it is his delight to

plague and lead astray. So supreme is he in wickedness that he has even

been given the Devil himself as his godfather, uncle, playmate. It is

his duty to keep alive the natural wickedness in man, to set snares and

evil mischances before the feet of simpler folk, to teach youth to be

idle and young men to be quarrelsome, to lure rogues to their ruin; but,

above all, to import wit into prosy dialogues, merriment into dull

situations. Such is 'the Vice'. Hear him speak for himself:

What is he calls upon me, and would seem to lack a Vice?

Ere his words be half spoken, I am with him in a trice

Here, there, and everywhere, as the cat is with the mice:

True _Vetus Iniquitas_. Lack'st thou cards, friend, or dice?

I will teach thee to cheat, child, to cog, lie, and swagger,

And ever and anon to be drawing forth thy dagger.

(Ben Jonson's _The Devil is an Ass_.)

Then what a universal favourite, too, is the Devil, our old friend from

the Miracles! 'My husband, Timothy Tattle, God rest his poor soul!' says

good Gossip Tattle, 'was wont to say, there was no play without a fool

and a devil in 't; he was for the devil still, God bless him! The devil

for his money, would he say, I would fain see the devil.' And Gossip

Mirth adds a description of the Devil as she knew him: 'As fine a

gentleman of his inches as ever I saw trusted to the stage, or any where

else; and loved the commonwealth as well as ever a patriot of them all;

he would carry away the Vice on his back, quick to hell, in every play

where he came, and reform abuses' (Ben Jonson's _The Staple of News_).

But our present purpose is with Nichol Newfangle and his arch-prompter.

Nevertheless these few general remarks will save us from the necessity

of returning to the subject later. The truth of the matter is that here,

in _Like Will to Like_, we have as full a delineation of these two

popular characters as may be found in any of the Interludes. Our

attention will not be misplaced if we pry a little closer into the

method of presentation.

The Vice must be merry; that above all. Accordingly the stage-direction

at the opening of the play reads thus, 'Here entereth Nichol Newfangle

the Vice, laughing, and hath a knave of clubs in his hand which, as soon

as he speaketh, he offereth unto one of the men or boys standing by.' He

is apparently on familiar terms already with the 'gallery' (or, in the

term of that day, 'groundlings'); as intimate as the modern clown with

his stage-asides for the exclusive benefit of 'the gods'. When we read

the first two lines we perceive the wit of the card trick:

Ha, ha, ha, ha! now like unto like; it will be none other:

Stoop, gentle knave, and take up your brother.

We can almost hear the shout of laughter at the expense of the fellow

who unwittingly took the card. The audience is with Newfangle at once.

He has scored his first point and given a capital send-off to the play

by this comically-conceived illustration of the meaning of its strange

title. Forthwith he rattles along with a string of patter about himself,

who he is, what sciences he learnt in hell before he was born, and so

on, until arrested by the abrupt entrance of another person. This

newcomer somersaults on to the stage and cuts divers uncouth capers

exactly as our 'second clown' does at the pantomime. Newfangle stares,

grimaces, and, turning again to the audience, continues:

_Sancte benedicite_, whom have we here

Tom Tumbler, or else some dancing bear?

Body of me, it were best go no near:

For ought that I see, it is my godfather Lucifer,

Whose prentice I have been this many a day:

But no more words but mum: you shall hear what he will say.

By the time he has finished speaking the other has unrolled himself and

presents a queer figure, clothed in a bearskin and bearing in large

print on his chest and back the name Lucifer. He too commences with a

laugh or a shout, 'Ho!'. That is the hall-mark of the Devil and the

Vice, the herald's blare of trumpets, so to speak, before the speech of

His High Mightiness. We have not forgotten that other cry:

Huff, huff, huff! who sent after me?

I am Imagination, full of jollity.

It is the same trick; the older rascal is, bone, flesh, and blood, the

very kin of Newfangle; both have the same godfather. So the dialogue

opens between Old Nick and Nichol in the approved fashion:

_Lucifer._ Ho! mine own boy, I am glad that thou art here!

_Newfangle_ (_pointing to one standing by_). He speaketh to you,

sir, I pray you come near.

_Lucifer._ Nay, thou art even he, of whom I am well apaid.

_Newfangle._ Then speak aloof, for to come nigh I am afraid.

We need not trouble ourselves here with their further conversation, nor

yet with Tom Collier of Croydon, who joins them in a jig and a song. He

soon goes off again, followed by Lucifer, so we can turn over the pages,

guided by our outline, until we are near the end.

[_The_ DEVIL _entereth._]

_Lucifer._ Ho, ho, ho! mine own boy, make no more delay,

But leap up on my back straightway.

_Newfangle._ Then who shall hold my stirrup, while I go to horse?

_Lucifer._ Tush, for that do thou not force!

Leap up, I say, leap up quickly.

_Newfangle._ Woh, Ball, woh! and I will come by and by.

Now for a pair of spurs I would give a good groat,

To try whether this jade do amble or trot.

Farewell, my masters, till I come again,

For now I must make a journey into Spain.

[_He rideth away on the_ DEVIL'S _back._]

The reader must use his imagination, stimulated by recollections of the

Christmas pantomime, if this episode is to have its full meaning. Brief

in words, it may quite easily have occupied five minutes and more in

acting.

As related more or less distantly to the noisy element, the many songs

in this Interlude call for notice. The practice of introducing lyrics

was in vogue long before the playwrights of Shakespeare's time displayed

their use so perfectly. From this point onwards the drama rings with the

rough drinking songs, pious hymns, and sweet lyrics of the buffoon, the

preacher, and the lover. Thus, turning haphazard to _The Trial of

Treasure_, the Interlude immediately preceding _Like Will to Like_ in

the volume of Dodsley's _Old English Plays_, we find no less than eight

songs. _Like Will to Like_ has also eight. _New Custom_, the other

Interlude in the same volume, has only two; but it may be added that, as

the author of _New Custom_ was writing with a very special and sober

purpose in view, he may have felt that much singing would be

inappropriate. That these lyrics went with a good swing may be judged

from two of those in _Like Will to Like_.

(1) Tom Collier of Croydon hath sold his coals,

And made his market to-day;

And now he danceth with the Devil,

For like will to like alway.

Wherefore let us rejoice and sing,

Let us be merry and glad;

Sith that the Collier and the Devil

This match and dance hath made.

Now of this dance we make an end

With mirth and eke with joy:

The Collier and the Devil will be

Much like to like alway.

(2) Troll the bowl and drink to me, and troll the bowl again,

And put a brown toast in [the] pot for Philip Fleming's brain.

And I shall toss it to and fro, even round about the house-a:

Good hostess, now let it be so, I brink them all carouse-a.

More than once reference has been made to the lingering religious

element in the Interludes. Probably 'moral element' would describe it

better, though in those days religion and morality were perhaps less

separable than they are to-day. In the midst of so much comical

wickedness and naughty wit, with a decreasing use of the old Morality

Virtues, it might be thought that this element would be crowded out. But

it was not so. The downfall of the unrighteous was never allowed to pass

without the voice of the preacher, frequently the reprobate himself,

pointing the warning to those present. Cuthbert Cutpurse makes a 'godly

end' in this fashion:

O, all youth take example by me:

Flee from evil company, as from a serpent you would flee;

For I to you all a mirror may be.

I have been daintily and delicately bred,

But nothing at all in virtuous lore:

And now I am but a man dead;

Hanged I must be, which grieveth me full sore.

Note well the end of me therefore;

And you that fathers and mothers be,

Bring not up your children in too much liberty.

The episode of the crowning of Virtuous Life owes its existence to this

same element of moral teaching. Take up what Interlude we will, the

preacher is always to be found uttering his short sermon on the folly of

sin. Our merry friend, the Vice, usually gets caught in his own toils at

last; even if he is spared this defeat, he must ultimately be borne off

by the Devil.

But there are lessons to be learnt other than the elementary one that

virtue is a wiser guide than vice: many an Interlude was written to

castigate a particular form of laxity or drive home a needed reform, in

those years when the Stage was the Cinderella of the Church; one at

least, _The Four Elements_, was written to disseminate schoolroom

learning in an attractive manner. _Nice Wanton_ (about 1560) traces the

downward career of two spoilt children, paints the remorse of their

mother, and sums up its message at the end thus:

Therefore exhort I all parents to be diligent

In bringing up their children; aye, to be circumspect.

Lest they fall to evil, be not negligent

But chastise them before they be sore infect.

_The Disobedient Child_ (printed 1560), of which the title is a

sufficient clue to its purpose, permits a boy to refuse to go to

school, and, as a young man, to flout his father's advice in regard to

matrimony, only to bring him to the bottom rung of miserable drudgery

and servitude under a scolding wife. Of some interest is the lad's

report of a schoolboy's life, voicing, as it possibly does, a needed

criticism of the excessive severity of sixteenth-century pedagogues.

Speaking of the boys he says:

For as the bruit goeth by many a one,

Their tender bodies both night and day

Are whipped and scourged and beat like a stone,

That from top to toe the skin is away.

A slightly fuller outline of _The Marriage of Wit and Science_ (1570

approx.) will show how pleasantly, yet pointedly, the younger generation

of that day was taught the necessity of sustained industry if

scholarship was to be acquired. It has been suggested, with good reason,

that the play was written by a schoolmaster for his pupils' performance.

The superior plot-structure, and the rare adoption of subdivision into

acts and scenes, indicate an author of some classical knowledge.

Wit, a promising youth, son of Nature, decides to marry Science, the

daughter of Reason and Experience. Nature approves of his intention, but

warns him that 'travail and time' are the only two by whose help he can

win the maid. For his servant and companion, however, she gives him

Will, a lively boy, full of sprightly fire. Science is now approached.

But it appears that only he who shall slay the giant, Tediousness, may

be her husband. To this trial Wit volunteers. He is advised first to

undergo long years of training under Instruction, Study, and Diligence;

but, soon tiring of them, he rashly goes to the fight, trusting that his

own strength, backed by the courage of Will and the half-hearted support

of Diligence, will prove sufficient. Too self-confident, he is

overthrown and his companions are put to flight. Will soon returns with

Recreation, by whose skill Wit is restored to vigour and better

resolution. Nevertheless, directly afterwards, he accepts the gentle

ministrations of the false jade, Idleness, who sings him to sleep and

then transforms him into the appearance of Ignorance. In this plight he

is found by his lady-love and her parents, who do not at first recognize

him. Shame is called in to doctor him. On his recovery he returns very

repentantly to the tuition of his three teachers, until, by their help

and Will's, he is able to slay the giant. As his reward he marries

Science.

As one of several good things in this pleasant Interlude may be quoted

Will's speech on life before and after marriage, from the point of view

of a favoured servant:

I am not disposed as yet to be tame,

And therefore I am loth to be under a dame.

Now you are a bachelor, a man may soon win you,

Methinks there is some good fellowship in you;

We may laugh and be merry at board and at bed,

You are not so testy as those that be wed.

Mild in behaviour and loth to fall out,

You may run, you may ride and rove round about,

With wealth at your will and all thing at ease,

Free, frank and lusty, easy to please.

But when you be clogged and tied by the toe

So fast that you shall not have pow'r to let go,

You will tell me another lesson soon after,

And cry _peccavi_ too, except your luck be the better.

Then farewell good fellowship! then come at a call!

Then wait at an inch, you idle knaves all!

Then sparing and pinching, and nothing of gift,

No talk with our master, but all for his thrift.

Solemn and sour, and angry as a wasp,

All things must be kept under lock and hasp;

All that which will make me to fare full ill.

All your care shall be to hamper poor Will.

The liberty and, we may infer, good hearing extended to these

unblushingly didactic Interludes attracted into authorship writers with

purposes more aggressive and debatable than those pertaining to wise

conduct. Zealous reformers, earnest proselytizers, fierce dogmatists

turned to the drama as a medium through which they might effectively

reach the ears and hearts of the people. Kirchmayer's _Pammachius_,

translated into English by Bale (author of _King John_), contained an

attack on the Pope as Antichrist. In 1527 the boys of St. Paul's acted a

play (now unknown) in which Luther figured ignominiously. Here then were

Roman Catholics and Protestants extending their furious battleground to

the stage. This style of thing came to such a pitch that it was actually

judged necessary to forbid it by law. Similar plays, however, still

continued to be produced; and even King Edward VI is credited with the

authorship of a strongly Protestant comedy entitled _De Meretrice

Babylonica_.

A very fair example of these political and controversial Interludes is

_New Custom_, printed in 1573, and possibly written only a year or two

before that date. Here, for instance, are a few of the players' names

and descriptions as given at the beginning: Perverse Doctrine, an old

Popish Priest; Ignorance, another, but elder; New Custom, a Minister;

Light of the Gospel, a Minister; Hypocrisy, an old Woman. Then, as to

the matter, here is an extract from Perverse Doctrine's opening speech,

the writer's intention being to expose the speaker to the derision of

his enlightened hearers.

What! young men to be meddlers in divinity? it is a goodly sight!

Yet therein now almost is every boy's delight;

No book now in their hands, but all scripture, scripture,

Either the whole Bible or the New Testament, you may be sure.

The New Testament for them! and then too for Coll, my dog.

This is the old proverb--to cast pearls to an hog.

Give them that which is meet for them, a racket and a ball,

Or some other trifle to busy their heads withal,

Playing at quoits or nine-holes, or shooting at butts:

There let them be, a God's name.

Or here again is a bold declaration from New Custom, the Reformation

minister:

I said that the mass, and such trumpery as that,

Popery, purgatory, pardons, were flat

Against God's word and primitive constitution,

Crept in through covetousness and superstition

Of late years, through blindness, and men of no knowledge,

Even such as have been in every age.

It is with some surprise certainly that we find King John of England

glorified, for purposes of Protestant propaganda, as a sincere and godly

'protestant'. So it is, however. In his play, _King John_ (about 1548),

Bishop Bale depicts that monarch as an inspired hater of papistical

tyranny and an ardent lover of his country, in whose cause he suffered

death by poisoning at the hands of a monk. Stephen Langton, the Pope and

Cardinal Pandulph figure as Sedition, Usurped Power and Private Wealth.

A summary of the play, provided by an Interpreter, supplies us with the

following explanation of John's quarrel with Rome.