lost its patriarchal simplicity since the far distant period when the
populace thronged its turf steps to welcome the strolling players of
their age. The antiquity of Piran Round dates back beyond the period of
the earliest and rudest dramatic performances on English ground. It was
first used for popular sports, for single combats, for rustic councils.
Then, plays were acted in it--miracle plays--some translated into the
ancient Cornish language, some originally written in it. The oldest of
these are lost; but one of a comparatively late date has been preserved
and translated into English. We will examine this book while we sit
within the deserted amphitheatre; and thus, in imagination at least,
people the simple stage before us with the rough country actors who once
trod it--thus pry behind the scenes at all that is left to us of the
ancient drama in Cornwall.
The play which we now open is called by the comprehensive title of "The
Creation of the World, with Noah's Flood." It was translated in 1611,
from a drama of much earlier date, for performance in Cornish, by
William Jordan; was then rendered into English by John Keygwyn, in 1691;
and was finally corrected and published by Mr. Davies Gilbert, in 1827.
The Cornish and English versions are printed on opposite pages, so we
can compare the two throughout, as we go on.
The play is in five acts, and is written in poetry--in a rambling
octosyllabic metre, often varied by the introduction of longer or
shorter lines, and sometimes interspersed (in the Cornish version) with
a word or two of English. It occupies a hundred and eighty pages,
containing on the average about twenty-five lines each. This would be
thought rather a lengthy manner of developing a dramatic story in our
days; but we must remember that the time embraced in the plot of the old
playwright extends from the Creation to the Flood, and must be
astonished and thankful that he has not been more diffuse.
The _dramatis personæ_ muster by the legion. In the first act, we have
the whole heavenly host: in the second, are superadded Adam, Eve,
"Torpen, a devil," Beelzebub, the Serpent, and Michael the Archangel; in
the third, besides these, Death, Cain and his wife, Abel and Seth; in
the fourth, we have the addition of Lamech, a servant, a Cherubim, and a
first and second devil; and in the fifth, Enoch, Noah and his wife,
Shem, Ham, Japhet, Seth, Jaball, and Tubal Cain.
The author manages this tremendous list of mortal and immortal
characters with infinite coolness and dexterity. Nothing appears to
embarrass him. He follows history in a negligent, sauntering way,
passing over a hundred years or so, whenever it is convenient; and
giving all his personages their turn of talking in orderly and impartial
rotation. His speeches are wonderfully moral and long; even his worst
characters have, for the most part, a temperate and logical way of
uttering the most violent language, which must have read an excellent
lesson to the roistering young gentlemen among the audiences of the
time.
We will now examine the play a little in detail, quoting the stage
directions (the most extraordinary part of it) exactly as they occur;
and occasionally presenting a line or two of the dialogue from the old
English translation wherever it best illustrates the author's style.
The first act comprehends the fall of the angels--the introductory stage
direction commanding that the theatrical clouds, and the whole sky to
boot, shall open when Heaven is named! All is harmony at the outset of
the play, until it is Lucifer's turn to speak. He declares that he alone
is great, and that all allegiance must be given to him. Some of the
angels glorify him accordingly; others remain true to their celestial
service; the debate grows warm, and some of the disputants give each
other the lie (but very calmly). At length, the scene is closed by
Lucifer's condemnation to Hell, which, as the directions provide, "shall
gape when it is named." The faithful angels are then told to "have
swords and staves ready for Lucifer," who, we are informed, "voideth and
goeth down to Hell apparelled foul, with fire about him, turning to
Hell, with every degree of devils and lost spirits on cords running into
the plain." With this stirring scene the act ends.
The second act comprises the creation and fall of man. Here, again, we
will consult the stage directions, as giving the best idea of the
incidents and scenes. We find that Adam and Eve are to be "apparelled in
white leather in a place appointed by the conveyor" (probably the
person we term stage-manager now); "and are not to be seen until they be
called; and then each rises." After this, we read:--"Let Paradise be
finely made, with fair trees in it, and apples upon a tree, and other
fruit on the others. A fountain, too, in Paradise, and fine flowers
painted. Put Adam into Paradise--let flowers appear in Paradise--let
Adam lie down and sleep where Eve is, and she, by the conveyor, must be
taken from Adam's side--let fishes of all sorts, birds and beasts, as
oxen, kyne, sheep, and such like, appear."
Then, we have the preparations for the temptation, ordered thus:--"A
fine serpent to be made with a virgin's face, and yellow hair on her
head. Let the serpent appear, and also geese and hens." Lucifer enters
immediately afterwards, and goes into the serpent, which is then
directed to be "seen singing in a tree" (the actor who personated
Lucifer must have had some gymnastic difficulties to contend with in his
part!)--"Eve looketh strange on the serpent;" then, "talketh familiarly
and cometh near him;" then, "doubteth and looketh angrily;" and then
eats part of the apple, shows it to Adam, and insists on his eating
part of it too, in the following lines:--
"Sir, in a few words,
Taste them part of the apple,
Or my love thou shalt lose!
See, take this fair apple,
Or surely between thee and thy wife
The love shall utterly fail,
If thou wilt not eat of it!"[4]
The stage direction now proceeds:--"Adam receiveth the apple and tasteth
it, and so repenteth and casteth it away. Eve looketh on Adam very
strangely and speaketh not anything." During this pause, the "conveyor"
is told "to get the fig-leaves ready." Then Lucifer is ordered to "come
out of the serpent and creep on his belly to hell;" Adam and Eve receive
the curse, and depart out of Paradise, "showing a spindle and
distaff"--no badly-conceived emblem of the labour to which they are
henceforth doomed. And thus the second act terminates.
The third act treats of Cain and Abel; and is properly opened by an
impersonation of Death. After which Cain and Abel appear to sacrifice.
Cain makes his offering of the first substance that comes to hand--"dry
cow-dung"(!); and tells Abel that he is a "dolthead" and "a frothy fool"
for using anything better. "Abel is stricken with a jawbone and dieth;
Cain casteth him into a ditch." The effect of the first murder on the
minds of our first parents, is delineated in some speeches exhibiting a
certain antique simplicity of thought, which almost rises to the
poetical by its homely adherence to nature, and its perfect innocence of
effort, artifice, or display. The banishment of Cain, still glorying in
his crime, follows the lamentations of Adam and Eve for the death of
Abel; and the act is closed by Adam's announcement of the birth of Seth.
The fourth act relates the deaths of Cain and Adam, and contains some of
the most eccentric, and also, some of the most elevated writing in the
play. Lamech opens the scene, candidly and methodically exposing his own
character in these lines:--
"Sure I am the first
That ever yet had two wives!
And maidens in sufficient plenty
They are to me. I am not dainty,
I can find them where I will;
Nor do I spare of them
In anywise one that is handsome.
But I am wondrous troubled,
Scarce do I see one glimpse
What the devil shall be done!"
In this vagabond frame of mind Lamech goes out hunting, with bow and
arrow, and shoots Cain, accidentally, in a bush. When Cain falls, Lamech
appeals to his servant, to know what is it that he has shot. The servant
declares that it is "hairy, rough, ugly, and a buck-goat of the night."
Cain, however, discovers himself before he dies. There is something
rudely dreary and graphic about his description of his loneliness, bare
as it is of any recommendation of metaphors or epithets:
"Deformed I am very much,
And overgrown with hair;
I do live continually in heat or cold frost,
Surely night and day;
Nor do I desire to see the son of man,
With my will at any time;
But accompany most time with all the beasts."
Lamech, discovering the fatal error that he has committed, kills his
servant in his anger; and the scene ends with "the devils carrying them
away with great noise to hell."
The second scene is between Adam and his son Seth; and here, the old
dramatist often rises to an elevation of poetical feeling, which,
judging from the preceding portions of the play, we should not have
imagined he could reach. Barbarous as his execution may be, the simple
beauty of his conception often shines through it faintly, but yet
palpably, in this part of the drama.
Adam is weary of life and weary of the world; he sends Seth to the gates
of Paradise to ask mercy and release for him, telling his son that he
will find the way thither by his father's foot-prints, burnt into the
surface of the earth which was cursed for Adam's transgression. Seth
finds and follows the supernatural marks, is welcomed by the angel at
the gate of Paradise, and is permitted to look in. He beholds there, an
Apocalypse of the redemption of the world. On the tree of life sit the
Virgin and Child; while on the tree from which Eve plucked the apple,
"the woman" is seen, having power over the serpent. The vision changes,
and Cain is shown in hell, "sorrowing and weeping." Then the angel
plucks three kernels from the tree of life, and gives them to Seth for
his father's use, saying that they shall grow to another tree of life,
when more than five thousand years are ended; and that Adam shall be
redeemed from his pains when that period is fulfilled. After this, Seth
is dismissed by the angel and returns to communicate to his father the
message of consolation which he has received.
Adam hears the result of his son's mission with thankfulness; blesses
Seth; and speaks these last words, while he is confronted by Death:--
"Old and weak, I am gone!
To live longer is not for me:
Death is come,
Nor will here leave me
To live one breath!
I see him now with his spear,
Ready to pierce me on every side,
There is no escaping from him!
The time is welcome with, me--
I have served long in the world!"
So, the patriarch dies, trusting in the promise conveyed through his
son; and is buried by Seth "in a fair tomb, with some Church sonnet."
After this impressive close to the fourth act--impressive in its
intention, however clumsy the appliances by which that intention is
worked out--it would be doing the old author no kindness to examine his
fifth act in detail. Here, he sinks again in many places, to puerility
of conception and coarseness of dialogue. It is enough to say that the
history of the Flood closes the drama, and that the spectators are
dismissed with an epilogue, directing them to "come to-morrow, betimes,
and see very great matters"--the minstrels being charged, at the
conclusion to "pipe," so that all may dance together, as the proper
manner of ending the day's amusements.
And now, let us close the book, look forth over this lonesome country
and lonesome amphitheatre, and imagine what a scene both must have
presented, when a play was to be acted on a fine summer's morning in the
year 1611.
Fancy, at the outset, the arrival of the audience--people dressed in the
picturesque holiday costume of the time, which varied with every varying
rank, hurrying to their daylight play from miles off; all visible in
every direction on the surface of the open moor, and all converging from
every point of the compass to the one common centre of Piran Round.
Then, imagine the assembling in the amphitheatre; the running round the
outer circle of the embankment to get at the entrances; the tumbling and
rushing up the steps inside; the racing of hot-headed youngsters to get
to the top places; the sly deliberation of the elders in selecting the
lower and safer positions; the quarrelling when a tall man chanced to
stand before a short one; the giggling and blushing of buxom peasant
wenches when the gallant young bachelors of the district happened to be
placed behind them; the universal speculations on the weather; the
universal shouting for pots of ale--and finally, as the time of the
performance drew near and the minstrels appeared with their pipes, the
gradual hush and stillness among the multitude; the combined stare of
the whole circular mass of spectators on one point in the plain of the
amphitheatre, where all knew that the actors lay hidden in a pit,
properly covered in from observation--the mysterious "green-room" of
the strolling players of old Cornwall!
And the play!--to see the play must have been a sight indeed! Conceive
the commencement of it; the theatrical sky which was to open awfully
whenever Heaven was named; the mock clouds coolly set up by the
"property-man" on an open-air stage, where the genuine clouds appeared
above them to expose the counterfeit; the hard fighting of the angels
with swords and staves; the descent of the lost spirits along cords
running into the plain; the thump with which they must have come down;
the rolling off of the whole troop over the grass, to the infernal
regions, amid shouts of applause from the audience as they rolled! Then
the appearance of Adam and Eve, packed in white leather, like our modern
dolls--the serpent with the virgin's face and the yellow hair, climbing
into a tree, and singing in the branches--Cain falling out of the bush
when he was struck by the arrow of Lamech, and his blood appearing,
according to the stage directions, when he fell--the making of the Ark,
the filling it with live stock, the scenery of the Deluge, in the fifth
act! What a combination of theatrical prodigies the whole performance
must have presented! How the actors must have ranted to make themselves
heard in the open air; how often the machinery must have gone wrong, and
the rude scenery toppled and tumbled down! Could we revive at will, for
mere amusement, any of the bygone performances of the theatre, since the
first days of barbaric acting in a cart, assuredly the performances at
Piran Round would be those which, without hesitation, we should select
from all others to call back to life.
The end of the play, too--how picturesque, how striking all the
circumstances attending it must have been! Oh that we could hear again
the merry old English tune piped by the minstrels, and see the merry old
English dancing of the audience to the music! Then, think of the
separation and the return home of the populace, at sunset; the fishing
people strolling off towards the seashore; the miners walking away
farther inland; the agricultural labourers spreading in all directions,
wherever cottages and farm-houses were visible in the far distance over
the moor. And then the darkness coming on, and the moon rising over the
amphitheatre, so silent and empty, save at one corner, where the poor
worn-out actors are bivouacking gipsy-like in their tents, cooking
supper over the fire that flames up red in the moonlight, and talking
languidly over the fatigues and the triumphs of the play. What a moral
and what a beauty in the quiet night view of the old amphitheatre, after
the sight that it must have presented during the noise, the bustle, and
the magnificence of the day!
Shall we dream over our old play any longer? Shall we delay a moment
more, ere we proceed on our journey, to compare the modern with the
ancient drama in Cornwall, as we have already compared the theatre of
Redruth with the theatre of Piran Round? If we set them fairly against
one another as we now know them, would it be rash to determine which
burnt purest--the new light that flared brilliantly in our eyes when we
last saw it, or the old light that just flickered in the socket for an
instant, as we tried to trim it afresh? Or, if we rather inquire which
audience had the advantage of witnessing the worthiest performance,
should we hesitate to decide at once? Between the people at Redruth, and
the people at Piran Round, there was certainly a curious resemblance in
one respect--they failed alike to discern the barbarisms and absurdities
of the plays represented before them; but were they also equally
uninstructed by what they beheld? Which was likeliest to send them away
with something worth thinking of, and worth remembering--the drama about
knaves and fools, at the modern theatre, or the drama about Scripture
History at the ancient? Let the reader consider and determine.
For our parts, let us honestly confess that though we took up the old
play (not unnaturally) to laugh over the clumsiness and eccentricity of
the performance, we now lay it down (not inconsistently), recognising
the artless sincerity and elevation of the design--just as in the
earliest productions of the Italian School of Painting we first perceive
the false perspective of a scene or the quaint rigidity of a figure, and
only afterwards discover that these crudities and formalities enshrine
the germs of deep poetic feeling, and the first struggling perceptions
of grace, beauty, and truth.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] In case any of my readers should feel desirous of seeing a specimen
of the Cornish language at the date of the play, I subjoin the original
text of the seven lines of John Keygwyn's translation, quoted above.
"Syr, war nebas lavarow,
Tast gy part an avallow,
Po ow harenga ty a gyll!
Meir, Kymar an avail teake,
Po sure inter te ha'th wreage
An garenga quyt a fyll
Mar ny vynyth y thebbry!"
Some of this looks like a very polyglot language. But the ancient
Cornish tongue had altered and deteriorated; and was indeed changing
into English at the period of our play. Why the author should have
helped himself, in his literary emergency, to the two Latin words in the
fifth line (_inter te_) when English would have served his turn as well,
it is difficult to discover, unless he wished to show his learning
before the rustic audiences of Piran Round.
XII.
THE NUNS OF MAWGAN.
About three miles from the large market-town of St. Columb Major, in the
direction of the coast, is situated the Vale of Mawgan. The village of
the same name occupies the lower part of the valley, and includes a few
cottages, an old church, a yet older manor-house, and a clear running
stream, crossed by a little stone bridge, all nestling close together on
a few hundred yards of ground enclosed by some of the most luxuriant
wood foliage in Cornwall. The trees bound each side of the stream,
tinging it in deep places where it eddies smoothly, with hues of
lustrous green; and dipping their lower branches into it, where it
ripples on white pebbles or glides fast over grey sand. They cluster
thickly about the old church-yard, as if to keep the place secret,
throwing deep shadows over the graves, and hiding all outer objects from
the eye. The small cottage garden and the spacious manor-house enjoy
their verdant shelter alike; the bye-roads leading in and out of the
village, are soon lost to view amid outspread branches; and not even a
peep of the land that leads on to the sea in one direction, and back to
the town in the other, is to be obtained through the natural screen of
leaves above, and mosses, ferns, and high grass below, which closely
shut in this part of the Vale of Mawgan from the open country around.
There is an unbroken, unworldly tranquillity about this secluded place,
which communicates itself mysteriously to the stranger's thoughts;
making him unconsciously slacken in his walk, and look and listen in
silence, when he enters it, as if he had penetrated into a new sphere.
Slight noises, rarely noticed elsewhere, are always audible here. The
dull fall of the latch, when an idle child carelessly opens the
churchyard wicket, sounds from one end of the village to the other. The
curious traveller who wanders round the walls of the old church, peering
through its dusty lattice windows at the dark religious solitude within,
can hear the lightest flap of a duck's wing in the stream below; or the
gentlest rustle of distant leaves, as the faint breeze moves them in the
upland woods above. But these, and all other sounds, never break the
peaceful charm of the place--they only deepen its unearthly stillness.
Within the church-yard, the bright colour of the turf, and the quiet
grey hues of the mouldering tombstones, are picturesquely intermingled
all over the uneven surface of the ground, save in one remote corner,
where the graves are few and the grass grows rank and high. Here, the
eye is abruptly attracted by the stern of a boat, painted white, and
fixed upright in the earth. This strange memorial, little suited though
it be to the old monuments around, has a significance of its own which
gives it a peculiar claim to consideration. Inscribed on it, appear the
names of ten fishermen of the parish who went out to sea to pursue their
calling, on one wintry night in 1846. It was unusually cold on land--on
the sea, the frosty bitter wind cut through to the bones. The men were
badly provided against the weather; and hardy as they were, the weather
killed them that night. In the morning, the boat drifted on shore,
manned like a spectre bark, by the ghastly figures of the
dead--freighted horribly with the corpses of ten men all frozen to
death. They are now buried in Mawgan church-yard; and the stern of the
boat they died in tells their fatal story, and points to the last home
which they share together.
But it is not from such a village tragedy as this; it is not from its
retired situation, its Arcadian peacefulness, its embowering trees and
hidden hermit-like beauties of natural scenery, that the vale of Mawgan
derives its peculiar interest. It possesses an additional attraction,
stronger than any of these, to fix our attention--it is the scene of a
romance which we may still study, of a mystery which is of our own time.
Even to this little hidden nook, even to this quiet bower of Nature's
building, that vigilant and indestructible Papal religion, which defies
alike hidden conspiracy and open persecution, has stretched its stealthy
and far-spreading influence. Even in this remote corner of the remote
west of England, among the homely cottages of a few Cornish peasants,
the imperial Christianity of Rome has set up its sanctuary in triumph--a
sanctuary not thrown open to dazzle and awe the beholder, but veiled in
deep mystery behind gates that only open, like the fatal gates of the
grave, to receive, but never to dismiss again to the world without.
It is this attribute of the vale of Mawgan which leads the stranger away
from the cool, clear stream, and the pleasant, shadowy recesses among
the trees, to an ancient building near the church, which he knows to
have been once an old English manorial hall--to be now a convent of
Carmelite nuns.
The House of Lanhearne, so it is named, comprises an ancient and a
modern portion; the first dating back before the time of the Conquest,
the second added probably not more than a century and a half ago. The
place formerly belonged to the old Cornish family of the Arundels; but
about the year 1700, their race became extinct, and the property passed
into the possession of the present Lord Arundel. However, although the
manor-house has changed masters, there is one peculiar circumstance
connected with it, which has remained unaltered down to the present
time--it has never had a Protestant owner.
Thus, whatever religious traditions are connected with it, are Roman
Catholic traditions. A secret recess remains in the wall of the old
house, where a priest was hidden from his pursuers, during the reign of
Elizabeth, for eighteen months; the place being only large enough to
allow a man to stand upright in it. The skull of another priest who was
burnt at the same period, is also preserved with jealous care, as one
of the important relics of the ancient history of Lanhearne.