ACT I

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[Illustration: POETS ARE THE TRUMPETS WHICH SING TO BATTLE

POETS ARE THE UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATORS OF THE WORLD

SHELLEY]

"EVERYMAN"

WITH OTHER INTERLUDES, including EIGHT MIRACLE PLAYS

[Illustration: EVERY MAN I WILL GO WITH THEE BE THY GVIDE

IN THY MOST NEED TO GO BY THY SIDE]

LONDON: PUBLISHED

by J. M. DENT & SONS LTD.

AND IN NEW YORK

BY E. P. DUTTON & CO

First Issue of this Edition 1909

Reprinted 1910, 1912, 1914

INTRODUCTION

By craftsmen and mean men, these pageants are played,

And to commons and countrymen accustomably before:

If better men and finer heads now come, what can be said?

The pageants of the old English town-guilds, and the other mysteries and

interludes that follow, have still an uncommon reality about them if we

take them in the spirit in which they were originally acted. Their

office as the begetters of the greater literary drama to come, and their

value as early records, have, since Sharp wrote his _Dissertation on the

Coventry Mysteries_ in 1816, been fully illustrated. But they have

hardly yet reached the outside reader who looks for life and not for

literary origins and relations in what he reads. This is a pity, for

these old plays hide under their archaic dress the human interest that

all dramatic art, no matter how crude, can claim when it is touched with

our real emotions and sensations. They are not only a primitive

religious drama, born of the church and its feasts; they are the genuine

expression of the town life of the English people when it was still

lived with some exuberance of spirits and communal pleasure. As we read

them, indeed, though it be in cold blood, we are carried out of our

book, and set in the street or market-square by the side of the "commons

and countrymen," as in the day when Whitsuntide, or Corpus Christi,

brought round the annual pageantry to Chester, Coventry, York, and other

towns.

Of the plays that follow, six come from the old town pageants,

reflecting in their variety the range of subject and the contemporary

effect of the cycles from which they are taken. They are all typical,

and show us how the scenes and characters of the east were mingled with

the real life of the English craftsmen and townsfolk who acted them, and

for whose pleasure they were written. Yet they give us only a small

notion of the whole interest and extent of these plays. We gain an idea

of their popularity both from the number of them given in one town and

the number of places at which regular cycles, or single pageants, were

represented from year to year. The York plays alone that remain are

forty-eight in all; the Chester, twenty-four or five; the Wakefield,

thirty-two or three. Even these do not represent anything like the full

list. Mr. E. K. Chambers, in an appendix to his _Mediæval Stage_, gives

a list of eighty-nine different episodes treated in one set or another

of the English and Cornish cycles. Then as to the gazette of the many

scattered places where they had a traditional hold: Beverley had a cycle

of thirty-six; Newcastle-on-Tyne and Norwich, each one of twelve; while

the village and parochial plays were almost numberless. In Essex alone

the list includes twenty-one towns and villages, though it is fair to

add that this was a specially enterprising shire. At Lydd and New

Romney, companies of players from fourteen neighbouring towns and

villages can be traced in the local records that stretch from a year or

so before, to eight years after, the fifteenth century.

Mrs. J. R. Green, in her history of _Town Life_ in that century, shows

us how the townspeople mixed their workday and holiday pursuits, their

serious duties with an apparent "incessant round of gaieties." Hardly a

town but had its own particular play, acted in the town hall or the

parish churchyard, "the mayor and his brethren sitting in state." In

1411 there was a great play, _From the Beginning of the World_, played

in London at the Skinner's Well. It lasted seven days continually, and

there were the most part of the lords and gentles of England. No copy of

this play exists, but of its character we have a pretty sensible idea

from various other plays of the Creation handed down from the

north-country cycles. In the best of them the predestined Adam is

created after a fashion both to suggest his treatment by Giotto in the

medallion at Florence, and his lineaments as an English mediæval

prototype:--

"But now this man that I have made,

With the ghost of life, I make him glad,

Rise up, Adam, rise up rade,[1]

A man full of soul and life!"

But to surprise the English mediæval smith or carpenter, cobbler or

bowyer, when he turns playgoer at Whitsuntide, assisting at a play

which expressed himself as well as its scriptural folk, we must go on to

later episodes. The Deluge in the Chester pageant, that opens the

present volume, has among its many Noah's Ark sensations, some of them

difficult enough to mimic on the pageant-wagon, a typical recall of the

shipwright and ark-builder. God says to Noah:--

A ship soon thou shalt make thee of trees, dry and light.

Little chambers therein thou make,

And binding pitch also thou take,

Within and out, thou ne slake

To anoint it thro' all thy might.

In the York Noah's Ark pageant, which seems to be the parent-play in

England of all its kind, we have this craftsman's episode much enlarged.

"Make it of boards," God says, "and wands between!"

Thus thriftily and not over thin,

Look that thy seams be subtly seen

And nailéd well, that they not twin:

Thus I devised it should have been;

Therefore do forth, and leave thy din

Then, after further instructions, Noah begins to work before the

spectators, first rough-hewing a plank, then trying it with a line, and

joining it with a gynn or gin. He says:--

More subtilely can no man _sew_;[2]

It shall be clinched each ilk and deal,

With nails that are both noble and new,

Thus shall I fix it to the keel:

Take here a rivet, and there a screw,

With there bow,[3] there now, work I well,

This work, I warrant both good and true.

To complete the pedigree of this scene we must turn to the old poem, the

"Cursor Mundi," which, written in the fourteenth century, the time when

the northern miracle-plays were taking decisive shape, appears to have

served their writers as a stock-book. The following passage is own

brother to that in the York miracle-play:--

A ship must thou needs dight,

Myself shall be the master-wright.

I shall thee tell how broad and long,

Of what measure and how strong.

When the timber is fastened well,

Wind the sides ever each and deal.

Bind it first with balk and band,

And wind it then too with good wand.

With pitch, look, it be not thin!

Plaster it well without and in!

The likeness we see is startling: so near to the other indeed as to

suggest almost a common authorship.

As for the pastoral plays in the same towns, we find the shepherds and

countrymen were just as well furnished with rough cuts from the life.

The most real and frankly illustrative, and by no means the least

idyllic of them is perhaps the Chester play of the three shepherds. It

was not played by countrymen but by townsmen, like the other plays in

the town cycles, being in this case the "Paynters and Glasiors" play.

The first shepherd who opens it talks of the "bower" or cote he would

build, his "sheep to shield," his "seemly wethers to save:"--

From comely Conway unto Clyde

Under tyldes[4] them to hide

A better shepherd on no side

No earthly man may have

For with walking weary I have methought

Beside thee such my sheep I sought

My long-tail'd tups are in my thought

Them to save and heal

In the _Death of Abel_, another Chester play, Cain comes in with a

plough, and says:--

A tiller I am, and so will I be,

As my daddy hath taught it me

I will fulfil his lore

In the subsequent incident of the corn that Cain is to offer for his

sacrifice, we hear the plain echo of the English farmer's voice in the

corn-market mixing with the scriptural verse: "This standing corn that

was eaten by beasts," will do:

God, thou gettest no better of me,

Be thou never so grim

So throughout the plays the folk-life of their day, their customs and

customary speech, are for ever emerging from the biblical scene.

In trying to realise how the miracle-plays were mounted and acted, we

shall find the best witness at Chester. This was a rather late one.

Archdeacon Rogers, who saw them in 1594, when they had been going on for

something like three centuries in all. From his account (in the

_Harleian Miscellany_) it appears the Chester plays were given on

Whit-Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

"The manner of these plays were, every company had his pageant or part,

a high scaffold with two rooms, a higher and a lower, upon four wheels.

In the lower they apparelled themselves, and in the higher room they

played, being all open on the top, that all beholders might hear and see

them." They were played, he goes on to say, in every street:

"They began first at the abbey gates, and when the first pageant was

played, it was wheeled to the high cross before the mayor, and so to

every street. So every street had a pageant playing before it at one

time, till all the pageants for the day appointed were played. When one

pageant was near ended, word was brought from street to street, that so

they might come in place thereof, exceeding orderly, and all the streets

have their pageants before them, all at one time playing together, to

see which plays was great resort and also scaffolds and stages made in

the streets in those places where they determined to play their

pageants."

The same writer explains elsewhere that these plays were divided into

twenty-four pageants, according to the number of the city companies, and

that each company brought out its own pageant.

At York, whose plays Miss L. Toulmin Smith edited in 1887, we can turn

to Davies's two books[5] and the local records, to complete the Chester

description. Those who travel to York by rail to-day, and there

dismount, as most of us have often done, to walk through the city to the

cathedral, will be interested to find that the railway station now

stands where once was Pageant Green. Near it was formerly another kind

of station, where stood the houses hired to keep the pageants stored and

put away from one year's show to another. The word "pageant," (_pagina_,

or plank), we ought to recall, was used for the stage, or wheeled car of

two stories, before it was used for the show set forth upon it. Davies

helps us, as we perambulate York to-day, to mark where the old pageants

were performed in 1399, at twelve stations, which were fixed and stated

beforehand. The first station was at the gates of the Priory of the Holy

Trinity in Mickle Gate, and the pageants were moved on them in turn to

places at Skelder Gate end, North Street, Conyng Strete, Stane Gate and

the gates of the Minster, so to the end of Girdler Gate; while the last

of all was "upon the pavement." But the stations were subject to change,

and there was much competition among wealthy householders (one of whom

may have been the Robert Harpham mentioned in a 1417 list) to have the

pageant played before their windows. The highest bidder gained the

coveted right.

Before the actual day came, a town-crier was sent round the city to

proclaim the "banes" or banns.[6] Arms were forbidden: "We command that

no man go armed in this city with swords ne with carlill-axes, in

disturbance of the king's peace and the play, or hindering of the

procession of Corpus Christi, and that they leave their harness in their

inns, saving knights and squires of worship that ought to have swords

borne after them!" The plays began betimes. We read that at York the

players were to be ready "at the mid-hour betwixt the IVth and Vth of

the clock in the morning." Finally, for the players themselves, care was

taken to secure good ones for the several parts. Sometimes a player

doubled or trebled the characters in a particular play.

All through the XIVth and XVth centuries miracle-plays went on

being performed regularly, or irregularly, in most of the English

towns and larger villages. One of the smaller cycles was that of

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, played at Corpus Christi, from 1426 onwards. _The

Three Kings of Cologne_ is mentioned in 1536, which the goldsmiths,

plumbers, glaziers, and others were to play. Here the pageants were not

movable ones, but were given at fixed points. No doubt some of the spots

associated with the Whitsuntide "shuggy-shows" (as I remember them in my

time) were originally show-grounds of the town pageants too. Only one

play of the Newcastle series has survived, and that fitly enough, having

regard to the Tyneside shipbuilding, is a shipwrights' play. Unluckily

it has been so modernised that not a vestige of the local colour or

Tyneside dialect remains.

We come now to the date and origin of these town pageants. Of the three

chief cycles earliest mention is to be found at Chester, and it carries

us doubtfully back to 1268. Sir John Arnway was mayor in that year,

according to one account: but the name recurs pretty positively in

1327-8, and about that time Randall Higgenet, a monk of Chester Abbey,

wrote the plays. But in the text handed down they are of a much later

style of diction, and no doubt later in date than the Towneley or York

series.

About the real origin of these plays there can be no question. They

began in the churches as liturgy plays, which were given at the

Christmas, Easter, and other festivals, illustrating in chief the birth,

life, death and passion of Christ. We owe to Professor Skeat the

recovery of some fragments of liturgical plays in Latin, which have been

reprinted by Professor Manly, in his _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean

Drama_. The earliest example there is may be dated as early as 967, an

important landmark for us, as it is often assumed that we have no

dramatic record of any kind in these islands earlier than the Norman

Conquest. Another generation or two of research, such as the pioneer

work of Dr. Furnivall and the Early English Text Society has made

possible, and we shall distinguish clearly the two lines of growth,

French and Norman, English and Saxon, by which the town-pageants and

folk-plays of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries came to a head.

Then the grafting of the English pastoral on the church-play, after it

had been carried out into the open town or market-place, may become

clear. Then, too, one will know how charged with potential dramatic life

was the mind of him who wrote that interlude in four lines of the "Three

Queens and the Three Dead Men," which contains in it the essence of a

thousand moralities.

_1st Queen._ I am afeard.

_2nd Queen._ Lo, what I see?

_3rd Queen._ Me thinketh it be devils three!

_1st Dead Body._ I was well fair

_2nd Dead Body._ Such shall thou be.

_3rd Dead Body._ For Godes love, be-ware by me!

These breathe, not a Norman, but an Anglo-Saxon fantasy, and they speak

for themselves. But many tell-tale documents exist to mark the

concurrent Norman and English development that went on in the English

mediæval literature, and was seen and felt in the church and guild

plays, just as it went on in the towns themselves. It finds at last its

typical expression in an interlude like the Coventry Nativity-play,

reprinted in this volume. Long before the miracle-play was written in

the form it finally took, and about the time when William of Rouen,

after much trouble with his son Robert culminating at the battle of

Gerberoi, was about to return to England, the new opening in the church

in this country became one to tempt poor foreign students of some parts

and some ambition. Among these was a graduate of the University of

Paris, one Geoffrey, known to us now as Geoffrey of St. Albans. He had

been offered the post of master of the abbey school at that place, but

when he arrived after some delay--due perhaps to his going to see a

mystery play at Paris--he found the post filled up. He then made his way

to Dunstable, and while there proved his spirit by getting up a

miracle-play of "Sancta Katarina." He borrowed copes from St. Albans in

which to dress the actors; unluckily a fire took place, and the costumes

were burnt. Thereupon he seems to have rendered himself up as it were in

pious pledge for their loss, for he became a monk. In 1119 he was

elected abbot, and if we give him about twenty-one years in which to

rise to that dignity, we can date the St. Katharine play at 1098 or 9.

This passage in a life of that time is a clue to the further history of

the religious play in England. Geoffrey's attempt to present one at

Dunstable, no doubt a reproduction of one he had seen in France, is an

instance of the naturalisation process that slowly went on.

The distinct break in the history of the miracle-play that made it from

a church into a town pageant occurred about the close of the thirteenth

century. From a performance within the church building it went on then

into the church-yard, or the adjoining close or street, and so into the

town at large. The clerics still kept a hand in its purveyance; but the

rise of the town guilds gave it a new character, a new relation to the

current life, and a larger equipment. The friendly rivalry between the

guilds, and the craftsmen's pride in not being outdone by other crafts,

helped to stimulate the town play, till at length the elaborate cycle

was formed that began with sunrise on a June morning, and lasted until

the torch-bearers were called out at dusk to stand at the foot of the

pageant.

The earliest miracle-plays that we can trace in the town cycles date

back to the early years of Edward III. The last to be performed in

London, according to Prynne, was _Christ's Passion_, which was given in

James I.'s reign. It was produced "at Ely House, Holborn, when Gundomar

lay there on Good Friday at night, at which there were thousands

present." This was a late survivor, however, called to life by a last

flicker of court sunshine on the occasion of the state visit of a

Spanish ambassador. Here is an extreme range of over three centuries;

and the old religious drama was still being performed in a more and more

uncertain and intermittent fashion all through the dramatic reign of

Shakspeare.

The ten plays that follow in this volume represent in brief the late

remnant of this early drama, rescued at the point where it was ending

its primitive growth, soon to give way to plays written with a

consciously artistic sense of the stage. They are headed by the great

and simple tragic masterpiece, in which they say their last word: the

morality of _Everyman_, the noblest interlude of death the religious

imagination of the middle ages has given to the stage. The two following

Old Testament plays, _The Deluge_ and the _Sacrifice of Isaac_, are the

third and fourth pageants in the Chester series; played respectively by

the Water-Leaders and Drawers of the river Dee, and by the Barbers and

Wax-Chandlers. The next is from Coventry, a Nativity play, played by the

Shearmen and Tailors. From the Wakefield series, preserved in the

Towneley collection, we have three plays, the famous second shepherds'

play, with the _Crucifixion_ and the _Harrowing of Hell_, or extraction

of souls from Hell (_Extractio Animarum ab Inferno_). Two Cornish

mysteries of the Resurrection are included: _The Three Maries at the

Tomb_, and _Mary Magdalen bringing the News to the Apostles_. Then

follows Bishop Bale's oracular play of _God's Promises_, which is in

effect a series of seven interludes strung on one thread, united by one

leading idea, and one protagonist, the _Pater Cœlestis_.

In these religious and moral interludes, the dramatic colouring, however

crude, is real and sincere. The humours of a broad folk-comedy break

through the scriptural web continually in the guild plays like those in

which Noah the shipbuilder, or the proverbial three shepherds, appear in

the pageant. Noah's unwilling wife in the Chester _Deluge_, and Mak's

canny wife in the Wakefield shepherd's play, where the sheep-stealing

scenes reveal a born Yorkshire humorist, offer a pair of gossips not

easy to match for rude comedy. Mak's wife, like the shepherd's in the

same pastoral, utters proverbs with every other breath: "A woman's avyse

helpys at the last!" "So long goys the pott to the water, at last comys

it home broken!"

Now in hot, now in cold,

Full woeful is the household,

That wants a woman!

And her play upon the old north-country asseveration, "I'll eat my

bairn,"--

If ever I you beguiled,

That I eat this child

That lies in this cradle,

(the child being the stolen sheep), must have caused towns-folk and

country-folk outrageous laughter. Mak's wife is indeed memorable in her

way as the Wife of Bath, Dame Quickly, or Mrs. Gamp.

There is nothing so boldly drawn in the Coventry _Nativity_. But there

you have a startlingly realistic treatment joined to an emotional

lyricism of the simplest charm:

Neither in halls, nor yet in bowers,

Born would he not be

Neither in castles, nor yet in towers

That seemly were to see.

and--

As I outrode this enderes night

Of three jolly shepherds, I saw a sight;

And all about their fold a star shone bright,

They sang "Terli, terlow!"

So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow.

In this Coventry play we have nearly all the ingredients--foreign,

liturgical, or homely English--of the composite miracle play brought

together. It bears traces of many hands; and betrays in the dialogue of

the formal characters the rubricated lines of the church play on which

it was based. The chief characters live, move and act their recognised

parts with the certainty of the folk in a nursery tale. Herod out-Herods

himself with a Blunderbore extravagance:--

I am the cause of this great light and thunder;

It is through my fury that they such noise do make.

My fearful countenance, the clouds so doth incumber

That oftentimes for dread thereof, the very earth doth quake.

"Fee, fi, fo, fum!" might be the refrain of this giant's litany. The

other types are as plainly stamped. The shepherd's are from the life,

and contrast well with the stilted and rather tiresome prophets. The

scenes at the babe's crib when the offerings are made of the shepherds'

pipe, old hat, and mittens, are both droll and tender.

The tragic counterparts of these scenes are those where the Three

Executioners work their pitiless task to an end at the Crucifixion, or

where the Three Maries go to the grave afterwards in the Cornish

mystery, or where Isaac bids his father bind his eyes that he shall not

see the sword. It was for long the fashion to say, as Sir Walter Scott

did, that these plays had little poetic life, or human interest in them.

But they are, at their best, truly touched with essential emotions, with

humour, terror, sorrow, pity, as the case may be. Dramatically they are

far more alive at this moment, than the English drama of the

mid-nineteenth century.

In the Cornish mysteries we lose much by having to use a translation.

But something of the spirit and life survive in spite of it, and one

detached passage from another of the plays, that of the _Crucifixion_,

is printed in the appendix, which loses nothing by being compared with

the treatment in other miracle-plays. Also in the Appendix will be found

an interesting note from Norris's _Ancient Cornish Drama_, on the mode

in which the Cornish mysteries were played; and a brief account by Mr.

Jenner of the trilogy contained in that work.

There remains John Bayle's play of _God's Promises_. Its author was born

at the sea-doomed city of Dunwich in Suffolk, in 1495. Destined for the

church, he showed his obstinacy early by marrying in defiance of his

cloth. He was lucky and unlucky in being a _protégé_ of Thomas

Cromwell, and had to fly the country on that dangerous agent's death.

He returned when the new order was established, and became Bishop of

Ossory, had to suffer and turn exile for his tenets again in Mary's

reign; but found safe harbourage for his latter years at Canterbury,

where he died. He wrote, on his own evidence, more than twenty plays, of

which _God's Promises_, the _Life of John the Baptist_, and _King John_,

a history play of interest as a pioneer, are best known. He himself

called _God's Promises_ a tragedy, but unless the sense of Sodom hanging

in the balance, while Abraham works down to its lowest point the

diminishing ratio of the just to be found there, or of David's appearing

before the Pater Cœlestis as the great judge, of dramatic or tragic

emotion there is little indeed. But Bayle's rhetoric easily ran to the

edge of suspense, as in the opening of his seventh act, where he puts

the dramatic question in the last line:--

I have with fearcenesse mankynde oft tymes corrected,

And agayne I have allured hym by swete promes.

I have sent sore plages, when he hath me neglected,

And then by and by, most confortable swetnes.

To wynne hym to grace, bothe mercye and ryghteousnes

I have exercysed, yet wyll he not amende.

Shall I now lose hym, or shall I hym defende?

And what could be finer than the setting he gives to the antiphon, _O

Oriens Splendor_, at the end of the second act?

To turn from Bayle's play to the heart-breaking realities of _Everyman_

is like turning from a volume of all too edifying sermons to the last

chapters of one of the gospels. Into the full history of this play,

opening a difficult question about the early relations between Dutch and

English writers and printers, there is no room here to go. The Dutch

_Everyman_--_Elckerlijk_--was in all probability the original of the

English, and it was certainly printed a few years earlier. Richard

Pynson, who first imprinted the English play at the Sign of the George

in Fleet Street, was printing at his press there from the early years of

the sixteenth century. The play itself may have been written, and first

performed, in English, as in Dutch, a generation or more before.

It was written, no doubt, like most of the plays in this volume, by a

churchman; and he must have been a man of profound imagination, and of

the tenderest human soul conceivable. His ecclesiastical habit becomes

clear enough before the end of the play, where he bids Everyman go and

confess his sins. Like many of the more poignant scenes and passages in

the miracle-plays that follow it, this morality too leaves one

exclaiming on how good a thing was the plain English of the fourteenth

and fifteenth centuries.

The relation of the several miracle-plays here printed to the

town-cycles from which they come will be seen at a glance on reference

to the tables of pageants that appear in the Appendix. We may take it

that all these town and country plays represent continually used and

frequently tinkered texts, that must in some cases have passed through

many piecemeal changes. In making them easy to the average reader of

to-day, who takes the place of the mediæval playgoer at a Corpus Christi

festival, their latest copyists have but followed in the wake of a

series of Tudor scribes who renewed the prompt-books from time to time.

In this process, apart from the change of spelling, the smallest

possible alteration has been made consistent with the bringing of the

text to a fair modern level of intelligibility. Old words that have been

familiarised in Malory or Shakespeare, or the Bible, or in the Border

Ballads and north-country books, or in Walter Scott, or the modern

dialect of Yorkshire, are usually allowed to stand, and words needed to

keep the rhyme, are left intact. But really hard words, likely to delay

the reader, are glossed. One Towneley play, the _Extractio Animarum_,

another and a most spirited example of the "Harrowing of Hell,"

mysteries that thrilled the people long ago, is given in the original

spelling, as some test of the change effected in the others. Further, in

the Appendix will be found a late example of a _St. George and the

Dragon_ doggerel Christmas play, which comes from Cornwall, and which in

a slightly varying form has been played in many shires, from Wessex to

Tyneside, within living memory. This shows us the last state of the

traditional mystery, and the English folk-play as it became when it was

left to the village wits and playwrights to produce it, without any

co-operation from the trained eye and hand of a parson or a learned

clerk. Of some other forms of our earlier drama, not omitting the Welsh

interludes of Twm o'r Nant, it may be possible to give illustrations in

a later book, companion to this. Only so much is given here as may

interest the reader, who is a playgoer first of all, and asks for

entertainment and a light in these darker passages of the old British

drama.

* * * * *

Finally the amplest acknowledgments are due to those who have worked

upon these present plays, including Mrs. C. Richardson, M.A., Mr.

O'Brien, Mr. Roberts, Miss Hawkins, G. R., and Mr. Ezra Pound; and to

the various editors of the "Early English Text Society," who have made

this book possible. Especially should tribute be paid to Dr. Furnivall

for his permission to make use of the Society's texts, and his interest

in this uncertain attempt to capture the outer public too, and attract

it to that ever-living literature to which he has devoted so many days

of his young old-age.

E. R.

* * * * *

Everyman: a moral play otherwise called: A Treatyse how the hye fader of

heven sendeth dethe to somon every creature to come and gyve a counte of

theyr lyves in this worlde], translated from the Dutch play, Elckerlijk,

1520 (?); published in Dodsley's Select Collection of Old English Plays,

etc., vol. I., 1874; reprint of one of Skot's editions, collated with

his other edition and those of Pynson, Ed. H. Logeman, 1892; with an

introduction by F. Sidgwick, 1902; reprinted by W. W. Greg from the

Edition by John Skot preserved at Britwell Court, 1904; set to music by

H. Walford Davies, etc. (with historical and analytical notes), 1904; J.

S. Farmer, Six Anonymous Plays (Early English Dramatists), 1905; with

designs by Ambrose Dudley, 1906; in Broadway Booklets, 1906; with

introduction, note-book, and word list, J. S. Farmer (Museum

Dramatists), 1906.

Miracle Plays: Towneley Mysteries, ed. by Surtees Society, 1836;

Pollard, Early English Text Society, 1897. York Mysteries, ed. Lucy

Toulmin Smith, 1885. Chester Mysteries, ed. Th. Wright, Shakespeare

Society, 1843-47; Deimling, Early English Text Society, 1893, etc.; T.

H. Markland (two plays), Roxburghe Club, 1818. Coventry Mysteries, ed.

Halliwell, Shakespeare Society, 1841. See also Sharp, Dissertation on

the Coventry Mysteries. For other Mysteries see Davidson, Modern

Language Notes, vii.; E. Norris, Ancient Cornish Drama, 1859.

Selections, or Separate Plays: Harrowing of Hell, ed. Halliwell, 1840;

Collier, Five Miracle Plays, 1867; Dr. E. Mall, 1871; A. W. Pollard,

English Miracle Plays, 1895; Specimens of the Pre-Shakespearean Drama,

1897, 2 vols. (a third vol. to come), Prof. Manly. See J. H. Kirkham

(Enquiry into Sources, etc.), 1885. Abraham and Isaac, ed. L. Toulmin

Smith (Brome Hall MS.), 1886; R. Brotanek (Dublin MS.), Anglia, xxi.

General Literature: Ward, History of English Dramatic Literature,

1875-6; Payne Collier, The History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1879; K.

Hase, Miracle Plays, trans. A. W. Jackson, 1880; C. Davidson, Studies in

English Mystery Plays, 1892; A. W. Pollard, English Miracle Plays,

Moralities, and Interludes, Specimens of pre-Elizabethan Drama, etc.,

1895; K. Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, 1903; A full bibliography is

given in F. H. Stoddard, References for Students of Miracle Plays and

Mysteries, 1887.

CONTENTS

Introduction vii

Everyman 1

The Deluge 27

Abraham, Melchisedec, and Isaac 39

The Wakefield Second Shepherds' Play 55

The Coventry Nativity Play 79

The Wakefield Miracle-Play of the Crucifixion 105

The Cornish Mystery-Play of the Three Maries 127

The Mystery of Mary Magdalene and the Apostles 137

The Wakefield Pageant of the Harrowing of Hell 147

God's Promises 163

Appendices 193

CHARACTERS

Everyman

God: Adonai

Death

Messenger

Fellowship

Cousin

Kindred

Goods

Good-Deeds

Strength

Discretion

Five-Wits

Beauty

Knowledge

Confession

Angel

Doctor

EVERYMAN

HERE BEGINNETH A TREATISE HOW THE HIGH FATHER OF HEAVEN SENDETH

DEATH TO SUMMON EVERY CREATURE TO COME AND GIVE ACCOUNT OF THEIR

LIVES IN THIS WORLD AND IS IN MANNER OF A MORAL PLAY.

_Messenger._ I pray you all give your audience,

And hear this matter with reverence,

By figure a moral play--

The _Summoning of Everyman_ called it is,

That of our lives and ending shows

How transitory we be all day.

This matter is wondrous precious,

But the intent of it is more gracious,

And sweet to bear away.

The story saith,--Man, in the beginning,

Look well, and take good heed to the ending,

Be you never so gay!

Ye think sin in the beginning full sweet,

Which in the end causeth thy soul to weep,

When the body lieth in clay.

Here shall you see how _Fellowship_ and _Jollity_,

Both _Strength_, _Pleasure_, and _Beauty_,

Will fade from thee as flower in May.

For ye shall hear, how our heaven king

Calleth _Everyman_ to a general reckoning:

Give audience, and hear what he doth say.

_God._ I perceive here in my majesty,

How that all creatures be to me unkind,

Living without dread in worldly prosperity:

Of ghostly sight the people be so blind,

Drowned in sin, they know me not for their God;

In worldly riches is all their mind,

They fear not my rightwiseness, the sharp rod;

My law that I shewed, when I for them died,

They forget clean, and shedding of my blood red;

I hanged between two, it cannot be denied;

To get them life I suffered to be dead;

I healed their feet, with thorns hurt was my head:

I could do no more than I did truly,

And now I see the people do clean forsake me.

They use the seven deadly sins damnable;

As pride, covetise, wrath, and lechery,

Now in the world be made commendable;

And thus they leave of angels the heavenly company;

Everyman liveth so after his own pleasure,

And yet of their life they be nothing sure:

I see the more that I them forbear

The worse they be from year to year;

All that liveth appaireth[7] fast,

Therefore I will in all the haste

Have a reckoning of Everyman's person

For and I leave the people thus alone

In their life and wicked tempests,

Verily they will become much worse than beasts;

For now one would by envy another up eat;

Charity they all do clean forget.

I hoped well that Everyman

In my glory should make his mansion,

And thereto I had them all elect;

But now I see, like traitors deject,

They thank me not for the pleasure that I to them meant,

Nor yet for their being that I them have lent;

I proffered the people great multitude of mercy,

And few there be that asketh it heartily;

They be so cumbered with worldly riches,

That needs on them I must do justice,

On Everyman living without fear.

Where art thou, _Death_, thou mighty messenger?

_Death._ Almighty God, I am here at your will,

Your commandment to fulfil.

_God._ Go thou to _Everyman_,

And show him in my name

A pilgrimage he must on him take,

Which he in no wise may escape;

And that he bring with him a sure reckoning

Without delay or any tarrying.

_Death._ Lord, I will in the world go run over all,

And cruelly outsearch both great and small;

Every man will I beset that liveth beastly

Out of God's laws, and dreadeth not folly:

He that loveth riches I will strike with my dart,

His sight to blind, and from heaven to depart,

Except that alms be his good friend,

In hell for to dwell, world without end.

Lo, yonder I see _Everyman_ walking;

Full little he thinketh on my coming;

His mind is on fleshly lusts and his treasure,

And great pain it shall cause him to endure

Before the Lord Heaven King.

_Everyman_, stand still; whither art thou going

Thus gaily? Hast thou thy Maker forget?

_Everyman._ Why askst thou?

Wouldest thou wete?[8]

_Death._ Yea, sir, I will show you;

In great haste I am sent to thee

From God out of his majesty.

_Everyman._ What, sent to me?

_Death._ Yea, certainly.

Though thou have forget him here,

He thinketh on thee in the heavenly sphere,

As, or we depart, thou shalt know.

_Everyman._ What desireth God of me?

_Death._ That shall I show thee;

A reckoning he will needs have

Without any longer respite.

_Everyman._ To give a reckoning longer leisure I crave;

This blind matter troubleth my wit.

_Death._ On thee thou must take a long journey:

Therefore thy book of count with thee thou bring;

For turn again thou can not by no way,

And look thou be sure of thy reckoning:

For before God thou shalt answer, and show

Thy many bad deeds and good but a few;

How thou hast spent thy life, and in what wise,

Before the chief lord of paradise.

Have ado that we were in that way,

For, wete thou well, thou shalt make none attournay.[9]

_Everyman._ Full unready I am such reckoning to give.

I know thee not: what messenger art thou?

_Death._ I am _Death_, that no man dreadeth.

For every man I rest and no man spareth;

For it is God's commandment

That all to me should be obedient.

_Everyman._ O _Death_, thou comest when I had thee least in mind;

In thy power it lieth me to save,

Yet of my good will I give thee, if ye will be kind,

Yea, a thousand pound shalt thou have,

And defer this matter till another day.

_Death._ _Everyman_, it may not be by no way;

I set not by gold, silver, nor riches,

Ne by pope, emperor, king, duke, ne princes.

For and I would receive gifts great,

All the world I might get;

But my custom is clean contrary.

I give thee no respite: come hence, and not tarry.

_Everyman._ Alas, shall I have no longer respite?

I may say _Death_ giveth no warning:

To think on thee, it maketh my heart sick,

For all unready is my book of reckoning.

But twelve year and I might have abiding,

My counting book I would make so clear,

That my reckoning I should not need to fear.

Wherefore, _Death_, I pray thee, for God's mercy,

Spare me till I be provided of remedy.

_Death._ Thee availeth not to cry, weep, and pray:

But haste thee lightly that you were gone the journey,

And prove thy friends if thou can.

For, wete thou well, the tide abideth no man,

And in the world each living creature

For _Adam's_ sin must die of nature.

_Everyman._ _Death_, if I should this pilgrimage take,

And my reckoning surely make,

Show me, for saint _charity_,

Should I not come again shortly?

_Death._ No, _Everyman_; and thou be once there,

Thou mayst never more come here,

Trust me verily.

_Everyman._ O gracious God, in the high seat celestial,

Have mercy on me in this most need;

Shall I have no company from this vale terrestrial

Of mine acquaintance that way me to lead?

_Death._ Yea, if any be so hardy,

That would go with thee and bear thee company.

Hie thee that you were gone to God's magnificence,

Thy reckoning to give before his presence.

What, weenest thou thy life is given thee,

And thy worldly goods also?

_Everyman._ I had wend so, verily.

_Death._ Nay, nay; it was but lent thee;

For as soon as thou art go,

Another awhile shall have it, and then go therefro

Even as thou hast done.

_Everyman_, thou art mad; thou hast thy wits five,

And here on earth will not amend thy life,

For suddenly I do come.

_Everyman._ O wretched caitiff, whither shall I flee,

That I might scape this endless sorrow!

Now, gentle _Death_, spare me till to-morrow,

That I may amend me

With good advisement.

_Death._ Nay, thereto I will not consent,

Nor no man will I respite,

But to the heart suddenly I shall smite

Without any advisement.

And now out of thy sight I will me hie;

See thou make thee ready shortly,

For thou mayst say this is the day

That no man living may scape away.

_Everyman._ Alas, I may well weep with sighs deep;

Now have I no manner of company

To help me in my journey, and me to keep;

And also my writing is full unready.

How shall I do now for to excuse me?

I would to God I had never be gete![10]

To my soul a full great profit it had be;

For now I fear pains huge and great.

The time passeth; Lord, help that all wrought;

For though I mourn it availeth nought.

The day passeth, and is almost a-go;

I wot not well what for to do.

To whom were I best my complaint to make?

What, and I to _Fellowship_ thereof spake,

And showed him of this sudden chance?

For in him is all mine affiance;

We have in the world so many a day

Be on good friends in sport and play.

I see him yonder, certainly;

I trust that he will bear me company;

Therefore to him will I speak to ease my sorrow.

Well met, good _Fellowship_, and good morrow!

_Fellowship speaketh._ _Everyman_, good morrow by this day.

Sir, why lookest thou so piteously?

If any thing be amiss, I pray thee, me say,

That I may help to remedy.

_Everyman._ Yea, good _Fellowship_, yea,

I am in great jeopardy.

_Fellowship._ My true friend, show to me your mind;

I will not forsake thee, unto my life's end,

In the way of good company.

_Everyman._ That was well spoken, and lovingly.

_Fellowship._ Sir, I must needs know your heaviness;

I have pity to see you in any distress;

If any have you wronged ye shall revenged be,

Though I on the ground be slain for thee,--

Though that I know before that I should die.

_Everyman._ Verily, _Fellowship_, gramercy.

_Fellowship._ Tush! by thy thanks I set not a straw.

Show me your grief, and say no more.

_Everyman._ If I my heart should to you break,

And then you to turn your mind from me,

And would not me comfort, when you hear me speak,

Then should I ten times sorrier be.

_Fellowship._ Sir, I say as I will do in deed.

_Everyman._ Then be you a good friend at need:

I have found you true here before.

_Fellowship._ And so ye shall evermore;

For, in faith, and thou go to Hell,

I will not forsake thee by the way!

_Everyman._ Ye speak like a good friend; I believe you well;

I shall deserve it, and I may.

_Fellowship._ I speak of no deserving, by this day.

For he that will say and nothing do

Is not worthy with good company to go;

Therefore show me the grief of your mind,

As to your friend most loving and kind.

_Everyman._ I shall show you how it is;

Commanded I am to go a journey,

A long way, hard and dangerous,

And give a strait count without delay

Before the high judge Adonai.[11]

Wherefore I pray you, bear me company,

As ye have promised, in this journey.

_Fellowship._ That is matter indeed! Promise is duty,

But, and I should take such a voyage on me,

I know it well, it should be to my pain:

Also it make me afeard, certain.

But let us take counsel here as well as we can,

For your words would fear a strong man.

_Everyman._ Why, ye said, If I had need,

Ye would me never forsake, quick nor dead,

Though it were to hell truly.

_Fellowship._ So I said, certainly,

But such pleasures be set aside, thee sooth to say:

And also, if we took such a journey,

When should we come again?

_Everyman._ Nay, never again till the day of doom.

_Fellowship._ In faith, then will not I come there!

Who hath you these tidings brought?

_Everyman._ Indeed, _Death_ was with me here.

_Fellowship._ Now, by God that all hath bought,

If _Death_ were the messenger,

For no man that is living to-day

I will not go that loath journey--

Not for the father that begat me!

_Everyman._ Ye promised other wise, pardie.

_Fellowship._ I wot well I say so truly;

And yet if thou wilt eat, and drink, and make good cheer,

Or haunt to women, the lusty company,

I would not forsake you, while the day is clear,

Trust me verily!

_Everyman._ Yea, thereto ye would be ready;

To go to mirth, solace, and play,

Your mind will sooner apply

Than to bear me company in my long journey.

_Fellowship._ Now, in good faith, I will not that way.

But and thou wilt murder, or any man kill,

In that I will help thee with a good will!

_Everyman._ O that is a simple advice indeed!

Gentle _fellow_, help me in my necessity;

We have loved long, and now I need,

And now, gentle _Fellowship_, remember me.

_Fellowship._ Whether ye have loved me or no,

By Saint John, I will not with thee go.

_Everyman._ Yet I pray thee, take the labour, and do so much for me

To bring me forward, for saint charity,

And comfort me till I come without the town.

_Fellowship._ Nay, and thou would give me a new gown,

I will not a foot with thee go;

But and you had tarried I would not have left thee so.

And as now, God speed thee in thy journey,

For from thee I will depart as fast as I may.

_Everyman._ Whither away, _Fellowship_? will you forsake me?

_Fellowship._ Yea, by my fay, to God I betake thee.

_Everyman._ Farewell, good _Fellowship_; for this my heart is sore;

Adieu for ever, I shall see thee no more.

_Fellowship._ In faith, _Everyman_, farewell now at the end;

For you I will remember that parting is mourning.

_Everyman._ Alack! shall we thus depart indeed?

Our Lady, help, without any more comfort,

Lo, _Fellowship_ forsaketh me in my most need:

For help in this world whither shall I resort?

_Fellowship_ herebefore with me would merry make;

And now little sorrow for me doth he take.

It is said, in prosperity men friends may find,

Which in adversity be full unkind.

Now whither for succour shall I flee,

Sith that _Fellowship_ hath forsaken me?

To my kinsmen I will truly,

Praying them to help me in my necessity;

I believe that they will do so,

For kind will creep where it may not go.

I will go say, for yonder I see them go.

Where be ye now, my friends and kinsmen?

_Kindred._ Here be we now at your commandment.

_Cousin_, I pray you show us your intent

In any wise, and not spare.

_Cousin._ Yea, _Everyman_, and to us declare

If ye be disposed to go any whither,

For wete you well, we will live and die together.

_Kindred._ In wealth and woe we will with you hold,

For over his kin a man may be bold.

_Everyman._ Gramercy, my friends and kinsmen kind.

Now shall I show you the grief of my mind:

I was commanded by a messenger,

That is an high king's chief officer;

He bade me go a pilgrimage to my pain,

And I know well I shall never come again;

Also I must give a reckoning straight,

For I have a great enemy, that hath me in wait,

Which intendeth me for to hinder.

_Kindred._ What account is that which ye must render?

That would I know.

_Everyman._ Of all my works I must show

How I have lived and my days spent;

Also of ill deeds, that I have used

In my time, sith life was me lent;

And of all virtues that I have refused.

Therefore I pray you go thither with me,

To help to make mine account, for saint _charity_.

_Cousin._ What, to go thither? Is that the matter?

Nay, _Everyman_, I had liefer fast bread and water

All this five year and more.

_Everyman._ Alas, that ever I was bore![12]

For now shall I never be merry

If that you forsake me.

_Kindred._ Ah, sir; what, ye be a merry man!

Take good heart to you, and make no moan.

But one thing I warn you, by Saint Anne,

As for me, ye shall go alone.

_Everyman._ My _Cousin_, will you not with me go?

_Cousin._ No, by our Lady; I have the cramp in my toe.

Trust not to me, for, so God me speed,

I will deceive you in your most need,

_Kindred._ It availeth not us to tice.

Ye shall have my maid with all my heart;

She loveth to go to feasts, there to be nice,

And to dance, and abroad to start:

I will give her leave to help you in that journey,

If that you and she may agree.

_Everyman._ Now show me the very effect of your mind.

Will you go with me, or abide behind?

_Kindred._ Abide behind? yea, that I will and I may!

Therefore farewell until another day.

_Everyman._ How should I be merry or glad?

For fair promises to me make,

But when I have most need, they me forsake.

I am deceived; that maketh me sad.

_Cousin._ Cousin _Everyman_, farewell now,

For verily I will not go with you;

Also of mine own an unready reckoning

I have to account; therefore I make tarrying.

Now, God keep thee, for now I go.

_Everyman._ Ah, _Jesus_, is all come hereto?

Lo, fair words maketh fools feign;

They promise and nothing will do certain.

My kinsmen promised me faithfully

For to abide with me steadfastly,

And now fast away do they flee:

Even so _Fellowship_ promised me.

What friend were best me of to provide?

I lose my time here longer to abide.

Yet in my mind a thing there is;--

All my life I have loved riches;

If that my good now help me might,

He would make my heart full light.

I will speak to him in this distress.--

Where art thou, my _Goods_ and riches?

_Goods._ Who calleth me? _Everyman?_ what haste thou hast!

I lie here in corners, trussed and piled so high,

And in chests I am locked so fast,

Also sacked in bags, thou mayst see with thine eye,

I cannot stir; in packs low I lie.

What would ye have, lightly me say.

_Everyman._ Come hither, _Good_, in all the haste thou may,

For of counsel I must desire thee.

_Goods._ Sir, and ye in the world have trouble or adversity,

That can I help you to remedy shortly.

_Everyman._ It is another disease that grieveth me;

In this world it is not, I tell thee so.

I am sent for another way to go,

To give a straight account general

Before the highest _Jupiter_ of all;

And all my life I have had joy and pleasure in thee.

Therefore I pray thee go with me,

For, peradventure, thou mayst before God Almighty

My reckoning help to clean and purify;

For it is said ever among,

That money maketh all right that is wrong.

_Goods._ Nay, _Everyman_, I sing another song,

I follow no man in such voyages;

For and I went with thee

Thou shouldst fare much the worse for me;

For because on me thou did set thy mind,

Thy reckoning I have made blotted and blind,

That thine account thou cannot make truly;

And that hast thou for the love of me.

_Everyman._ That would grieve me full sore,

When I should come to that fearful answer.

Up, let us go thither together.

_Goods._ Nay, not so, I am too brittle, I may not endure;

I will follow no man one foot, be ye sure.

_Everyman._ Alas, I have thee loved, and had great pleasure

All my life-days on good and treasure.

_Goods._ That is to thy damnation without lesing,

For my love is contrary to the love everlasting.

But if thou had me loved moderately during,

As, to the poor give part of me,

Then shouldst thou not in this dolour be,

Nor in this great sorrow and care.

_Everyman._ Lo, now was I deceived or I was ware,

And all I may wyte[13] my spending of time.

_Goods._ What, weenest thou that I am thine?

_Everyman._ I had wend so.

_Goods._ Nay, _Everyman,_ I say no;

As for a while I was lent thee,

A season thou hast had me in prosperity;

My condition is man's soul to kill;

If I save one, a thousand I do spill;

Weenest thou that I will follow thee?

Nay, from this world, not verily.

_Everyman._ I had wend otherwise.

_Goods._ Therefore to thy soul _Good_ is a thief;

For when thou art dead, this is my guise

Another to deceive in the same wise

As I have done thee, and all to his soul's reprief.

_Everyman._ O false _Good_, cursed thou be!

Thou traitor to God, that hast deceived me,

And caught me in thy snare.

_Goods._ Marry, thou brought thyself in care,

Whereof I am glad,

I must needs laugh, I cannot be sad.

_Everyman._ Ah, _Good_, thou hast had long my heartly love;

I gave thee that which should be the Lord's above.

But wilt thou not go with me in deed?

I pray thee truth to say.

_Goods._ No, so God me speed,

Therefore farewell, and have good day.

_Everyman._ O, to whom shall I make my moan

For to go with me in that heavy journey?

First _Fellowship_ said he would with me gone;

His words were very pleasant and gay,

But afterward he left me alone.

Then spake I to my kinsmen all in despair,

And also they gave me words fair,

They lacked no fair speaking,

But all forsake me in the ending.

Then went I to my _Goods_ that I loved best,

In hope to have comfort, but there had I least;

For my _Goods_ sharply did me tell

That he bringeth many into hell.

Then of myself I was ashamed,

And so I am worthy to be blamed;

Thus may I well myself hate.

Of whom shall I now counsel take?

I think that I shall never speed

Till that I go to my _Good-Deed_,

But alas, she is so weak,

That she can neither go nor speak;

Yet will I venture on her now.--

My _Good-Deeds_, where be you?

_Good-Deeds._ Here I lie cold in the ground;

Thy sins hath me sore bound,

That I cannot stir.

_Everyman._ O, _Good-Deeds_, I stand in fear;

I must you pray of counsel,

For help now should come right well.

_Goods-Deeds._ _Everyman_, I have understanding

That ye be summoned account to make

Before _Messias_, of Jerusalem King;

And you do by me[14] that journey what[15] you will I take.

_Everyman._ Therefore I come to you, my moan to make;

I pray you, that ye will go with me.

_Good-Deeds._ I would full fain, but I cannot stand verily.

_Everyman._ Why, is there anything on you fall?

_Good-Deeds._ Yea, sir, I may thank you of all;

If ye had perfectly cheered me,

Your book of account now full ready had be.

Look, the books of your works and deeds eke;

Oh, see how they lie under the feet,

To your soul's heaviness.

_Everyman._ Our Lord _Jesus_, help me!

For one letter here I can not see.

_Good-Deeds._ There is a blind reckoning in time of distress!

_Everyman._ _Good-Deeds_, I pray you, help me in this need,

Or else I am for ever damned indeed;

Therefore help me to make reckoning

Before the redeemer of all thing,

That king is, and was, and ever shall.

_Good-Deeds._ _Everyman_, I am sorry of your fall,

And fain would I help you, and I were able.

_Everyman._ _Good-Deeds_, your counsel I pray you give me.

_Good-Deeds._ That shall I do verily;

Though that on my feet I may not go,

I have a sister, that shall with you also,

Called _Knowledge_, which shall with you abide,

To help you to make that dreadful reckoning.

_Knowledge._ _Everyman_, I will go with thee, and be thy guide,

In thy most need to go by thy side.

_Everyman._ In good condition I am now in every thing,

And am wholly content with this good thing;

Thanked be God my Creator.

_Good-Deeds._ And when he hath brought thee there,

Where thou shalt heal thee of thy smart,

Then go you with your reckoning and your _Good-Deeds_ together

For to make you joyful at heart

Before the blessed Trinity.

_Everyman._ My _Good-Deeds_, gramercy;

I am well content, certainly,

With your words sweet.

_Knowledge._ Now go we together lovingly,

To _Confession_, that cleansing river.

_Everyman._ For joy I weep; I would we were there;

But, I pray you, give me cognition

Where dwelleth that holy man, _Confession_.

_Knowledge._ In the house of salvation:

We shall find him in that place,

That shall us comfort by God's grace.

Lo, this is _Confession_; kneel down and ask mercy,

For he is in good conceit with God almighty.

_Everyman._ O glorious fountain that all uncleanness doth clarify,

Wash from me the spots of vices unclean,

That on me no sin may be seen;

I come with _Knowledge_ for my redemption,

Repent with hearty and full contrition;

For I am commanded a pilgrimage to take,

And great accounts before God to make.

Now, I pray you, _Shrift_, mother of salvation,

Help my good deeds for my piteous exclamation.

_Confession._ I know your sorrow well, _Everyman_;

Because with _Knowledge_ ye come to me,

I will you comfort as well as I can,

And a precious jewel I will give thee,

Called penance, wise voider of adversity;

Therewith shall your body chastised be,

With abstinence and perseverance in God's service:

Here shall you receive that scourge of me,

Which is penance strong, that ye must endure,

To remember thy Saviour was scourged for thee

With sharp scourges, and suffered it patiently;

So must thou, or thou scape that painful pilgrimage;

_Knowledge_, keep him in this voyage,

And by that time _Good-Deeds_ will be with thee.

But in any wise, be sure of mercy,

For your time draweth fast, and ye will saved be;

Ask God mercy, and He will grant truly,

When with the scourge of penance man doth him bind,

The oil of forgiveness then shall he find.

_Everyman._ Thanked be God for his gracious work!

For now I will my penance begin;

This hath rejoiced and lighted my heart,

Though the knots be painful and hard within.

_Knowledge._ _Everyman_, look your penance that ye fulfil,

What pain that ever it to you be,

And _Knowledge_ shall give you counsel at will,

How your accounts ye shall make clearly.

_Everyman._ O eternal God, O heavenly figure,

O way of rightwiseness, O goodly vision,

Which descended down in a virgin pure

Because he would _Everyman_ redeem,

Which _Adam_ forfeited by his disobedience:

O blessed Godhead, elect and high-divine,

Forgive my grievous offence;

Here I cry thee mercy in this presence.

O ghostly treasure, O ransomer and redeemer

Of all the world, hope and conductor,

Mirror of joy, and founder of mercy,

Which illumineth heaven and earth thereby,

Hear my clamorous complaint, though it late be;

Receive my prayers; unworthy in this heavy life,

Though I be, a sinner most abominable,

Yet let my name be written in _Moses'_ table;

O _Mary_, pray to the Maker of all thing,

Me for to help at my ending,

And save me from the power of my enemy,

For _Death_ assaileth me strongly;

And, Lady, that I may by means of thy prayer

Of your Son's glory to be partaker,

By the means of his passion I it crave,

I beseech you, help my soul to save.--

_Knowledge_, give me the scourge of penance;

My flesh therewith shall give a quittance:

I will now begin, if God give me grace.

_Knowledge._ _Everyman_, God give you time and space:

Thus I bequeath you in the hands of our Saviour,

Thus may you make your reckoning sure.

_Everyman._ In the name of the Holy Trinity,

My body sore punished shall be:

Take this body for the sin of the flesh;

Also thou delightest to go gay and fresh,

And in the way of damnation thou did me bring;

Therefore suffer now strokes and punishing.

Now of penance I will wade the water clear,

To save me from purgatory, that sharp fire.

_Good-Deeds._ I thank God, now I can walk and go;

And am delivered of my sickness and woe.

Therefore with _Everyman_ I will go, and not spare;

His good works I will help him to declare.

_Knowledge._ Now, _Everyman_, be merry and glad;

Your _Good-Deeds_ cometh now; ye may not be sad;

Now is your _Good-Deeds_ whole and sound,

Going upright upon the ground.

_Everyman._ My heart is light, and shall be evermore;

Now will I smite faster than I did before.

_Good-Deeds._ _Everyman_, pilgrim, my special friend,

Blessed be thou without end;

For thee is prepared the eternal glory.

Ye have me made whole and sound,

Therefore I will bide by thee in every stound.[16]

_Everyman._ Welcome, my _Good-Deeds_; now I hear thy voice,

I weep for very sweetness of love.

_Knowledge._ Be no more sad, but ever rejoice,

God seeth thy living in his throne above;

Put on this garment to thy behove,

Which is wet with your tears,

Or else before God you may it miss,

When you to your journey's end come shall.

_Everyman._ Gentle _Knowledge_, what do you it call?

_Knowledge._ It is a garment of sorrow:

From pain it will you borrow;

Contrition it is,

That getteth forgiveness;

It pleaseth God passing well.

_Good-Deeds._ _Everyman_, will you wear it for your heal?

_Everyman._ Now blessed be _Jesu, Mary's_ Son!

For now have I on true contrition.

And let us go now without tarrying;

_Good-Deeds_, have we clear our reckoning?

_Good-Deeds._ Yea, indeed I have it here.

_Everyman._ Then I trust we need not fear;

Now, friends, let us not part in twain.

_Knowledge._ Nay, _Everyman_, that will we not, certain.

_Good-Deeds._ Yet must thou lead with thee

Three persons of great might.

_Everyman._ Who should they be?

_Good-Deeds._ _Discretion_ and _Strength_ they hight,

And thy _Beauty_ may not abide behind.

_Knowledge._ Also ye must call to mind

Your _Five-wits_ as for your counsellors.

_Good-Deeds._ You must have them ready at all hours.

_Everyman._ How shall I get them hither?

_Knowledge._ You must call them all together,

And they will hear you incontinent.

_Everyman._ My friends, come hither and be present

_Discretion_, _Strength_, my _Five-wits_, and _Beauty_.

_Beauty._ Here at your will we be all ready.

What will ye that we should do?

_Good-Deeds._ That ye would with _Everyman_ go,

And help him in his pilgrimage,

Advise you, will ye with him or not in that voyage?

_Strength._ We will bring him all thither,

To his help and comfort, ye may believe me.

_Discretion._ So will we go with him all together.

_Everyman._ Almighty God, loved thou be,

I give thee laud that I have hither brought

_Strength_, _Discretion_, _Beauty_, and _Five-wits_; lack I nought;

And my _Good-Deeds_, with _Knowledge_ clear,

All be in my company at my will here;

I desire no more to my business.

_Strength._ And I, _Strength_, will by you stand in distress,

Though thou would in battle fight on the ground.

_Five-wits._ And though it were through the world round,

We will not depart for sweet nor sour.

_Beauty._ No more will I unto death's hour,

Whatsoever thereof befall.

_Discretion._ _Everyman_, advise you first of all;

Go with a good advisement and deliberation;

We all give you virtuous monition

That all shall be well.

_Everyman._ My friends, hearken what I will tell:

I pray God reward you in his heavenly sphere.

Now hearken, all that be here,

For I will make my testament

Here before you all present.

In alms half my good I will give with my hands twain

In the way of charity, with good intent,

And the other half still shall remain

In quiet to be returned there it ought to be.

This I do in despite of the fiend of hell

To go quite out of his peril

Ever after and this day.

_Knowledge._ _Everyman_, hearken what I say;

Go to priesthood, I you advise,

And receive of him in any wise

The holy sacrament and ointment together;

Then shortly see ye turn again hither;

We will all abide you here.

_Five-Wits._ Yea, _Everyman_, hie you that ye ready were,

There is no emperor, king, duke, ne baron,

That of God hath commission,

As hath the least priest in the world being;

For of the blessed sacraments pure and benign,

He beareth the keys and thereof hath the cure

For man's redemption, it is ever sure;

Which God for our soul's medicine

Gave us out of his heart with great pine;

Here in this transitory life, for thee and me

The blessed sacraments seven there be,

Baptism, confirmation, with priesthood good,

And the sacrament of God's precious flesh and blood,

Marriage, the holy extreme unction, and penance;

These seven be good to have in remembrance,

Gracious sacraments of high divinity.

_Everyman._ Fain would I receive that holy body

And meekly to my ghostly father I will go.

_Five-wits._ _Everyman_, that is the best that ye can do:

God will you to salvation bring,

For priesthood exceedeth all other thing;

To us Holy Scripture they do teach,

And converteth man from sin heaven to reach;

God hath to them more power given,

Than to any angel that is in heaven;

With five words he may consecrate

God's body in flesh and blood to make,

And handleth his maker between his hands;

The priest bindeth and unbindeth all bands,

Both in earth and in heaven;

Thou ministers all the sacraments seven;

Though we kissed thy feet thou were worthy;

Thou art surgeon that cureth sin deadly:

No remedy we find under God

But all only priesthood.

_Everyman_, God gave priests that dignity,

And setteth them in his stead among us to be;

Thus be they above angels in degree.

_Knowledge._ If priests be good it is so surely;

But when Jesus hanged on the cross with great smart

There he gave, out of his blessed heart,

The same sacrament in great torment:

He sold them not to us, that Lord Omnipotent.

Therefore Saint Peter the apostle doth say

That Jesu's curse hath all they

Which God their Saviour do buy or sell,

Or they for any money do take or tell.

Sinful priests giveth the sinners example bad;

Their children sitteth by other men's fires, I have heard;

And some haunteth women's company,

With unclean life, as lusts of lechery

These be with sin made blind.

_Five-wits._ I trust to God no such may we find;

Therefore let us priesthood honour,

And follow their doctrine for our souls' succour;

We be their sheep, and they shepherds be

By whom we all be kept in surety.

Peace, for yonder I see _Everyman_ come,

Which hath made true satisfaction.

_Good-Deeds._ Methinketh it is he indeed.

_Everyman._ Now Jesu be our alder speed.[17]

I have received the sacrament for my redemption,

And then mine extreme unction:

Blessed be all they that counselled me to take it!

And now, friends, let us go without longer respite;

I thank God that ye have tarried so long.

Now set each of you on this rod your hand,

And shortly follow me:

I go before, there I would be; God be our guide.

_Strength._ _Everyman_, we will not from you go,

Till ye have gone this voyage long.

_Discretion._ I, _Discretion_, will bide by you also.

_Knowledge._ And though this pilgrimage be never so strong,

I will never part you fro:

_Everyman_, I will be as sure by thee

As ever I did by Judas Maccabee.

_Everyman._ Alas, I am so faint I may not stand,

My limbs under me do fold;

Friends, let us not turn again to this land,

Not for all the world's gold,

For into this cave must I creep

And turn to the earth and there to sleep.

_Beauty._ What, into this grave? alas!

_Everyman._ Yea, there shall you consume more and less.

_Beauty._ And what, should I smother here?

_Everyman._ Yea, by my faith, and never more appear.

In this world live no more we shall,

But in heaven before the highest Lord of all.

_Beauty._ I cross out all this; adieu by Saint _John_;

I take my cap in my lap and am gone.

_Everyman._ What, _Beauty_, whither will ye?

_Beauty._ Peace, I am deaf; I look not behind me,

Not and thou would give me all the gold in thy chest.

_Everyman._ Alas, whereto may I trust?

_Beauty_ goeth fast away hie;

She promised with me to live and die.

_Strength._ _Everyman_, I will thee also forsake and deny;

Thy game liketh me not at all.

_Everyman._ Why, then ye will forsake me all.

Sweet _Strength_, tarry a little space.

_Strength._ Nay, sir, by the rood of grace

I will hie me from thee fast,

Though thou weep till thy heart brast.

_Everyman._ Ye would ever bide by me, ye said.

_Strength._ Yea, I have you far enough conveyed;

Ye be old enough, I understand,

Your pilgrimage to take on hand;

I repent me that I hither came.

_Everyman._ _Strength_, you to displease I am to blame;

Will you break promise that is debt?

_Strength._ In faith, I care not;

Thou art but a fool to complain,

You spend your speech and waste your brain;

Go thrust thee into the ground.

_Everyman._ I had wend surer I should you have found.

He that trusteth in his _Strength_

She him deceiveth at the length.

Both _Strength_ and _Beauty_ forsaketh me,

Yet they promised me fair and lovingly.

_Discretion. Everyman_, I will after _Strength_ be gone,

As for me I will leave you alone.

_Everyman._ Why, _Discretion_, will ye forsake me?

_Discretion._ Yea, in faith, I will go from thee,

For when _Strength_ goeth before

I follow after evermore.

_Everyman._ Yet, I pray thee, for the love of the Trinity,

Look in my grave once piteously.

_Discretion._ Nay, so nigh will I not come.

Farewell, every one!

_Everyman._ O all thing faileth, save God alone;

_Beauty_, _Strength_, and _Discretion_;

For when _Death_ bloweth his blast,

They all run from me full fast.

_Five-wits. Everyman_, my leave now of thee I take;

I will follow the other, for here I thee forsake.

_Everyman._ Alas! then may I wail and weep,

For I took you for my best friend.

_Five-wits._ I will no longer thee keep;

Now farewell, and there an end.

_Everyman._ O Jesu, help, all hath forsaken me!

_Good-Deeds._ Nay, _Everyman_, I will bide with thee,

I will not forsake thee indeed;

Thou shalt find me a good friend at need.

_Everyman._ Gramercy, _Good-Deeds_; now may I true friends see;

They have forsaken me every one;

I loved them better than my _Good-Deeds_ alone.

_Knowledge_, will ye forsake me also?

_Knowledge._ Yea, _Everyman_, when ye to death do go:

But not yet for no manner of danger.

_Everyman._ Gramercy, _Knowledge_, with all my heart.

_Knowledge._ Nay, yet I will not from hence depart,

Till I see where ye shall be come.

_Everyman._ Methinketh, alas, that I must be gone,

To make my reckoning and my debts pay,

For I see my time is nigh spent away.

Take example, all ye that this do hear or see,

How they that I loved best do forsake me,

Except my _Good-Deeds_ that bideth truly.

_Good-Deeds._ All earthly things is but vanity:

_Beauty_, _Strength_, and _Discretion_, do man forsake,

Foolish friends and kinsmen, that fair spake,

All fleeth save _Good-Deeds_, and that am I.

_Everyman._ Have mercy on me, God most mighty;

And stand by me, thou Mother and Maid, holy _Mary_.

_Good-Deeds_. Fear not, I will speak for thee.

_Everyman._ Here I cry God mercy.

_Good-Deeds._ Short our end, and minish our pain;

Let us go and never come again.

_Everyman._ Into thy hands, Lord, my soul I commend;

Receive it, Lord, that it be not lost;

As thou me boughtest, so me defend,

And save me from the fiend's boast,

That I may appear with that blessed host

That shall be saved at the day of doom.

_In manus tuas_--of might's most

For ever--_commendo spiritum meum_.

_Knowledge._ Now hath he suffered that we all shall endure;

The _Good-Deeds_ shall make all sure.

Now hath he made ending;

Methinketh that I hear angels sing

And make great joy and melody,

Where _Everyman's_ soul received shall be.

_Angel._ Come, excellent elect spouse to Jesu:

Hereabove thou shalt go

Because of thy singular virtue:

Now the soul is taken the body fro;

Thy reckoning is crystal-clear.

Now shalt thou into the heavenly sphere,

Unto the which all ye shall come

That liveth well before the day of doom.

_Doctor._ This moral men may have in mind;

Ye hearers, take it of worth, old and young,

And forsake pride, for he deceiveth you in the end,

And remember _Beauty_, _Five-wits_, _Strength_, and _Discretion_,

They all at the last do _Everyman_ forsake,

Save his _Good-Deeds_, there doth he take.

But beware, and they be small

Before God, he hath no help at all.

None excuse may be there for _Everyman_:

Alas, how shall he do then?

For after death amends may no man make,

For then mercy and pity do him forsake.

If his reckoning be not clear when he do come,

God will say--_ite maledicti in ignem æternum_.

And he that hath his account whole and sound,

High in heaven he shall be crowned;

Unto which place God bring us all thither

That we may live body and soul together.

Thereto help the Trinity,

Amen, say ye, for saint _Charity_.

THUS ENDETH THIS MORALL PLAY OF EVERYMAN.

THE CHESTER PAGEANT OF THE WATER-LEADERS AND DRAWERS OF THE DEE

CONCERNING NOAH'S DELUGE

CHARACTERS

God

Noah

Shem

Ham

Japhet

Noah's Wife

Shem's Wife

Ham's Wife

Japhet's Wife

THE CHESTER PAGEANT OF THE DELUGE

_God._ I, God, that all the world have wrought

Heaven and Earth, and all of nought,

I see my people, in deed and thought,

Are foully set in sin.

My ghost shall not lodge in any man

That through fleshly liking is my fone,[18]

But till six score years be gone

To look if they will blynne.[19]

Man that I made I will destroy,

Beast, worm, and fowl to fly,

For on earth they me annoy,

The folk that is thereon.

For it harms me so hurtfully

The malice now that can multiply,

That sore it grieveth me inwardly,

That ever I made man.

Therefore Noah, my servant free,

That righteous man art, as I see,

A ship soon thou shalt make thee,

Of trees dry and light.

Little chambers therein thou make

And binding slich[20] also thou take

Within and out, thou not slake

To annoint it through all thy might.

Three hundred cubits it shall be long,

And so of breadth to make it strong,

Of height so, then must thou fonge,[21]

Thus measure it about.

One window work though thy might;

One cubit of length and breadth make it,

Upon the side a door shall fit

For to come in and out.

Eating-places thou make also,

Three roofed chambers, one or two:

For with water I think to stow[22]

Man that I can make.

Destroyed all the world shall be,

Save thou, thy wife, and sons three,

And all their wives, also, with thee,

Shall saved be for thy sake.

_Noah._ Ah, Lord! I thank thee, loud and still,

That to me art in such will,

And spares me and my house to spill

As now I soothly find.

Thy bidding, Lord, I shall fulfil,

And never more thee grieve nor grill[23]

That such grace has sent me till

Among all mankind.

Have done you men and women all;

Help, for aught that may befall,

To work this ship, chamber, and hall,

As God hath bidden us do.

_Shem._ Father, I am already bowne,[24]

An axe I have, by my crown!

As sharp as any in all this town

For to go thereto.

_Ham._ I have a hatchet, wonder keen,

To bite well, as may be seen,

A better ground one, as I ween,

Is not in all this town.

_Japhet._ And I can well make a pin,

And with this hammer knock it in;

Go and work without more din;

And I am ready bowne.[24]

_Noah's Wife._ And we shall bring timber too,

For women nothing else to do

Women be weak to undergo

Any great travail.

_Shem's Wife._ Here is a good hackstock;

On this you must hew and knock:

Shall none be idle in this flock,

Nor now may no man fail.

_Ham's Wife._ And I will go to gather slich,[25]

The ship for to clean and pitch;

Anointed it must be, every stitch,

Board, tree, and pin.

_Japhet's Wife._ And I will gather chips here

To make a fire for you, in fear,

And for to dight[26] your dinner,

Against you come in.

[_Here they make signs as though they were working divers instruments._

_Noah._ Now in the name of God I will begin,

To make the ship that we shall in,

That we be ready for to swim,

At the coming of the flood.

These boards I join together,

To keep us safe from the weather

That we may roam both hither and thither

And safe be from this flood.

Of this tree will I have the mast,

Tied with gables that will last

With a sail yard for each blast

And each thing in its kind.

With topmast high and bowsprit.

With cords and ropes, I hold all fit

To sail forth at the next weete[27]

This ship is at an end.

Wife in this castle we shall be kept:

My children and thou I would in leaped!

_Noah's Wife._ In faith, Noe, I had as lief thou had slept, for all thy

frankishfare,[28]

For I will not do after thy rede.[29]

_Noah._ Good wife, do as I thee bid.

_Noah's Wife._ By Christ not, or I see more need,

Though thou stand all the day and rave.

_Noah._ Lord, that women be crabbed aye!

And never are meek, that I dare say.

This is well seen of me to-day

In witness of you each one.

Good wife, let be all this beere[30]

That thou makest in this place here,

For they all ween thou art master;

And so thou art, by St. John!

_God._ Noah, take thou thy company

And in the ship hie that you be,

For none so righteous man to me

Is now on earth living.

Of clean beasts with thee thou take

Seven and seven, or thou seake,

He and she make to make

Quickly in that thou bring.

Of beasts unclean two and two,

Male and female, without more;

Of clean fowls seven also,

The he and she together.

Of fowles unclean two, and no more;

Of beasts as I said before:

That shall be saved through my lore

Against I send the weather.

Of all meats that must be eaten

Into the ship look there be gotten,

For that no way may be forgotten

And do all this by deene.[31]

To sustain man and beasts therein,

Aye, till the waters cease and blyn.[32]

This world is filled full of sin

And that is now well seen.

Seven days be yet coming,

You shall have space them in to bring;

After that it is my liking

Mankind for to annoy.

Forty days and forty nights,

Rain shall fall for their unrights;

And that I have made through my might,

Now think I to destroy.

_Noah._ Lord, at your bidding I am bayne,[33]

Since none other grace will gain,

It will I fulfil fain,

For gracious I thee find.

A hundred winters and twenty

This ship making tarried have I:

If, through amendment, any mercy

Would fall unto mankind.

Have done, you men and women all.

Hie you, lest this water fall,

That each beast were in his stall

And into ship brought.

Of clean beasts seven shall be;

Of unclean two, this God bade me;

This flood is nigh, well may we see,

Therefore tarry you nought.

_Shem._ Sir, here are lions, leopards in,

Horses, mares, oxen, and swine,

Goats, calves, sheep, and kine,

Here sitten[34] may you see.

_Ham._ Camels, asses, men may find;

Buck, doe, hart and hind,

And beasts of all manner kind.

Here be, as thinks me.

_Japhet._ Take here cats and dogs too,

Otter, fox, fulmart also;

Hares, hopping gaily, can ye

Have kail here for to eat.

_Noah's Wife._ And here are bears, wolves set,

Apes, owls, marmoset;

Weasels, squirrels, and ferret

Here they eat their meat.

_Shem's Wife._ Yet more beasts are in this house!

Here cats come in full crowse,[35]

Here a rat and here a mouse;

They stand nigh together.

_Ham's Wife._ And here are fowls less and more,

Herons, cranes and bittern;

Swans, peacocks, have them before!

Meat for this weather.

_Japhet's Wife._ Here are cocks, kites, crows,

Rooks, ravens, many rows;

Cuckoos, curlews, whoso knows,

Each one in his kind.

And here are doves, ducks, drakes,

Redshanks, running through the lakes,

And each fowl that language makes

In this ship men may find.

[_In the stage direction the sons of Noah are enjoined to mention aloud

the names of the animals which enter; a representation of which, painted

on parchment, is to be carried by the actors._

_Noah._ Wife, come in, why standest thou there?

Thou art ever forward, that I dare swear:

Come on God's half, time it were,

For fear lest that we drown.

_Noah's Wife._ Yea, sir, set up your sail

And row forth with evil heale,

For, without any fail,

I will not out of this town.

But I have my gossips every one,

One foot further I will not go;

They shall not drown, by St. John!

If I may save their life.

They loved me full well, by Christ!

But thou wilt let them in thy chest,

Else row forth, Noah, whither thou list,

And get thee a new wife.

_Noah._ Shem, some love thy mother, 'tis true;

Forsooth, such another I do not know!

_Shem._ Father, I shall set her in, I trow,

Without any fail.

Mother, my father after thee sends,

And bids thee unto yonder ship wend,[36]

Look up and see the wind,

For we be ready to sail.

_Noah's Wife._ Son, go again to him and say

I will not come therein to-day!

_Noah._ Come in, wife, in twenty devils' way,

Or else stand without.

_Ham._ Shall we all fetch her in?

_Noah._ Yea, sons, in Christ's blessing and mine,

I would you hied you betime,

For of this flood I am in doubt.

_Japhet._ Mother, we pray you altogether,

For we are here, your children;

Come into the ship for fear of the weather,

For his love that you bought!

_Noah's Wife._ That I will not for your call,

But if I have my gossips all.

_Gossip._ The flood comes in full fleeting fast,

On every side it broadens in haste;

For fear of drowning I am aghast:

Good gossip, let me come in!

Or let us drink ere we depart,

For oftentimes we have done so;

For at a time thou drinkst a quart,

And so will I ere that I go.

_Shem._ In faith, mother, yet you shall,

Whether you will or not!

[_She goes._

_Noah._ Welcome, wife, into this boat!

_Noah's Wife._ And have them that for thy note![37]

[_Et dat alapam victa._[38]

_Noah._ Aha! marry, this is hot!

It is good to be still.

My children! methinks this boat removes!

Our tarrying here hugely me grieves!

Over the land the water spreads!

God do as he will!

Ah, great God, thou art so good!

Now all this world is in a flood

As I see well in sight.

This window will I close anon,

And into my chamber will I gone

Till this water, so great one,

Be slakèd through thy might.

[_Noah, according to stage directions, is now to shut the windows of the

ark and retire for a short time. He is then to chant the psalm, Salva

me, Domine! and afterwards to open them and look out._

Now forty days are fully gone.

Send a raven I will anon;

If aught were earth, tree, or stone,

Be dry in any place.

And if this fowl come not again

It is a sign, sooth to say,

That dry it is on hill or plain,

And God hath done some grace.

[_A raven is now despatched._

Ah, Lord! wherever this raven lie,

Somewhere is dry well I see;

But yet a dove, by my lewtye[39]

After I will send.

Thou wilt turn again to me

For of all fowls that may fly

Thou art most meek and hend.[40]

[_The stage direction enjoins here that another dove shall be ready with

an olive branch in its mouth, which is to be dropped by means of a cord

into Noah's hand._

Ah Lord! blessed be thou aye,

That me hast comforted thus to-day!

By this sight, I may well say

This flood begins to cease.

My sweet dove to me brought has

A branch of olive from some place;

This betokeneth God has done us some grace,

And is a sign of peace.

Ah, Lord! honoured must thou be!

All earth dries now I see;

But yet, till thou command me,

Hence will I not hie.

All this water is away,

Therefore as soon as I may

Sacrifice I shall do in faye[41]

To thee devoutly.

_God._ Noah, take thy wife anon,

And thy children every one,

Out of the ship thou shalt gone,

And they all with thee.

Beasts and all that can flie,

Out anon they shall hie,

On earth to grow and multiply:

I will that it be so.

_Noah._ Lord, I thank thee, through thy might,

Thy bidding shall be done in hight,[42]

And, as fast as I may dight[43]

I will do thee honour.

And to thee offer sacrifice,

Therefore comes in all wise,

For of these beasts that be his

Offer I will this stower.[44]

[_Then leaving the ark with his whole family, he shall take the animals

and birds, make an offering of them, and set out on his way._

Lord God, in majesty,

That such grace has granted me,

When all was borne safe to be,

Therefore now I am boune.[45]

My wife, my children, my company,

With sacrifice to honour thee,

With beasts, fowls, as thou may see,

I offer here right soon.

_God._ Noah, to me thou art full able,

And thy sacrifice acceptable,

For I have found thee true and stable,

On thee now must I myn.[46]

Curse earth will I no more

That man's sin it grieves sore,

For of youth man full of yore

Has been inclined to sin.

You shall now grow and multiply

And earth you edify,

Each beast and fowl that may flie

Shall be afraid for you.

And fish in sea that may flitt

Shall sustain you--I you behite[47]

To eat of them you not lett[48]

That clean be you may know.

There as you have eaten before

Grasses and roots, since you were born,

Of clean beasts, less and more,

I give you leave to eat.

Save blood and fish both in fear

Of wrong dead carrion that is here,

Eat not of that in no manner,

For that aye you shall lett.[49]

Manslaughter also you shall flee,

For that is not pleasant to me

That sheds blood, he or she

Ought where among mankind.

That sheds blood, his blood shall be

And vengeance have, that men shall see;

Therefore now beware now all ye

You fall not in that sin.

And forward now with you I make

And all thy seed, for thy sake,

Of such vengeance for to slake,

For now I have my will.

Here I promise thee a behest,[50]

That man, woman, fowl, nor beast

With water while the world shall last,

I will no more spill.

My bow between you and me

In the firmament shall be,

By very tokens, that you may see

That such vengeance shall cease.

That man, nor woman, shall never more

Be wasted by water, as is before,

But for sin that grieveth sore,

Therefore this vengeance was.

Where clouds in the welkin

That each bow shall be seen,

In token that my wrath or tene[51]

Should never this wroken be.

The string is turned toward you,

And toward me bent is the bow,

That such weather shall never show,

And this do I grant to thee.

My blessing now I give thee here,

To thee Noah, my servant dear;

For vengeance shall no more appear;

And now farewell, my darling dear!

THE CHESTER PAGEANT OF THE BARBERS AND WAX-CHANDLERS REPRESENTING

ABRAHAM, MELCHISEDEC, AND ISAAC

CHARACTERS

God

Abraham

Lot

Isaac

Melchisedec

A Knight

Expositor

A Messenger

THE CHESTER PAGEANT OF ABRAHAM, MELCHISEDEC, AND ISAAC

Abraham, _newly returned from the slaughter of the four kings, meets_

Melchisedec _riding_.

PRELUDE

_Messenger._ All peace, Lordings, that be present,

And hearken now with good intent,

How Noah away from us he went

With all his company;

And Abraham, through God's grace,

He is come forth into this place,

And you will give him room and space

To tell you his storye.

This play, forsooth, begin shall he,

In worship of the Trinity,

That you may all hear and see

What shall be done to-day.

My name is Gobbet-on-the-Green,

No longer here I may be seen,

Farewell, my Lordings, all by dene[52]

For letting[53] of your play.

[_Exit._

[_Enter Abraham._]

_Abraham._ Ah! thou high God, granter of grace

That ending nor beginning has,

I thank thee, Lord, that to me has

To-day given victory.

Lot, my brother, that taken was,

I have restored him in this case,

And brought him home into his place

Through thy might and mastery.

To worship thee I will not wond,[54]

That four kings of uncouth land

To-day hast sent into my hand,

And of riches great array.

Therefore of all that I can win

To give thee tithe I will begin,

When I the city soon come in,

And share with thee my prey.

Melchisedec, that here king is

And God's priest also, I wis,

The tithe I will give him of this,

As just is, what I do.

God who has sent me victory

O'er four kings graciously,

With him my spoil share will I,

The city, when I come to.

_Lot._ Abraham, brother, I thank it thee,

Who this day hast delivered me

From enemies' hands, and their postye,[55]

And saved me from woe!

Therefore I will give tithing

Of my goods while I am living,

And now also of his sending,

Tithe I will give also.

[_Then comes a knight to Melchisedec._

_Knight._ My lord, the king's tidings aright

Your heart for to gladden and light:

Abraham hath slain in fight

Four kings, since he went.

Here he will be this same night,

And riches with him enough dight.

I heard him thank God Almight

For grace he had him sent.

_Melchisedec_ (_stretching his hand to heaven_). Ah! blessed be God that

is but one!

Against Abraham I will be gone

Worshipfully, and then anon,

My office to fulfil,

Will present him with bread and wine,

For, grace of God is him within;

Speeds fast for love mine!

For this is God's will.

_Knight_ (_with a cup_). Sir, here is wine withouten were,[56]

And thereto bread, both white and clear,

To present him in good manere

That so us helped has.

_Melchisedec._ To God, I know he is full dear,

For of all things his prayer

He hath, without danger,

And specially great grace.

_Melchisedec_ (_coming to Abraham and offering him a cup

of wine and bread on a plate_). Abraham, welcome must thou be,

God's grace is fully in thee,

Blessed ever must thou be

That enemies so can make.

I have brought, as thou may'st see,

Bread and wine for thy degree;

Receive this present now from me,

And that I thee beseke.[57]

_Abraham._ Sir king, welcome in good say,

Thy present is welcome to my pay.

God has helpéd me to-day

Unworthy though I were.

He shall have part of my prey

That I won since I went away.

Therefore to thee thou take it may

The tenth I offer here.

[_He delivers to the King a laden horse._

_Melchisedec._ And your present, sir, take I,

And honour it devoutly,

For much good it may signify

In time that is coming.

Therefore horse, harness, and peryé,[58]

As falls to my dignity,

The tithe of it I take of thee,

And receive thy off'ring.

[_Abraham receives the bread and wine, and Melchisedec the laden horse

as tithe from Lot._

_Lot._ And I will offer with good intent

Of such goods as God hath me sent

To Melchisedec here present,

As God's will is to be.

Abraham, my brother, offered has;

And so will I with God's grace:

This royal cup before your face,

Receive it now of me.

[_Lot offers the wine and bread, which Melchisedec receives._

_Melchisedec._ Sir, your off'ring welcome is,

And well I know forsooth, I wis,

That fully God's will it is

That is now done to-day.

Go we together to my city,

And now God heartily thank we

That helps us aye through his postye,[59]

For so we full well may.

_Expositor_ (_riding_). Lordings, what may this signify,

I will expound openly

That all, standing hereby,

May know what this may be.

This off'ring, I say verament,[60]

Signifieth the new Testament,

That now is used with good intent

Throughout all Christianity.

In the old law without leasing,[61]

When these two good men were living,

Of beasts was all their off'ring

And eke their sacrament.

But since Christ died on the rood-tree,

With bread and wine him worship we,

And on Shrove Thursday in his maundy[62]

Was his commandment.

But for this thing used should be

Afterward as now done we,

In signification, believe you me,

Melchisedec did so;

And tithes-making, as you see here,

Of Abraham beginning were.

Therefore he was to God full dear,

And so were they both too.

By Abraham understand I may

The father of heaven in good fay,[63]

Melchisedec a priest to his pay

To minister that sacrament

That Christ ordained on Shrove Thursday

In bread and wine to honour him aye;

This signifieth, the truth to say,

Melchisedec's present.

_God._ Abraham, my servant, I say to thee,

Thy help and succour I will be,

For thy good deed much pleaseth me,

I tell thee surely.

_Abraham._ Lord, one thing that thou wilt see,

That I pray after with heart free,

Grant me, Lord, through thy postye:[64]

Some fruit of my body!

I have no child, foul nor fair,

Save my Nurry[65] to be my heir,

That makes me greatly to apayre.[66]

On me, Lord, have mercy!

_God._ My friend, Abraham, leave thou me.

Thy Nurry thine heir shall not be,

But one son I shall send thee,

Begotten of thy body.

Abraham, do as I thee say:

Look up and tell,[67] and if thou may,

Stars standing on the stray;

That impossible were.

No more shalt thou, for no need,

Number of thy body the seed

That thou shalt have withouten dreed,

Thou art to me so dear.

Wherefore, Abraham, servant free,

Look that thou be true to me,

And fore-word here I make with thee

Thy seed to multiply.

So much more further shalt thou be,

Kings of thy seed men shall see,

And one child of great degree

All mankind shall forby.[68]

I will that from henceforth alway

Each knave's child on the eighth day

Be circumcised, as I say,

And thou thyself full soon;

And who circumcised not is

Forsaken shall be by me, I wis;

For disobedient that man is,

Therefore look that this be done.

_Abraham._ Lord, already in good fay[69]

Blessed be thou, ever and aye;

For that men truly know may

Thy folk from other men,

Circumcised they shall be all

Anon for aught that may befall.

I thank thee, Lord, thy own thrall,

Kneeling on my knee'n.

_Expositor._ Lordings all take good intent

What betokens this commandment:

This was some time a sacrament

In th' old law truly ta'en.

As followeth now verament,[70]

So was this in the old Testament;

But when Christ, away it went,

And baptism then began.

Also God promises here

To Abraham, his servant dear,

So much seed that in no manere

Number'd it might be.

And one seed, mankind to forby,

That was Jesus Christ witterlye[71]

For of his kind was our Lady,

And so also was he.

_God._ Abraham, my servant Abraham.

_Abraham._ Lo, Lord, already here I am.

_God._ Take Isaac, thy son by name

That thou lovest best of all

And in sacrifice offer him to me

Upon that hill, beside thee.

Abraham, I will that it so be

For aught that may befall.

_Abraham._ My lord, to thee is my intent

Ever to be obedient,

That son that thou to me hast sent,

Offer I will to thee.

And fulfil thy commandment

With hearty will, as I am kent

High God, Lord Omnipotent,

Thy bidding done shall be.

My menye[72] and my children each one

Lingers at home, both all and one,

Save Isaac shall with me gone

To a hill here beside.

* * * * *

[_Enter Isaac._

_Abraham._ Make thee ready, my darling,

For we must do a little thing.

This wood upon thy back thou bring,

We must not long abide.

A sword and fire I will take,

For sacrifice I must make;

God's bidding will I not forsake,

But aye obedient be.

_Isaac._ Father, I am all ready

To do your bidding meekly,

To bear this wood full bound am I,

As you command me.

_Abraham._ O Isaac, Isaac, my darling dear,

My blessing now I give thee here.

Take up this faggot with good cheer,

And on thy back it bring,

And fire with me I will take.

_Isaac._ Your bidding I will not forsake,

Father, I will never slake[73]

To fulfil your bidding.

[_Isaac takes the wood on his back, and they set out for the hill._

_Abraham._ Now Isaac, son, go we our way

To yonder mountain, if that we may.

_Isaac._ My dear father, I will essay

To follow you full fain.

_Abraham._ Oh! my heart will break in three,

To hear thy words I have pity.

As thou wilt, Lord, so must it be:

To thee I will be bane.

Lay down thy faggot my own son dear!

_Isaac._ All ready, father, lo, it is here.

But why make you so heavy cheer?

Are you anything adread?

Father, if it be your will,

Where is the beast that we shall kill?

_Abraham._ There is none, son, upon this hill

That I see here in this stead.

_Isaac._ Father, I am full sore afraid

To see you bare this naked sword.

I hope for all middle-yard[74]

You will not slay your child.

_Abraham._ Dread thee not, my child, I read

Our Lord will send of his godhead

Some kind of beast in thy stead,

Either tame or wild.

_Isaac._ Father, tell me, or I go,

Whether I shall have harm or no.

_Abraham._ Ah, dear God, that me is woe!

Thou bursts my heart in sunder.

_Isaac._ Father, tell me of this case,

Why you your drawn sword has,

And bare it naked in this place;

Thereof I have great wonder.

_Abraham._ Isaac, son, peace! I pray thee,

Thou breaks my heart even in three.

_Isaac._ I pray you, father, leave nothing from me,

But tell me what you think.

_Abraham._ O Isaac, Isaac, I must thee kill.

_Isaac._ Alas! father, is that your will,

Your own child here for to spill,

Upon this hill's brink?

If I have trespassed in any degree,

With a rod you may beat me;

Put up your sword, if your will be,

For I am but a child.

_Abraham._ Oh, my son! I am sorry

To do to thee this great annoy,

God's commandment do must I,

His works are aye full mild.

_Isaac._ Would God, my mother were here with me!

She would kneel upon her knee,

Praying you, father, if it might be,

For to save my life.

_Abraham._ Oh, comely creature, but I thee kill,

I grieve my God, and that full ill:

I may not work against his will

But ever obedient be.

O Isaac, son, to thee I say:

God has commanded me this day

Sacrifice--this is no nay--

To make of thy body.

_Isaac._ Is it God's will I should be slain?

_Abraham._ Yea, son, it is not for to layne;[75]

To his bidding I will be bane,[76]

Ever to his pleasing.

But that I do this doleful deed,

My Lord will not quit[77] me my meed.[78]

_Isaac._ Marry! father, God forbid

But you do your off'ring.

Father, at home your sons you shall find

That you must love by course of kind.

Be I once out of your mind,

Your sorrow may soon cease,

But you must do God's bidding.

Father, tell my mother of nothing.

_Abraham._ For sorrow I may my hands wring,

Thy mother I cannot please.

O Isaac, blessed may'st thou be!

Almost my wit I lose for thee,

The blood of thy body so free

I feel full loth to shed.

_Isaac._ Father, since you must needs do so,

Let it pass lightly and overgo;

Kneeling on my knees two,

Your blessing on me spread!

_Abraham._ My blessing, dear son, give I thee

And thy mother's with heart so free;

The blessing of the Trinity,

My dear son, on thee light!

_Isaac._ Father, I pray you hide mine een

That I see not your sword so keen;

Your stroke, father, I would not seen,

Lest I against it thrill.

_Abraham._ My dear son Isaac, speak no more,

Thy words make my heart full sore.

_Isaac._ O dear father, wherefore, wherefore?

Since I must needs be dead,

One thing I would you pray:

Since I must die the death this day,

As few strokes as you may,

When you smite off my head.

_Abraham._ Thy meekness, child, makes me afray;[79]

My song may be "Well away!"

_Isaac._ O, dear father, do away

Your making so mickle moan!

Now truly, father, this talking

Doth but make long tarrying.

I pray you come and make ending

And let me hence gone!

_Abraham._ Come hither, my child, that art so sweet:

Thou must be bound now, hand and feet.

[_Binding Isaac._

_Isaac._ Ah, father! we must no more meet

By aught that I can see,

But do with me just as you will,

I must obey, and that is skill,

God's commandment to fulfil,

For needs so must it be.

Upon the purpose that have set you,

Forsooth, father, I will not let you,

But evermore unto you bow,

While that I may.

Father, greet well my brethren young,

And pray my mother for her blessing,

I come no more under her wing:

Farewell for ever and aye!

But, father, I cry you mercy,

Of that I have trespassed to thee,

Forgiven, father, that it may be

Until doom's day.

_Abraham._ My dear son, let be thy moans;

My child, thou grievedst me but once.

Blessed be thou body and bones,

And I forgive thee here.

Lo, my dear son, here shalt thou lie;

Unto my work now must I hie,

I had as lief myself to die

As thou, my darling dear.

_Isaac._ Father, if you be to me kind,

About my head a kercher[80] bind,

And let me lightly out of your mind,

And soon that I were sped.

_Abraham._ Farewell, my sweet son of grace!

_Isaac._ I pray you, father, turn down my face

A little while, while you have space,

For I am full sore adread.

_Abraham._ To do this deed I am sorry.

_Isaac._ Yea, Lord, to thee I call and cry:

On my soul may thou have mercy,

Heartily I thee pray.

_Abraham._ Lord, I would fain work thy will.

This young innocent that lies so still

Full loth were I him to kill

By any manner of way.

_Isaac._ My dear father, I you pray,

Let me take my clothes away,

For shedding blood on them to-day,

At my last ending.

_Abraham._ Heart! if thou would'st break in three,

Thou shalt never master me,

I will no longer let[81] for thee,

My God I may not grieve.

_Isaac._ Ah, mercy, father! why tarry you so?

Smite off my head, and let me go!

I pray you, rid me of my woe;

For now I take my leave.

_Abraham._ Ah, son! my heart will break in three

To hear thee speak such words to me.

Jesus, on me thou have pitý

That I have most in mind!

_Isaac._ Now, father, I see that I shall die,

Almighty God in majestý,

My soul I offer unto thee:

Lord, to it be kind.

[_Abraham takes the sword, as if to kill his son, when two angels

appear. One of them seizes the point of the sword, and says,_

_1st Angel._ Abraham, my servant dear!

_Abraham._ Lo, Lord! I am already here.

_1st Angel._ Lay not thy sword in any manner

On Isaac, thy dear darling!

Nay! do thou him no annoy!

For thou dreadest God; well, see I,

That of thy son hast no mercy

To fulfil his bidding.

_2nd Angel._ And for his bidding thou doest aye,

And spares neither, for fear nor fray,

To do thy son to death to-day,

Isaac to thee full dear,

Therefore God has sent by me in fay,[82]

A lamb that is both good and gay

Into this place as thou see may,

Lo! it is right here.

_Abraham._ Ah, Lord of heaven and king of bliss!

Thy bidding I shall do, I wis.

Sacrifice here to me sent is

And all, Lord, through thy grace.

A horned wether here I see,

Among the briars tied is he,

To thee offered it shall be

Anon, right in this place.

[_Let Abraham sacrifice the ram._

_God._ Abraham, by myself I swear,

For thou hast been obedient ever,

And spared not thy son so dear,

To fulfil my bidding,

Thou shalt be blessed, thou art worthy,

Thy seed I shall multiply,

As stars and sand so many het I,[83]

Of thy body coming.

Of enemies thou shalt have power,

And thy blood also in fear,

For thou has been meek and boneer[84]

To do as I thee bade.

And all nations leave thou me,

Blessed evermore shall be

Through fruit that shall come of thee

And saved through thy seed.

THE EPILOGUE

_Expositor._ Lordings, the signification

Of this deed of devotion,

An you will, it is shewn,

May turn you to much good.

This deed you see done in this place,

In example of Jesus done it was,

That for to win mankind grace

Was sacrificed on the rood.

By Abraham you may understand

The Father of heaven that can fand[85]

With his son's blood to break that band

The devil had brought us to.

By Isaac understand I may

Jesus who was obedient aye,

His father's will to work alway,

His death to undergo.

THE WAKEFIELD SECOND SHEPHERDS' PLAY

CHARACTERS

1st Shepherd

2nd Shepherd

3rd Shepherd

Mac, _the Sheep-stealer_

Mac's Wife, Gill

Mary

The Child Christ

An Angel

THE WAKEFIELD SECOND NATIVITY PLAY

_1st Shepherd._ Lord! what, these weathers are cold, and I am ill happed;

I am near hand-dold,[86] so long have I napped;

My legs bend and fold, my fingers are chapped,

It is not as I would, for I am all lapped

In sorrow.

In storms and tempest,

Now in the east, now in the west,

Woe is him has never rest,

Mid day nor morrow.

But we silly shepherds, that walk upon the moor,

In faith, we are near hands out of the door;

No wonder, as it stands, if we be poor,

For the tilth of our lands lies fallow as the floor,

We are so lamed,

So taxed and shamed,

We are made hand-tamed,

With these gentlery-men.

Thus they rieve us of rest, Our Lady them wary,

These men that are lord-fest,[87] they cause the plough tarry.

That men say is for the best, we find it contrary,

Thus are husbands[88] opprest, in point to miscarry,

In life.

Thus hold they us under,

Thus they bring us in blunder,

It were great wonder,

And ever should we thrive.

For may he get a paint sleeve,[89] or a brooch now on days,

Woe is he that shall grieve, or once again says,

Dare no man him reprieve, what mast'ry he has,

And yet may none believe one word that he says--

No letter.

He can make purveyance,

With boast and bragance,[90]

And all through maintenance,

Of men that are greater.

There shall come a swain, as proud as a po,[91]

He must borrow my wain, my plough also,

Then I am full fain to grant or he go.

Thus live we in pain, anger, and woe,

By night and day;

He must have if he longéd

If I should forgang[92] it,

I were better be hangéd

Than once say him nay.

It does me good, as I walk thus by mine own,

Of this world for to talk in manner of moan

To my sheep will I stalk and hearken anon

There abide on a balk, or sit on a stone

Full soon.

For I trow, pardie!

True men if they be,

We get more company

Or it be noon.

_2nd Shepherd._ "Beniste"[93] and "Dominus!" what may this bemean?

Why fares this world thus, oft have we not seen.

Lord, these weathers are spitous,[94] and the weather full keen;

And the frost so hideous they water mine een,

No lie.

Now in dry, now in wet,

Now in snow, now in sleet,

When my shoon freeze to my feet

It is not all easy.

But as far as I ken, or yet as I go,

We silly wed-men dree mickle woe;[95]

We have sorrow then and then, it falls often so,

Silly capyl, our hen, both to and fro

She cackles,

But begin she to croak,

To groan or to cluck,

Woe is him, say of our cock,

For he is in the shackles.

These men that are wed, have not all their will,

When they are full hard sted,[96] they sigh full still;

God wait they are led full hard and full ill,

In bower nor in bed they say not there till

This tide.

My part have I found,

My lesson is learn'd,

Woe is him that is bound,

For he must abide.

But now late in our lives, a marvel to me,

That I think my heart rives,[97] such wonders to see,

What that destiny drives it should so be,

Some men will have two wives, and some men three,

In store.

Some are woe that have any;

But so far ken I,

Woe is he who has many,

For he feels it sore.

But young men of wooing, for God that you bought,

Be well ware of wedding, and think in your thought

"Had I wist" is a thing it serves ye of nought;

Mickle still mourning has wedding home brought,

And griefs,

With many a sharp shower,

For thou may catch in an hour

That shall serve thee full sour

As long as thou lives.

For as read I epistle, I have one to my fear

As sharp as a thistle, as rough as a brere.[98]

She is browed like a bristle with a sour lenten cheer;

Had she once wet her whistle she could sing full clear

Her pater-noster.

She is as great as a whale,

She has a gallon of gall;

By him that died for us all!

I would I had run till I lost her.

_1st Shepherd._ God look over the row, full deafly ye stand.

_2nd Shepherd._ Yea, the devil in thy maw!--so tariand,[99]

Saw thou aught now of Daw?

_1st Shepherd._ Yea, on a lea land

Heard I him blow, he comes here at hand,

Not far;

Stand still.

_2nd Shepherd._ Why?

_1st Shepherd._ For he comes here, hope I.

_2nd Shepherd._ He will make us both a lie,

But if we beware.

_3rd Shepherd._ Christ's cross me speed, and Saint Nicholas!

Thereof had I need, it is worse than it was.

Whoso could take heed, and let the world pass,

It is ever in dread and brittle as glass,

And slithers,[100]

This world fared never so,

With marvels mo and mo,[101]

Now in weal, now in woe,

And all things withers.

Was never since Noah's flood such floods seen,

Winds and rains so rude, and storms so keen,

Some stammered, some stood in doubt, as I ween,

Now God turn all to good, I say as I mean,

For ponder.

These floods so they drown

Both in fields and in town,

They bear all down,

And that is a wonder.

We that walk in the nights, our cattle to keep,

We see sudden sights, when other men sleep:

Yet methinks my heart lights, I see shrews peep,

Ye are two, all wights,[102] I will give my sheep

A turn.

But full ill have I meant,

As I walk on this bent,[103]

I may lightly repent,

My toes if I spurn.

Ah, sir, God you save, and master mine!

A drink fain would I have and somewhat to dine.

_1st Shepherd._ Christ's curs, my knave, thou art a lazy hyne.[104]

_2nd Shepherd._ What, the boy list rave. Abide until syne[105]

We have made it.

I'll thrift on thy pate!

Though the shrew came late

Yet is he in state

To dine if he had it.

_3rd Shepherd._ Such servants as I, that sweats and swinks,

Eats our bread full dry, and that me forthinks;

We are oft wet and weary when master men winks,

Yet comes full lately both dinners and drinks,

But neatly.

Both our dame and our sire,

When we have run in the mire,

They can nip at our hire,[106]

And pay us full lately.

But hear my truth, master, for the fare that ye make

I shall do thereafter work, as I take;

I shall do a little, sir, and strive and still lack,

For yet lay my supper never on my stomack

In fields.

Whereto should I threap?[107]

With my staff can I leap,

And men say "light cheap

Letherly for yields."[108]

_1st Shepherd._ Thou wert an ill lad, to ride on wooing

With a man that had but little of spending.

_2nd Shepherd._ Peace, boy!--I bade: no more jangling,

Or I shall make thee afraid, by the heaven's king!

With thy gawds;

Where are our sheep, boy, we scorn?

_3rd Shepherd._ Sir, this same day at morn,

I them left in the corn,

When they rang lauds;

They have pasture good, they cannot go wrong.

_1st Shepherd._ That is right by the rood, these nights are long,

Yet I would, or we yode,[109] one gave us a song.

_2nd Shepherd._ So I thought as I stood, to mirth us among.[110]

_3rd Shepherd._ I grant.

_1st Shepherd._ Let me sing the tenory.

_2nd Shepherd._ And I the treble so high.

_3rd Shepherd._ Then the mean falls to me;

Let see how ye chaunt.

[_Mac enters, with a cloak thrown over his smock._

_Mac._ Now, Lord, for thy names seven, that made both moon and starns[111]

Well more than I can even: thy will, Lord, of my thorns;

I am all uneven, that moves oft my horns,[112]

Now would God I were in heaven, for there weep no bairns

So still.

_1st Shepherd._ Who is that pipes so poor?

_Mac._ Would God ye knew how I fare!

Lo, a man that walks on the moor,

And has not all his will.

_2nd Shepherd._ Mac, where hast thou gone? Tell us tidings.

_3rd Shepherd._ Is he come? Then each one take heed to his things.

[_Takes his cloak from him._

_Mac._ What, I am a yeoman, I tell you, of the king;

The self and the same, sent from a great lording,

And sich.[113]

Fy on you, get thee hence,

Out of my presence,

I must have reverence,

Why, who be ich?[114]

_1st Shepherd._ Why make ye it so quaint? Mac, ye do wrong.

_2nd Shepherd._ But, Mac, list, ye saint? I trow that ye sang.

_3rd Shepherd._ I trow the shrew can paint, the devil might him hang!

_Mac._ I shall make complaint, and make you all to thwang.[115]

At a word,

And tell even how ye doth.

_1st Shepherd._ But, Mac, is that sooth?

Now take out that southern tooth,

And set in a tord.

_2nd Shepherd._ Mac, the devil in your ee,[116] a stroke would I lend you.

_3rd Shepherd._ Mac, know ye not me? By God, I could tell you.

_Mac._ God look you all three, methought I had seen you.

Ye are a fair company.

_1st Shepherd._ Can ye now moan you?

_2nd Shepherd._ Shrew, jape![117]

Thus late as thou goes,

What will men suppose?

And thou hast an ill noise[118]

Of stealing of sheep.

_Mac._ And I am true as steel all men wait,

But a sickness I feel, that holds me full haytt,[119]

My belly fares not well, it is out of its state.

_3rd Shepherd._ Seldom lies the devil dead by the gate.

_Mac._ Therefore

Full sore am I and ill,

If I stand stock still;

I eat not a nedyll[120]

This month and more.

_1st Shepherd._ How fares thy wife? By my hood, how fares she?

_Mac._ Lies weltering! by the rood! by the fire, lo!

And a house full of brood,[121] she drinks well too,

Ill speed other good that she will do;

But so

Eats as fast as she can,

And each year that comes to man,

She brings forth a lakan,[122]

And some years two.

But were I not more gracious, and richer by far,

I were eaten out of house, and of harbour,

Yet is she a foul dowse, if ye come near.

There is none that trows, nor knows, a war[123]

Than ken I.

Now will ye see what I proffer,

To give all in my coffer

To-morrow next to offer,

Her head mass-penný.

_2nd Shepherd._ I wot so forwaked[124] is none in this shire:

I would sleep if I taked less to my hire.

_3rd Shepherd._ I am cold and naked, and would have a fire.

_1st Shepherd._ I am weary for-raked,[125] and run in the mire.

Wake thou!

_2nd Shepherd._ Nay, I will lie down-by,

For I must sleep truly.

_3rd Shepherd._ As good a man's son was I

As any of you.

But, Mac, come hither, between us shalt thou lie.

_Mac._ Then might I stay you bedene[126]: of that ye would say,--

No dread.

From my head to my toe

_Mantis tuas commendo,

Pontio Pilato._[127]

Christ's cross me speed,

[_He rises, the shepherds sleeping, and says:_

Now were time for a man, that lacks what he wold,

To stalk privately then into a fold,

And namely to work then, and be not too bold,

He might abide the bargain, if it were told

At the ending.

Now were time for to revel;

But he needs good counsel

That fain would fare well,

And has but little spending.

[_Mac works a spell on them._

But about you a circle, as round as a moon,

Till I have done that I will, till that it be noon,

That ye lie stone-still, till that I have done,

And I shall say there till of good words a foyn[128]

On height;

Over your heads my hand I lift,

Out go your eyes, fore to do your sight,

But yet I must make better shift,

And it be right.

What, Lord? they sleep hard! that may ye all hear;

Was I never a shepherd, but now will I leer[129]

If the flock be scared, yet shall I nap near,

Who draws hitherward, now mends our cheer,

From sorrow:

A fat sheep I dare say,

A good fleece dare I lay,

Eft white when I may,

But this will I borrow.

[_He steals a sheep and goes home._

_Mac_ (_at his own door_). How, Gill, art thou in? Get us some light.

_His Wife._ Who makes such din this time of night?

I am set for to spin: I hope not I might

Rise a penny to win: I shrew them on height.

So fares

A housewife that has been

To be raised thus between:

There may no note be seen

For such small chares.[130]

_Mac._ Good wife, open the hek.[131] See'st thou not what I bring?

_Wife._ I may let thee draw the sneck. Ah! come in, my sweeting.

_Mac._ Yea, thou dost not reck of my long standing.

_Wife._ By thy naked neck, thou art like for to hang.

_Mac._ Go away:

I am worthy of my meat,

For in a strait can I get

More than they that swinck[132] and sweat

All the long day,

Thus it fell to my lot, Gill, I had such grace.

_Wife._ It were a foul blot to be hanged for the case.

_Mac._ I have scaped, Jelott, oft as hard as glass.

_Wife._ "But so long goes the pot to the water," men says,

"At last comes it home broken."

_Mac._ Well know I the token,

But let it never be spoken;

But come and help fast.

I would he were flayn;[133] I list we'll eat:

This twelvemonth was I not so fain of one sheep-meat.

_Wife._ Come they if he be slain, and hear the sheep bleat?

_Mac._ Then might I be ta'en: that were a cold sweat.

Go bar

The gate door.

_Wife._ Yes, Mac,

For and they come at thy back.

_Mac._ Then might I pay for all the pack:

The devil of them war![134]

_Wife._ A good bowrde[135] have I spied, since thou can none:

Here shall we him hide, till they be gone;

In my cradle abide. Let me alone,

And I shall lie beside in childbed and groan.

_Mac._ Thou red?[136]

And I shall say thou wast light

Of a knave child this night.

_Wife._ Now well is my day bright,

That ever I was bred.

This is a good guise and a far cast;

Yet a woman's advice helps at the last.

I care never who spies: again go thou fast.

_Mac._ But I come or they rise; else blows a cold blast--

I will go sleep. [_Mac goes back to the field._

Yet sleep all this menye,[137]

And I shall go stalk privily,

As it had never been I

That carried their sheep.

_1st Shepherd._ _Resurrex à mortrius_: have hold my hand.

_Judas carnas dominus_, I may not well stand:

My foot sleeps, by Jesus, and I water fastand!

I thought that we laid us full near England.

_2nd Shepherd._ Ah ye!

Lord, how I have slept weel!

As fresh as an eel,

As light I me feel

As leaf on a tree.

_3rd Shepherd._ Benste![138] be herein! So my head quakes

My heart is out of skin, what so it makes.

Who makes all this din? So my brow aches,

To the door will I win. Hark fellows, wakes!

We were four:

See ye anything of Mac now?

_1st Shepherd._ We were up ere thou.

_2nd Shepherd._ Man, I give God a vow,

Yet heed he nowhere.

_3rd Shepherd._ Methought he was wrapped in a wolf's-skin.

_1st Shepherd._ So are many happed, now namely within.

_2nd Shepherd._ When we had long napped; methought with a gin

A fat sheep he trapped, but he made no din.

_3rd Shepherd._ Be still:

Thy dream makes thee wood:[139]

It is but phantom, by the rood.

_1st Shepherd._ Now God turn all to good,

If it be his will.

_2nd Shepherd._ Rise, Mac, for shame! thou ly'st right long.

_Mac._ Now Christ, his holy name be us amang,

What is this? for Saint James!--I may not well gang.

I trust I be the same. Ah! my neck has lain wrang

Enough

Mickle thank, since yester-even

Now, by Saint Stephen!

I was flayed with a sweven,--[140]

My heart out of slough.[141]

I thought Gill began to croak, and travail full sad,

Well nigh at the first cock,--of a young lad,

For to mend our flock: then be I never glad.

To have two on my rock,--more than ever I had.

Ah, my head!

A house full of young tharmes,[142]

The devil knock out their harnes![143]

Woe is he has many bairns,

And thereto little bread.

I must go home, by your leave, to Gill as I thought.

I pray you look my sleeve, that I steal nought:

I am loth you to grieve, or from you take aught.

_3rd Shepherd._ Go forth, ill might thou chefe,[144] now would I we sought,

This morn,

That we had all our store.

_1st Shepherd._ But I will go before,

Let us meet.

_2nd Shepherd._ Whor?[145]

_3rd Shepherd._ At the crooked thorn.

_Mac (at his own door again)._ Undo this door! who is here? How long shall

I stand?

_Wife._ Who makes such a stir?--Now walk in the wenyand.[146]

_Mac._ Ah, Gill, what cheer?--It is I, Mac, your husband.

_His Wife._ Then may we be here,--the devil in a band,

Sir Gile.

Lo, he commys[147] with a lot,

As he were holden in the throat.

I may not sit, work or not

A hand long while.

_Mac._ Will ye hear what fare she makes--to get her a glose,[148]

And do naught but lakes[149]--and close her toes.

_Wife._ Why, who wanders, who wakes,--who comes, who goes?

Who brews, who bakes? Who makes for me this hose?

And then

It is ruth to behold,

Now in hot, now in cold,

Full woful is the household

That wants a woman.

But what end hast thou made with the herds, Mac?

_Mac._ The last word that they said,--when I turned my back,

They would look that they had--their sheep all the pack.

I hope they will not be well paid,--when they their sheep lack.

Perdie!

But howso the game goes,

To me they will suppose,

And make a foul noise,

And cry out upon me.

But thou must do as thou hight,

_Wife._ I accord me thertylle.[150]

I shall swaddle him right in my cradle.

If it were a greater slight, yet could I help till.

I will lie down straight. Come hap me.

_Mac._ I will.

_Wife._ Behind,

Come Coll and his marrow,

They will nip us full narrow.

_Mac._ But I may cry out "Harro!"[151]

The sheep if they find.

_Wife._ Hearken aye when they call: they will come anon.

Come and make ready all, and sing by thine own,

Sing "Lullay!" thou shall, for I must groan,

And cry out by the wall on Mary and John,

For sore.

Sing "Lullay" full fast

When thou hears at the last;

And but I play a false cast

Trust me no more.

[_Re-enter the Three Shepherds._]

_3rd Shepherd._ Ah, Coll! good morn:--why sleepest thou not?

_1st Shepherd._ Alas, that ever was I born!--we have a foul blot.

A fat wether have we lorne.[152]

_3rd Shepherd._ Marry, Godys forbot![153]

_2nd Shepherd._ Who should do us that scorn? That were a foul spot.

_1st Shepherd._ Some shrew.

I have sought with my dogs,

All Horbery shrogs,[154]

And of fifteen hogs

Found I but one ewe.

_3rd Shepherd._ Now trust me if you will;--by Saint Thomas of Kent!

Either Mac or Gill--was at that assent.

_1st Shepherd._ Peace, man, be still;--I saw when he went.

Thou slander'st him ill; thou ought to repent.

Good speed.

_2nd Shepherd._ Now as ever might I thee,

If I should even here dee,[155]

I would say it were he,

That did that same deed.

_3rd Shepherd._ Go we thither I rede,[156]--and run on our feet.

May I never eat bread,--the truth till I wit.

_1st Shepherd._ Nor drink, in my heed,--with him till I meet.

_2nd Shepherd._ I will rest in no stead, till that I him greet,

My brother

One I will hight:[157]

Till I see him in sight

Shall I never sleep one night

There I do another.

_3rd Shepherd._ Will ye hear how they hack,[158]--Our Sire! list, how they

croon!

_1st Shepherd._ Hard I never none crack,--so clear out of tune.

Call on him.

_2nd Shepherd._ Mac! undo your door soon.

_Mac._ Who is it that spoke,--as it were noon?

On loft,

Who is that I say?

_3rd Shepherd._ Good fellows! were it day?

_Mac._ As far as ye may,--

Good, speak ye soft!

Over a sick woman's head,--that is ill mate ease,

I had liefer be dead,--or she had any disease.

_Wife._ Go to another stead; I may not well queasse[159]

Each foot that ye tread--goes near make me sneeze[160]

So he!

_1st Shepherd._ Tell us, Mac, if ye may,

How fare ye, I say?

_Mac._ But are ye in this town to-day?

Now how fare ye?

Ye have run in the mire, and are wet yit:

I shall make you a fire, if ye will sit.

A horse would I hire; think ye on it.

Well quit is my hire, my dream--this is it.

A season.

I have bairns if ye knew,

Well more than enew,[161]

But we must drink as we brew,

And that is but reason.

I would ye dined e'er ye yode:[162] methink that ye sweat.

_2nd Shepherd._ Nay, neither mends our mode, drink nor meat.

_Mac._ Why, sir, ails you aught, but good?

_3rd Shepherd._ Yes, our sheep that we gat,

Are stolen as they yode.[163] Our loss is great.

_Mac._ Sirs, drinkýs!

Had I been there,

Some should have bought it full dear.

_1st Shepherd._ Marry, some men trows that ye were,

And that us forethinkýs.[164]

_2nd Shepherd._ Mac, some men trows that it should be ye.

_3rd Shepherd._ Either ye or your spouse; so say we.

_Mac._ Now if ye have suspouse[165] to Gill or to me,

Come and rip our house, and then may ye see

Who had her.

If I any sheep got,

Either cow or stot,

And Gill, my wife rose not

Here since she laid her.

As I am both true and leal, to God here I pray,

That this be the first meal, I shall eat this day.

_1st Shepherd._ Mac, as I have weal, arise thee, I say!

"He learned timely to steal, that could not say nay."

_Wife._ I swelt.[166]

Out thieves from my once!

Ye come to rob us for the nonce.

_Mac._ Hear ye not how she groans?

Your heart should melt.

_Wife._ Out thieves, from my bairn! Nigh him not thore.

_Mac._ Knew ye how she had farne,[167] your hearts would be sore.

Ye do wrong, I you warn, that thus commys before

To a woman that has farn;[168] but I say no more.

_Wife._ Ah, my middle!

I pray to God so mild,

If ever I you beguiled,

That I eat this child,

That lies in this cradle.

_Mac._ Peace, woman, for God's pain, and cry not so:

Thou spill'st thy brain, and mak'st me full woe.

_2nd Shepherd._ I know our sheep be slain, what find ye too?

_3rd Shepherd._ All work we in vain: as well may we go.

But hatters.[169]

I can find no flesh,

Hard nor nesh,[170]

Salt nor fresh,

But two tome[171] platters:

No cattle but this, tame nor wild,

None, as have I bliss; as loud as he smiled.

_Wife._ No, so God me bliss, and give me joy of my child.

_1st Shepherd._ We have markëd amiss: I hold us beguiled.

_2nd Shepherd._ Sir, done!

Sir, our lady him save,

Is your child a knave?[172]

_Mac._ Any lord might him have

This child to his son.

When he wakens he skips, that joy is to see.

_3rd Shepherd._ In good time, be his steps, and happy they be!

But who was his gossips, tell now to me!

_Mac._ So fair fall their lips!

_1st Shepherd (aside)._ Hark now, a lee![173]

_Mac._ So God them thank,

Parkin, and Gibbon Waller, I say,

And gentle John Horne, in good fay,[174]

He made all the garray,[175]

With the great shank.

_2nd Shepherd._ Mac, friends will we be, for we are all one.

_Mac._ Why! now I hold for me, for help get I none.

Farewell all three: all glad were ye gone.

_3rd Shepherd._ Fair words may there be, but love there is none.

_1st Shepherd._ Gave ye the child anything?

_2nd Shepherd._ I trust not one farthing.

_3rd Shepherd._ Fast again will I fling,

Abide ye me there. [_He returns to Mac's cot._

Mac, take it to no grief, if I come to thy barn.

_Mac._ Nay, thou dost me great reprieve, and foul hast thou farne.[176]

_3rd Shepherd._ The child will it not grieve, that little day starn.[177]

Mac, with your leave, let me give your bairn,

But sixpence.

_Mac._ Nay, go 'way: he sleepys.

_3rd Shepherd._ Methink he peepys.

_Mac._ When he wakens he weepys.

I pray you go hence.

_3rd Shepherd._ Give me leave him to kiss, and lift up the clout.

What the devil is this? He has a long snout.

_1st Shepherd._ He is marked amiss. We wait ill about.

_2nd Shepherd._ Ill spun weft, I wis, aye cometh foul out;

Aye so;

He is like to our sheep.

_3rd Shepherd._ How, Gib, may I peep?

_1st Shepherd._ I trow, kind will creep,

Where it may not go.

_2nd Shepherd._ This was a quaint gaud,[178] and a far cast

It was a high fraud.

_3rd Shepherd._ Yea, sirs, was't.

Let burn this bawd and bind her fast.

A false skawd[179] hangs at the last;

So shall thou.

Will ye see how they swaddle

His four feet in the middle?

Saw I never in a cradle

A hornëd lad e'er now.

_Mac._ Peace bid I: what! let be your fare;

I am he that him gat, and yond woman him bare.

_1st Shepherd._ What devil shall he halt?[180] Mac, lo, God makes air.

_2nd Shepherd._ Let be all that. Now God give him care!

I sagh.[181]

_Wife._ A pretty child is he,

As sits upon a woman's knee;

A dylly-downe, perdie!

To make a man laugh.

_3rd Shepherd._ I know him by the ear mark:--that is a good token.

_Mac._ I tell you, sirs, hark:--his nose was broken.

Since then, told me a clerk,--that he was forespoken.[182]

_1st Shepherd._ This is a false work.--I would fain be wroken:[183]

Get a weapon!

_Wife._ He was taken by an elf;[184]

I saw it myself.

When the clock struck twelve,

Was he mis-shapen.

_2nd Shepherd._ Ye two are right deft,--same in a stead.

_3rd Shepherd._ Since they maintain their theft,--let's do them to dead.

_Mac._ If I trespass eft, gird off my head.

With you will I be left.

_1st Shepherd._ Sirs, do my red

For this trespass,

We will neither ban nor flyte[185]

Fight, nor chyte,[186]

But seize him tight,

And cast him in canvas.

[_They toss Mac for his sins._

* * * * *

_1st Shepherd_ (_as the three return to the fold_). Lord, how I am sore,

in point for to tryst:

In faith I may no more, therefore will I rest.

_2nd Shepherd._ As a sheep of seven score, he weighed in my fist.

For to sleep anywhere, methink that I list.

_3rd Shepherd._ Now I pray you,

Lie down on this green.

_1st Shepherd._ On these thefts yet I mean.

_3rd Shepherd._ Whereto should ye tene?[187]

Do as I say you.

[_Enter an Angel above, who sings "Gloria in Excelsis," then says:_

Rise, hired-men, heynd,[188] for now is he born

That shall take from the fiend, that Adam had lorn:[189]

That warlock to sheynd,[190] this night is he born.

God is made your friend: now at this morn,

He behests;

To Bedlem go see,

There lies that free[191]

In a crib full poorly,

Betwixt two beasts.

_1st Shepherd._ This was a quaint stevyn[192] that ever yet I heard.

It is a marvel to nevyn[193] thus to be scared.

_2nd Shepherd._ Of God's son of heaven, he spoke up word.

All the wood like the levin,[194] methought that he gard

Appear.

_3rd Shepherd._ He spoke of a bairn

In Bedlem I you warn.

_1st Shepherd._ That betokens yonder starn[195]

Let us seek him there.

_2nd Shepherd._ Say, what was his song? Heard ye not how he cracked it?

Three breves to a long.[196]

_3rd Shepherd._ Yea, marry, he hacked[197] it.

Was no crochet wrong, nor no thing that lacked it.

_1st Shepherd._ For to sing us among, right as he knacked it,

I can.

_2nd Shepherd._ Let us see how ye croon

Can ye bark at the moon?

_3rd Shepherd._ Hold your tongues, have done.

_1st Shepherd._ Hark after, then.

_2nd Shepherd._ To Bedlem he bade--that we should gang:

I am full feared--that we tarry too lang.

_3rd Shepherd._ Be merry and not sad: of mirth is our sang,

Everlasting glad, our road may we fang,[198]

Without noise.

_1st Shepherd._ Hie we thither quickly;

If we be wet and weary,

To that child and that lady

We have it not to slose.[199]

_2nd Shepherd._ We find by the prophecy--let be your din--

Of David and Esai, and more than I min;[200]

They prophesied by clergy, that on a virgin

Should he light and ly, to pardon our sin

And slake it,

Our kind from woe;

For Esai said so,

_Cite virgo

Concipiet a child that is naked._

_3rd Shepherd._ Full glad may we be,--and abide that day

That lovely to see,--that all mights may.

Lord, well for me,--for once and for aye,

Might I kneel on my knee--some word for to say

To that child.

But the angel said

In a crib was he laid;

He was poorly arrayed,

Both meaner and mild.

_1st Shepherd._ Patriarchs that have been,--and prophets beforn,

They desired to have seen--this child that is born.

They are gone full clean,--that have they lorn.

We shall see him, I ween,--e'er it be morn

By token

When I see him and feel,

Then know I full weel

It is true as steel

That prophets have spoken.

To so poor as we are, that he would appear,

First find, and declare by his messenger.

_2nd Shepherd._ Go we now, let us fare: the place is us near.

_3rd Shepherd._ I am ready and yare:[201] go we in fear

To that light!

Lord! if thy wills be,

We are lewd[202] all three,

Thou grant us of thy glee,[203]

To comfort thy wight.

* * * * *

[_The Shepherds arrive at Bethlehem._

_1st Shepherd._ Hail, comely and clean; hail, young child!

Hail, maker, as I mean, of a maiden so mild!

Thou hast wared, I ween, off the warlock[204] so wild,

The false guiler of teen,[205] now goes he beguiled.

Lo, he merry is!

Lo, he laughs, my sweeting,

A welcome meeting!

I have given my greeting

Have a bob of cherries?

_2nd Shepherd._ Hail, sovereign saviour, for thou hast us sought!

Hail freely, leaf and flow'r, that all thing has wrought!

Hail full of favour, that made all of nought!

Hail! I kneel and I cower. A bird have I brought

To my bairn!

Hail, little tiny mop,[206]

Of our creed thou are crop!

I would drink in thy cup,

Little day-starn.[207]

_3rd Shepherd._ Hail, darling dear, full of godheed!

I pray thee be near, when that I have need.

Hail! sweet is thy cheer: my heart would bleed

To see thee sit here in so poor weed.

With no pennies.

Hail! put forth thy dall!--[208]

I bring thee but a ball

Have and play thee with all,

And go to the tennis.

_Mary._ The Father of Heaven, God omnipotent,

That set all on levin,[209] his son has he sent.

My name could he neven,[210] and laught as he went.[211]

I conceived him full even, through might, as God meant;

And new is he born.

He keep you from woe:

I shall pray him so;

Tell forth as ye go,

And mind on this morn.

_1st Shepherd._ Farewell, lady, so fair to behold,

With thy child on thy knee.

_2nd Shepherd._ But he lies full cold,

Lord, well is me: now we go forth, behold!

_3rd Shepherd._ Forsooth, already it seems to be told

Full oft.

_1st Shepherd._ What grace we have fun.[212]

_2nd Shepherd._ Come forth, now are we won.

_3rd Shepherd._ To sing are we bun:[213]

Let take on loft.[214]

THE COVENTRY NATIVITY PLAY OF THE COMPANY OF SHEARMEN AND TAILORS

CHARACTERS

Isaiah (_as Prologue_)

Gabriel

Joseph

Mary

The Three Kings

The Three Shepherds

The Two Prophets

King Herod

A Herald

An Angel

Two Soldiers

Three Women

THE COVENTRY NATIVITY PLAY

PROLOGUE

_Isaiah._ The sovereign that seeth every secret

He save you all and make you perfect and strong:

And give his grace with his mercy thereto meet,

For now in great misery mankind is bound.

The serpent hath given us so mortal a wound

That no creature is able us for to release

Till the right unction of Judah doth cease.

Then shall much mirth and joy increase

And the right root in Israel spring,

That shall bring forth the grain of holiness:

And out of danger he shall us bring

Into that region where he is king:

Which above all other doth abound

And that cruel Satan he shall confound.

Wherefore I come here upon this ground,

To comfort every creature of birth;

For I, Isaiah, the prophet, hath found

Many sweet matters, whereof we may make mirth

On this same wise.

For though Adam be doomed to death

With all his children, as Abel and Seth:

Yet, _Ecce virgo concipiet!_[215]

Lo, where a remedy shall rise!

Behold a maid shall conceive a child,

And get us more grace than ever man had.

And her maidenhood nothing defiled:

She is deputed to bear the Son, Almighty God.

Lo, sovereignties now may you be glad,

For of this maiden all we may be fain;[216]

For Adam that now lies in sorrows full sad,

Her glorious birth shall redeem him again

From bondage and thrall.

Now be merry every man,

For this deed briefly in Israel shall be done,

And before the Father on his throne

That shall glad us all.

More of this matter fain would I move,

But longer time I have not here for to dwell.

That lord that is merciful, his mercy so in us may prove

For to save our souls from the darkness of hell,

And to his bliss--he us bring

As he is--both lord and king;

And shall be everlasting

_In secula seculos_:[217] Amen.

[_Exit._

[_Enter Gabriel to Mary._]

_Gabriel._ Hail! Mary, full of grace,

Our Lord God is with thee!

Above all women that ever was;

Lady, blessed may thou be.

_Mary._ Almighty Father and King of bliss

From all dyskes[218] thou save me now:

For inwardly my spirit troubled is,

I am amazed and know not how.

_Gabriel._ Dread thee nothing, maiden, of this:

From heaven above hither am I sent,

Of embassage from that King of bliss,

Unto the lady and virgin reverent,

Saluting thee here as most excellent,

Whose virtue above all other doth abound;

Wherefore in thee grace shall be found:

For thou shalt conceive upon this ground

The Second Person of God on throne;

He will be born of thee alone,

Without sin tho shalt him see.

Thy grace and thy goodness will never be gone

But ever to live in virginity.

_Mary._ I marvel sore how that may be:

Man's company knew I never yet,

Nor never to do cast I me,

While that our Lord sendeth me my wit.

_Gabriel._ The Holy Ghost in thee shall light,

And shall endue thy soul so with virtue

From the Father that is on high:

These words, turtle, they be full true.

This child that of thee shall be born

Is the Second Person in Trinity.

He shall save that was forlorn,

And the fiend's power destroy shall he.

These words, lady, full true they be,

And further, lady, in thy own lineage,

Behold Elizabeth, thy cousin clean,

The which was barren and past all age.

And now with child she hath been

Six months and more as shall be seen;

Wherefore, discomfort thee not, Mary,

For to God impossible nothing may be.

_Mary._ Now and it be that Lord's will

Of my body to be born and for to be

His high pleasure for to fulfil,

As his one handmaid I submit me.

_Gabriel._ Now blessed be the time set

That thou wast born in thy degree:

For now is the knot surely knit

And God conceived in Trinity.

Now farewell lady of might most,

Unto the Godhead I thee beteyche.[219]

_Mary._ That lord thee guide in every cost

And lowly he lead me and be my leech.[220]

[_Here the Angel departeth and Joseph cometh in and saith:_

_Joseph._ Mary, my wife so dear!

How do ye, dame, and what cheer

Is with you this tide?

_Mary._ Truly, husband, I am here

Our Lord's will for to abide.

_Joseph._ What! I trow we be all shent![221]

Say, woman, who hath been here since I went

To rage with thee?

_Mary._ Sir, here was neither man, nor man's even,[222]

But only the sond[223] of our Lord God in heaven.

_Joseph._ Say not so, woman, for shame let be:

Ye be with child so wondrous great,

Ye need no more thereof to treat

Against all right.

For sooth this child, dame, is not mine;

Alas, that ever with my eyne[224]

I should see this sight.

Tell me, woman, whose is this child?

_Mary._ None but yours, husband, so mild

And that shall be seen, I wis.

_Joseph._ But mine, alas! alas! why say ye so?

Well away, woman, now may I go

Beguiled as many another is.

_Mary._ Nay truly, sir, ye be not beguiled

Nor yet with spot of sin I am not defiled;

Trust it well, husband.

_Joseph._ Husband in faith, and that acold;

Ah well away, Joseph, as thou art old!

Like a fool now may I stand

And truss; but in faith, Mary, thou art in sin.

So much as I have cherished thee, dame, and all thy kin,

Behind my back to serve me thus:

All old men example take by me,

How I am beguiled here may you see,

To wed so young a child.

Now farewell, Mary, I leave thee here alone,

Woe worth thee dame, and thy works each one!

For I will no more be beguiled

For friend nor foe.

Now of this deed I am so dull

And of my life I am so full,

No farther may I go.

_Angel._ Arise up, Joseph, and go home again

Unto Mary thy wife that is so free;

To comfort her look that thou be fain,

For, Joseph, a clean maiden is she.

She hath conceived without any trayne

The Second Person in Trinity:

Jesu shall be his name certainly,

And all this world save shall he.

Be not aghast.

_Joseph._ Now, Lord, I thank thee with heart full sad.

For of these tidings I am so glad

That all my care away is cast,

Wherefore to Mary I will in haste.

Ah, Mary, Mary, I kneel full low,

Forgive me, sweet wife, here in this land;

Mercy, Mary, for now I know

Of your good governance and how it doth stand:

Though that I did thee misname.

Mercy, Mary, while I live

Will I never, sweet wife, thee grieve,

In earnest nor in game.

_Mary._ Now, that Lord in Heaven, sir,--he you forgive!

And I do forgive you in his name

For evermore.

_Joseph._ Now truly, sweet wife, to you I say the same;

But now to Bethlehem must I wynde[225]

And show myself so full of care,

And I to leave you this great behind,

God wot, the while, dame, how you should fare.

_Mary._ Nay hardily, husband, dread ye nothing,

For I will walk with you on the way.

I trust in God, Almighty King,

To speed right well in our journey.

_Joseph._ Now I thank you, Mary, of your goodness

That you my words will not blame;

And since that to Bethlehem we shall us address

Go we together in God's holy name.

[_They set out on their way._

Now to Bethlehem have we leagues three,

The day is nigh spent, it draweth towards night,

Fain at your ease, dame, I would that ye should be:

For you grow all weary, it seemeth, in my sight.

_Mary._ God have mercy, Joseph, my spouse, so dear!

All prophets hereto do bear witness

The evry time now draweth near

That my child will be born, which is King of bliss.

Unto some place, Joseph, kindly me lead,

That I might rest me with grace in this tide,

The light of the Father over us both spread

And the grace of my son with us here abide.

_Joseph._ Lo, blessed Mary, here shall ye lend;[226]

Chief chosen of our Lord, and cleanest in degree:

And I for help to town, will I wend.

Is not this the best, dame, what say ye?

_Mary._ God have mercy! Joseph, my husband, so meek,

And I heartily pray you go now from me.

_Joseph._ That shall be done in haste, Mary, so sweet!

The comfort of the Holy Ghost leave I with thee.

Now to Bethlehem strait will I go,

To get some help for Mary so free,

Some help of women, God may me send!

That Mary, full of grace, pleased may be.

[_Enter a Shepherd._

_1st Shepherd._ Now God that art in Trinity,

Thou sawest my fellows and me;

For I know not where my sheep nor they be,

This night it is so cold,

Now is it nigh the middest of the night,

These weathers are dark and dim of light,

That of them can I have no sight,

Standing here on this wold.

But now to make their hearts light,

Now will I full right

Stand upon this loe.[227]

And to them cry with all my might:

Full well my voice they know,

What ho, fellows, ho, hoo, ho!

[_Enter two other Shepherds._

_2nd Shepherd._ Hark, Sym, hark, I hear our brother on the loe,[227]

This is his voice, right well I know,

Therefore towards him let us go,

And follow his voice aright,

See, Sym, see where he doth stand;

I am right glad we have him found.

Brother! where hast thou been so long,

And it is so cold this night?

_1st Shepherd._ Oh, friends! there came a pyrie[228] of wind

With a mist suddenly,

That forth off my ways went I,

And great heaviness then made I,

And was full sore afright;

Then for to go wist I not whither,

But travelled on this hill hither and thither.

I was so weary of this cold weather,

That near passed was my might.

_3rd Shepherd._ Brother, now we be past that fright,

And it is far within the night:

Full soon will spring the daylight,

It draweth full near the tide.

Here awhile let us rest

And repast ourselves of the best.

Till that the sun rise in the east,

Let us all here abide.

[_There the Shepherds draw forth their meat, and do eat and drink, and

as they drink they see the star and say thus:_

Brother, look up and behold,

What thing is yonder that shineth so bright?

As long as ever I have watched my fold,

Yet saw I never such a sight

In field.

Aha! now is come the time that old fathers hath told,

That in the winter's night so cold,

A child of maiden born, be he would,

In whom all prophecies shall be fulfilled.

_1st Shepherd._ Truth it is without nay,

So said the prophet Isaye,

That a child should be born of a maid so bright

In winter nigh the shortest day,

Or else in the middest of the night.

_2nd Shepherd._ Loved be God, most of might!

That our grace is to see that sight;

Pray we to him as it is right

If that his will it be,

That we may have knowledge of this signification,

And why it appeareth on this fashion

And ever to him let us give laudation,

In earth, while that we be.

[_There the angels sing "Gloria in Excelsis Deo."_

_3rd Shepherd._ Hark, they sing above in the clouds clear!

Heard I never of so merry a choir.

Now gentle brother draw we near

To hear their harmony?

_1st Shepherd._ Brother, mirth and solace is come us among

For, by the sweetness of their song;

God's Son is come, whom we have looked for long,

As signifieth this star we do see.

_2nd Shepherd._ Glory, _Gloria in Excelsis_, that was their song,

How say ye fellows! said they not thus?

_1st Shepherd._ That is well said, now go we hence

To worship that child of high magnificence;

And that we may sing in his presence,

_Et in terra pax omnibus._

[_There the Shepherds sing:_]

As I out rode this enderes' night,

Of three jolly shepherds I saw a sight,

And all about their fold a star shone bright;

They sang, Terli, terlow;

So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow.

_Joseph._ Now, Lord, this noise that I do hear

With this great solemnity,

Greatly amended hath my cheer,

I trust high news shortly will be.

[_There the Angels sing "Gloria in Excelsis" again._

_Mary._ Ah Joseph, husband, come hither anon

My child is born that is King of bliss.

_Joseph._ Now welcome to me, the maker of man,

With all the homage that I can;

Thy sweet mother here will I kiss.

_Mary._ Ah Joseph, husband, my child waxeth cold

And we have no fire to warm him with.

_Joseph._ Now in my arms I shall him fold,

King of all kings by field and by frith,[229]

He might have had better, and himself would

Than the breathing of these beasts to warm him with.

_Mary._ Now, Joseph, my husband, fetch hither my child,

The maker of man, and high King of bliss.

_Joseph._ That shall be done, anon, Mary so mild!

For the breathing of these beasts hath warmed him, I wis.

_1st Angel._ Herdmen kind, dread ye nothing,

Of this star that ye do see;

For this same morn God's son is born,

In Bethlem of a maiden fre.[230]

_2nd Angel._ Hie you hither in haste,

It is his will ye shall him see

Lying in a crib of poor repast;

Yet of David's line come is he.

_1st Shepherd._ Hail, maid-mother, and wife so mild!

As the angel said, so have we found,

I have nothing to present to thy child,

But my pipe; hold, hold! take it in thy hand;

Wherein much pleasure that I have found,

And now to honour thy glorious birth,

Thou shalt it have to make thee mirth.

_2nd Shepherd._ Now, hail be thou, child, and thy dame,

For in a poor lodging here art thou laid;

So the angel said, and told us thy name.

Hold, take thou here my hat on thy head,

And now of one thing thou art well sped;

For weather thou hast no cause to complain,

For wind, nor sun, hail, snow, and rain.

_3rd Shepherd._ Hail, be thou Lord over water and lands

For thy coming all we may make mirth,

Have here my mittens to put on thy hands

Other treasure have I none to present thee with.

_Mary._ Now, herdmen kind,

For your coming,

To my child shall I pray,

As he is heaven's king,

To grant you his blessing,

And to his bliss that ye may wynd[231]

At your last day.

[_There the Shepherds sing again:_]

Down from heaven, from heaven so high,

Of angels there came a great company,

With mirth, and joy, and great solemnity

They sang, Terli, terlow;

So merrily the shepherds their pipes can blow.

[_The two prophets come in._

_1st Prophet._ Novellis, novellis,[232] of wonderful marvellys,[233]

Were high and sweet unto the hearing,

As Scripture tellis, these strange novellis

To you I bring.

_2nd Prophet._ Now, heartily, sir, I desire to know,

If it would please you for to show,

Of what manner a thing?

_1st Prophet._ Were it mystical unto your hearing,--

Of the nativity of a king?

_2nd Prophet._ Of a king?

Whence should he come?

_1st Prophet._ From that region royal and mighty mansion,

The seed celestial and heavenly wisdom,

The Second Person, and God's one Son,

For our sake is man become.

This godly sphere, descended here,

Into a virgin clear,

She undefiled,

By whose work, obscure our frail nature

Is now beguiled.

_2nd Prophet._ Why, hath she a child?

_1st Prophet._ Ah, trust it well,

And never the less,

Yet is she a maid even as she was,

And her son the king of Israel.

_2nd Prophet._ A wonderful marvel, How that may be,

And far doth excel--

All our capacity,

How that the trinity,

Of so high regality,

Should joined be,

Unto our mortality.

_1st Prophet._ Of his one great mercy

As ye shall see the exposition,

Through whose humanity all Adam's progeny

Redeemed shall be

Out of perdition;

Sith man did offend, who should amend,

But the said man and no other;

For the which cause he,

Incarnate would be,

And live in misery

As man's one brother.

_2nd Prophet._ Sir, upon the Deity, I believe perfectly,

Impossible to be, there is nothing;

Howbeit this work, unto me is dark,

In the operation or working.

_1st Prophet._ What more reproof is unto belief

Than to be doubting.

_2nd Prophet._ Yet doubts ofttimes hath derivation.

_1st Prophet._ That is by the means of communication,

Of truths to have a due probation,--

By the same doubts, reasoning.

_2nd Prophet._ Then to you, this one thing,

Of what noble and high lineage is she,

That might this verible prince's mother be?

_1st Prophet._ Undoubted she is come of high parrage,[234]

Of the house of David, and Solomon the sage,

And one of the same line joined to her by marriage

Of whose tribe, we do subscribe

This child's lineage.

_2nd Prophet._ And why in that wise?

_1st Prophet._ For it was the guise

To count the parent on the man's line,

And not on the feminine,

Amongst us here in Israel.

_2nd Prophet._ Yet can I not espy, by no wise

How this child born should be without nature's prejudice.

_1st Prophet._ Nay, no prejudice unto nature I dare well say,

For the king of nature may

Have all his one will,

Did not the power of God, make Aaron's rod

Bear fruit in one day?

_2nd Prophet._ Truth it is indeed.

_1st Prophet._ Then look you and rede.[235]

_2nd Prophet._ Ah! I perceive the seed

Whereupon that you spake,

It was for our need

That he frail nature did take,

And his blood he should shed

Amends for to make

For our transgression,

As it is said in prophecy, that of the line of Judë

Should spring a right Messië,

By whom all we

Should have redemption.

_1st Prophet._ Sir, now is the time come,

And the date thereof run

Of his Nativity.

_2nd Prophet._ Yet I beseech you heartily,

That ye would show me how

That this strange novelty

Were brought unto you?

_1st Prophet._ This other night so cold,

Hereby upon a wold,

Shepherds watching their fold

In the night so far,

To them appeared a star,

And ever it drew them near,

Which star they did behold,

Brighter they say a thousand fold

Than the sun so clear

In his midday sphere;

And they these tidings told.

_2nd Prophet._ What, secretly?

_1st Prophet._ Na, na, hardily,[236]

They made there of no council,

For they sang as loud,

As ever they could,

Praising the king of Israel.

_2nd Prophet._ Yet do I marvel,

In what pile or castle,

These herdmen did him see.

_1st Prophet._ Neither in halls, nor yet in bowers,

Born would he not be,

Neither in castles, nor yet in towers,

That seemly were to see,

But at his Father's will,

The prophecy to fulfil,

Betwixt an ox and an ass

Jesu this king born he was;

Heaven he bring us till![237]

_2nd Prophet._ Sir, ah! but when these shepherds had seen him there,

To what place did they repair?

_1st Prophet._ Forth they went, and glad they were;

Going they did sing,

With mirth and solace, they made good cheer,

For joy of that new tiding.

And after as I heard them tell,

He rewarded them full well

He granted them heaven therein to dwell.

In are they gone with joy and mirth,

And their song it is Noël.

[_There the Prophets go forth, and Herod and the messenger (or herald)

comes in._

_Herald._ Peace, Lord Barons of great renown!

Peace, sir knights of noble presence!

Peace, gentlemen companions of noble order!

I command that all of you keep silence.

Peace while your noble king is in presence!

Let no person stint to pay him deference;

Be not bold to strike, but keep your hearts in patience,

And to your Lord keep heart of reverence,

For he, your king, has all puissance!

In the name of the law, I command you peace!

And King Herod--"_la grandeaboly vos umport._"[238]

_Herod._ _Qui status in Jude et Rex Israel_,[239]

And the mightiest conqueror that ever walked on ground;

For I am even he that made both heaven and hell,

And of my mighty power holdeth up this world round.

Magog and Madroke, both them did I confound,

And with this bright brand their bones I brake asunder,

That all on the wide world on those rappis[240] did wonder.

I am the cause of this great light and thunder;

It is through my fury that they such noise do make.

My fearful countenance the clouds so doth encumber,

That often for dread thereof the very earth doth quake.

Look when I with malin this bright brand doth shake;

All the whole world from the north to the south,

I may them destroy with one word of my mouth,

To recount unto you my innumerable substance

That were too much for any tongue to tell;

For all the whole Orient is under mine obedience,

And prince am I of purgatory, and chief captain of hell.

And those tyrannous traitors by force may I compel

Mine enemies to vanquish, and even to dust to drive,

And with a twinkle of mine eye not one to be left alive.

Behold my countenance and my colour,

Brighter than the sun in the middle of the day!

Where can you have a more greater succour,

Than to behold my person that is so gay;

My falchion and my fashion with my gorgeous array?

He that had the grace always thereon to think,

Live they might alway without other meat or drink.

And this my triumphant fame most highly doth abound,

Throughout this world in all regions abroad,

Resembling the favour of that most mighty Mahound

From Jupiter by descent, and cousin to the great God,

And named the most renowned King Herod,

Which that all princes hath under subjection,

And all their whole power under my protection.

And therefore my herald here called Calchas,

Warn thou every port, that no ships arrive,

Nor also alien stranger through my realm pass,

But they for their truage[241] do pay marks five,

Now speed thee forth hastily,

For they that will the contrary,

Upon a gallows hanged shall be;

And, by Mahound, of me they get no grace.

_Herald._ Now, lord and master! in all the haste,

Thy worthy will it shall be wrought,

And thy royal countries shall be past,

In as short time as can be thought.

_Herod._ Now shall our regions throughout be sought

In every place, both east and west;

If any caitiffs to me be brought,

It shall be nothing for their best.

And the while that I do rest,

Trumpets, viols, and other harmony,

Shall bless the waking of my majesty.

[_Here Herod goeth away, and the three Kings speaketh in the street._

_1st King._ Now blessed be God, of his sweet sonde[242]

For yonder a bright star I do see!

Now is he come us among

As the prophets said that it should be.

He said there should a babe be born

Coming of the root of Jesse,

To save mankind that was forlorn,

And truly come now is he.

Reverence and worship to him will I do

As God and man, that all made of nought.

All the prophets accorded and said even so,

That with his precious blood mankind should be bought.

He grant me grace by yonder star that I see,

And into that place bring me,

That I may him worship with humility

And see his glorious face.

_2nd King._ Out of my way I deem that I am

For tokens of this country can I none see;

Now God that on earth madest man,

Send me some knowledge where that I be.

Yonder me thinks a fair bright star I see,

The which betokeneth the birth of a child,

That hither is come to make man free,

He, born of a maid, and she nothing defiled,

To worship that child is mine intent.

Forth now will I take my way:

I trust some company God hath me sent,

For yonder I see a king labour on the way,

Toward him now will I ride.

Hark, comely king, I you pray,

Into what coast will ye this tide,

Or whither lies your journey?

_1st King._ To seek a child is mine intent,

Of whom the prophets have meant.

The time is come now is he sent,

By yonder star here may you see.

_2nd King._ Sir, I pray you with your licence,

To ride with you into his presence;

To him will I offer frankincence

For the head of the whole church shall he be.

_3rd King._ I ride wandering in ways wide

Over mountains and dales, I wot not where I am,

Now king of all kings send me such guide,

That I may have knowledge of this country's name.

Ah, yonder I see a sight be seeming all afar,

The which betokens some news as I trow,

As me thinks a child appearing in a star;

I trust he be come that shall defend us from woe.

Two kings yonder I see, and to them will I ride,

For to have their company: I trust they will me abide.[243]

Hail, comely kings augent![244]

Good sirs, I pray you whither are ye meant?

_1st King._ To seek a child is our intent,

Which betokens yonder star as ye may see.

_2nd King._ To him I purpose this present.

_3rd King._ Sirs, I pray you, and that right humbly

With you that I may ride in company;

To Almighty God now pray we,

That his precious person we may see.

[_Here Herod cometh in again, and the messenger saith:_

_Herald._ Hail, Lord! most of might!

Thy commandment is right.

Into thy land is come this night

Three kings, and with them a great company.

_Herod._ What make those kings in this country?

_Herald._ To seek a king and a child, they say.

_Herod._ Of what age should he be?

_Herald._ Scant twelve days old fully.

_Herod._ And was he so late born?

_Herald._ Eh! sir, so they show'd me this same day in the morn.

_Herod._ Now, in pain of death, bring them me beforn

And, therefore, herald, hie thee now, in haste,

In all speed that thou were dight,[245]

Or that those kings the country be past,--

Look thou bring them all three before my sight.

And in Jerusalem enquire more of that child?

But I warn thee that thy words be mild,

For there take thou heed, and craft thereto

His power to foredo,[246]

That those three kings shall be beguiled.

_Herald._ Lord, I am ready at your bidding,

To serve thee as my lord and king,

For joy thereof, lo, how I spring,

With light heart and fresh gambolling,

Aloft here on this mould.

_Herod._ Then speed thee forth hastily,

And look that thou bear thee evenly

And also I pray thee heartily,

That thou do commend me

Both to young and old.

_Herald_ (_returning to the Three Kings_). Hail, sir kings, in your degree!

Herod; king of these countries wide

Desireth to speak with you all three,

And for your coming he doth abide.

_1st King._ Sir, at his will we be right bane[247]

Hie us, brother, unto that lord's place;

To speak with him we would be fain

That child that we seek, he grant us of his grace.

_Herald_ (_bringing in the Kings_). Hail, Lord, without peer!

These three kings have we brought.

_Herod._ Now welcome, sir kings, all in fere;[248]

But of my bright ble,[249] sirs, abash ye nought.

Sir kings, as I understand,

A star hath guided you into my land;

Wherein great harie[250] ye have found,

By reason of her beams bright;

Wherefore I pray you heartily,

The very truth that you would certify;

How long it is surely,

Since of that star you had first sight?

_1st King._ Sir king, the very truth we say.

And to show you, as it is best,

This same is even the twelfth day

Since it appeared to us to be west.

_Herod._ Brother, then is there no more to say,

But with heart and will keep ye your journey,

And come home again this same way,

Of your news that I may know.

You shall triumph in this country,

And with great concord banquet with me

And that child myself then will I see,

And honour him also.

_2nd King._ Sir, your commandment we will fulfil,

And humbly obey ourselves theretyll,

He that weldeth all things at will.

The ready way us teach,

Sir king, that we may pass your land in peace.

_Herod._ Yes! and walk softly even at your own ease.

Your passport for a hundred days

Here shall you have of clear command;

Our realm to labour[251] any ways

Here shall you have by special grant.

_3rd King._ Now farewell, king of high degree,

Humbly of you our leave we take.

_Herod._ Then adieu, sir kings, all three,

And while I live be bold of me;

There is nothing in this country,

But for your own ye shall it take.

[_Exeunt the Three Kings._

Now these three kings are gone on their way,

Unwisely and unwittingly have they all wrought.

When they come again, they shall die that same day,

And thus these vile wretches to death shall be brought;

Such is my liking.

He that against my laws will hold,

Be he king or kaiser, never so bold,

I shall them cast into cares cold,

And to death I shall them bring.

[_There Herod goeth his way, and the Three Kings come in again._

_1st King._ Oh, blessed God, much is thy might!

Where is this star that gave us light?

_2nd King._ Now kneel we down here on this presence

By seeking that Lord of high magnificence;

That we may see his high excellence,

If that his sweet will be.

_3rd King._ Yonder, brother, I see the star,

Whereby I know he is not far;

Therefore, lords, go we now,

Into this poor place.

[_There the Three Kings go in to the jeseyne[252], Mary and her

child._

_1st King._ Hail, Lord, that all this world hath wrought!

Hail God and man together in fere.[253]

For thou hast made all thing of nought

Albeit that thou liest poorly here.

A cup full of gold here I have thee brought

In tokening thou art without peer.

_2nd King._ Hail be thou, Lord of high magnificence

In tokening of priesthood, and dignity of office,

To thee I offer a cup full of incense;

For it behoveth thee to have such sacrifice.

_3rd King._ Hail be thou, Lord long looked for!

I have brought thee myrrh for mortality;

In tokening those shalt mankind restore

To life by thy death upon a tree.

_Mary._ God have mercy, kings, of your goodness!

By the guiding of the Godhead hither are ye sent;

The provision of my sweet son, your ways home redress,

And ghostly reward you for your present.

_1st King._ Sir kings, after our promise,

Home by Herod, I must needs go.

_2nd King._ Now truly, brother, we can no less,

But I am so far watched I wot not what to do.

_3rd King._ Right so am I, wherefore I you pray

Let all us rest us awhile upon this ground.

_1st King._ Brother, your saying is right well unto my pay

The grace of that sweet child save us all sound.

_Angel._ King of Taurus, Sir Jaspar!

King of Araby, Sir Balthasar!

Melchior, king of Aginara!

To you now am I sent.

For dread of Herod, go you west home

In those parts when ye come down,

Ye shall be burrid[254] with great renown:

The Holy Ghost this knowledge hath sent.

_1st King._ Awake, sir kings, I you pray,

For the voice of an angel I heard in my dream!

_2nd King._ That is full true that ye do say

For he rehearsed our names plain.

_3rd King._ He bade that we should go down by west

For dread of Herod's false betray.

_1st King._ So for to do it is the best,

The child that we have sought, guide us the way!

[_Turning to the babe._

Now farewell, the fairest of shape so sweet,

And thanked be Jesus of his sond.[255]

That we three together so suddenly should meet

That dwell so wide, and in a strange land;

And here to make our presentation

Unto this king's son cleansed so clean,

And to his mother for our salvation;

Of much mirth now may we mean,

That we so well hath done this oblation.

_2nd King._ Now farewell, Sir Jaspar, brother to you,

King of Taurus, the most worth;

Sir Balthasar, also to you I bow

And I thank you both of your good company,

While we together have been.

He that made us to meet on hill,

I thank him now, and ever I will;

For now may we go without ill;

And of our offering be full fain.

_3rd King._ Now sith that we must needly go

For dread of Herod, that is so wroth,

Now farewell brother, and brother also;

I take my leave here of you both,

This day on foot.

Now he that made us to meet on plain.

And offered to Mary in her jeseyne,[256]

He give us grace in heaven again,

Altogether to meet.

[_Exeunt the Three Kings: Enter the Herald and King Herod._

_Herald._ Hail, King most worthiest in wede![257]

Hail, maintainer of courtesy through all this world wide!

Hail, the most mightiest that ever bestrode a steed!

Hail, most manfullest man in armour man to abide!

Hail in thine honour!

These three kings that forth were sent

And should have come again before thee here present,

Another way, Lord, home they went

Contrary to thine honour.

_Herod._ Another way!--out! out!--out!

Hath those foul traitors done me this deed?

I stamp, I stare, I look all about;

Might them I take I should them burn at a glede.[258]

I rend, I roar, and now run I wood;[259]

Ah! that these villain traitors hath marred this my mood!

They shall be hanged if I come them to.

[_Here Herod rages in the pageant, and in the street also._

Eh! and that kerne[260] of Bethlehem, he shall be dead,

And thus shall I do for his prophecy.

How say you, sir knights, is not this the best red,[261]

That all young children for this should be dead

With sword to be slain?

Then shall I, Herod, live in lede,[262]

And all folk me doubt and dread,

And offer to me both gold, riches, and mede,[263]

Thereto will they be full fain.

_1st Soldier._ My Lord, King Herod by name,

Thy words against my will shall be

To see so many young children die, is shame;

Therefore counsel thereto gettest thou none of me.

_2nd Soldier._ Well said, fellow, my troth I plight;

Sir king! perceive right well you may

So great a murder to see of young fruit,

Will make a rising in thine own countrey.

_Herod._ A rising!--out! out! out!

[_There Herod rages again, and then saith thus:_

Out villain wretches, hereupon you I cry,

My will utterly, look that it be wrought,

Or upon a gallows both you shall die,

By Mahound, most mightiest, that me dear hath bought!

_1st Soldier._ Now, cruel Herod, sith we shall do this deed,

Your will needfully in this must be wrought.

All the children of that age, die they must need,

Now with all my might they shall be upsought.

_2nd Soldier._ And I will swear here upon your bright sword,

All the children that I find, slain they shall be;

That make many a mother to weep, and be full sore afeard,

In our armour bright, when they us see.

_Herod._ Now you have sworn, forth that ye go

And my will that ye work both by day and night,

And then will I for fain trip like a doe;

But when they be dead, I warn you, bring them before my sight.

_Angel._ Mary and Joseph, to you I say,

Sweet word from the Father I bring you full right;

Out of Bethlehem into Egypt forth go ye the way

And with you take the king, full of might,

For dread of Herod's red.[264]

_Joseph._ Arise up, Mary, hastily and soon!

Our Lord's will needs must be done,

Like as the angel bade.

_Mary._ Meekly, Joseph, mine own spouse,

Toward that country let us repair,

In Egypt,--some token of house,--

God grant us grace safe to come there!

[_Here the women come in with their children, singing them, and Mary and

Joseph goeth clean away._

Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child;

By, by, lullay, lullay, thou little tiny child;

By, by, lully, lullay.

O sisters too! how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This poor youngling, for whom we do sing

By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child for thee!

And ever morn and day,

For thy parting neither say nor sing,

By, by, lully, lallay.

_1st Woman._ I lull my child wondrously sweet,

And in my arms I do it keep,

Because that it should not cry.

_2nd Woman._ That Babe that is born, in Bethlehem so meek,

He save my child and me from villainy!

_3rd Woman._ Be still! be still! my little child!

That Lord of lords save both thee and me;

For Herod hath sworn with words wild

That all young children slain they shall be.

_1st Soldier._ Say ye whither, ye wives, whither are ye away?

What bear you in your arms needs must we see;

If they be men children, die they must this day,

For at Herod's will all things must be.

_2nd Soldier._ And I in hands once them hent,[265]

Them for to slay nought will I spare;

We must fulfil Herod's commandment;

Else be we as traitors, and cast all in care.

_1st Woman._ Sir knights! of your courtesy

This day shame not your chivalry,

But on my child have pity,

For my sake in this stead;

For a simple slaughter it were to sloo[266]

Or to work such a child woe

That can neither speak nor go,

Nor never harm did.

_2nd Woman._ He that slays my child in sight,

If that my strokes on him may light,

Be he squire or knight,

I hold him but lost.

See thou false losyngere[267]

A stroke shalt thou bear me here

And spare you no cost.

_3rd Woman._ Sit he never so high in saddle,

But I shall make his brain addle,

And here with my pot ladle,

With him will I fight.

I shall lay on him as though I wode[268] were,

With this same womanly gear;

There shall no man stir,

Whether that he be king or knight.

[_The innocents are massacred._

_1st Soldier._ Who heard ever such a cry

Of women, that their children have lost

And greatly rebuking chivalry

Throughout this realm in every coast

Which many a man's life is like to cost;

For this great revenge that here is done,

I fear much vengeance thereof will come.

_2nd Soldier._ Eh! brother, such tales may we not tell,

Wherefore to the king let us go,

For he is like to bear the bell,

Which was the cause that we did so;

Yet must they all be brought him to

With wains and waggons full freight.

I trow there will be a careful sight.

[_They come before Herod._

_1st Soldier._ Lo! Herod, king! here must thou see

How many thousands that we have slain.

_2nd Soldier._ And needs thy will fulfilled must be,

There may no man say there again.[269]

_Herald._ Herod, king! I shall thee tell,

All thy deeds is come to nought.

This child is gone into Egypt to dwell,

Lo! Sir, in thine own land what wonders byn[270] wrought.

_Herod._ Into Egypt? Alas! for woe,

Longer in land here I cannot abide.

Saddle my palfry, for in haste will I go

After yon traitors now will I ride

Them for to sloo.[271]

Now all men hie fast

Into Egypt in haste:

All that country will I tast[272]

Till I may come them to.

THE WAKEFIELD MIRACLE-PLAY OF THE CRUCIFIXION

[_From the Towneley Collection_]

CHARACTERS

Jesus

Mary

John

Joseph

Pilate

Longeus

Nicodemus

Four Torturers

THE CRUCIFIXION

_Pilate._ Peace I bid every wight;

Stand as still as stone in wall,

Whiles ye are present in my sight,

That none of ye clatter nor call;

For if ye do, your death is dight.

I warn it you both great and small,

With this brand burnished so bright,

Therefore in peace look ye be all.

What? peace, in the devil's name!

Harlots and dastards all bedene[273]

On gallows ye be made full tame.

Thieves and michers ken[274]

Will ye not peace when I bid you?

By Mahoun's blood! if ye me teyn,[275]

I shall ordain soon for you

Pains that never e'er was seen,

And that anon:

Be ye so bold beggars, I warn you,

Full boldly shall I beat you,

To hell the de'il shall draw you,

Body, back, and bone.

I am a lord that mickle is of might,

Prince of all Jewry, Sir Pilate I hight.

Next bring Herod, greatest of all,

Bow to my bidding, both great and small,

Or else be ye shent;[276]

Therefore keep your tongues, I warn you all

And unto us take tent.[277]

_1st Torturer._ All peace, all peace, among you all!

And hearken now what shall befall

To this false chuffer[278] here.

That with his false quantyse[279]

Has made himself as God wise

Among us many a year.

He calls himself a prophet,

And says that he can bales[280] beat[281]

And make all things amend,

But e'er long know we shall,

Whether he can overcome his own bale,[280]

Or 'scape out of our hand.

Was not this a wonder thing

That he durst call himself a king

And make so great a lie?

But, by Mahoun! while I may live,

Those proud words shall I never forgive,

Till he be hanged on high.

_2nd Torturer._ His pride, fie, we set at nought,

But each man reckon in his thought

And look that we naught want;

For I shall seek, if that I may,

By the order of knighthood, to-day,

To make his heart pant.

_3rd Torturer._ And so shall I, with all my might,

Abate his pride this very night,

And reckon him a crede.

Lo! he lets on he could no ill,

But he can aye, when he will,

Do a full foul deed.

_4th Torturer._ Ye fellows, ye, as I, have rest,

Among us all I rede[282] we cast

To bring this thief to dede.[283]

Look that we have what we need too

For to hold strait this shrew.

_1st Torturer._ That was a noble rede;

Lo, here I have a band,

If need be, to bind his hand;

This thong, I trow, will last.

_2nd Torturer._ And one to the other side,

That shall abate his pride,

If it be but drawn fast.

_3rd Torturer._ Lo, here a hammer and nails also

For to fasten fast our foe

To this tree full soon.

_4th Torturer._ You are wise, withouten dread,

That so can help yourself at need

To thing that should be done.

_1st Torturer._ Now dare I say hardily,

He shall with all his mawmentry[284]

No longer us be-tell.

_2nd Torturer._ Since Pilate has him to us gi'en

Have done, quickly, let it be seen,

How we can with him mell.[285]

_3rd Torturer._ Now we are at the Mount of Calvary,

Have done, fellows, and let now see

How we can with him play.

_4th Torturer._ Yes, for as proud as he can look,

He would have turned another crook,

Had he the rack to-day.

_1st Torturer._ In faith, sir, since ye called you a king,

You must prove a worthy thing

That falls into the weir.

You must joust in tournament,

But sit you fast, else you'll be shent,[286]

Else down I shall you bear.

_2nd Torturer._ If thou be God's son, as thou tells,

Thou canst save thyself--how shouldst thou else?

Else were it marvel great;

And canst thou not, we will not trow

What thou has said, but make thee mow

When thou sitt'st in that seat.

_3rd Torturer._ If thou be king, we shall thanks adylle[287]

For we shall set thee in thy sadylle[288]

For falling be thou bold[289]

I promise thee thou bidest a shaft

If thou sitt'st not well thou hadst better laft[290]

The tales that thou hast told.

_4th Torturer._ Stand near, fellows, and let us see

How we can horse our king so free

By any craft;

Stand thou yonder on yon side,

And we shall see how he can ride.

And how to wield a shaft.

_1st Torturer._ Sir, come ye hither, and have done,

And get upon your palfrey soon

For he is ready bowne:[291]

If ye be bound to him be not wroth,

For be ye secure we were full loth

On any wise that ye fell down.

_2nd Torturer._ Knit thou a knot, with all thy strength

For to draw this arm at length

Till it come to the bore.

_3rd Torturer._ Thou art mad, man, by this light!

It wants, in each man's sight

Another half span, and more.

_4th Torturer._ Yet draw out this arm, and make it fast,

With this rope, that well will last,

And each man lay hand to.

_1st Torturer._ Yes, and bind thou fast that band,

We shall go to that other hand,

And look what we can do.

_2nd Torturer._ Do drive a nail there throughout,

And then there shall nothing doubt,

For it will not _breste_.[292]

_3rd Torturer._ That shall I do, so might I thrive,

For to hammer and to drive

Thereto I am full pressed;

So let it stick, for it is well.

_4th Torturer._ Thou sayest sooth,

There can no man mend.

_1st Torturer._ Hold down his knees.

_2nd Torturer._ That shall I do.

His nurse did never better do;

Lay on with each hand.

_3rd Torturer._ Draw out his limbs, let see, have at.

_4th Torturer._ That was well drawn out, that,

Fair befall him that so pulled!

For to have gotten it to the mark

I trow laymen nor clerk

Nothing better should!

_1st Torturer._ Hold it now fast there

One of you the bore shall bear,

And then it may not fail.

_2nd Torturer._ That shall I do withouten dread,

As ever might I well speed

Him to mickle bale.

_3rd Torturer._ So, that is well, it will not brest,[293]

But now, let see, who does the best

With any sleight of hand.

_4th Torturer._ Go we to the other ende

Fellows, fasten fast your hende,[294]

And pull well at the band.

_1st Torturer._ I counsel, fellows, by this weather

That we draw now all together,

And look how it will fare.

_2nd Torturer._ Now let see, and leave your din

And draw we ilka syn from syn.[295]

For nothing let us spare.

_3rd Torturer._ Nay, fellows, this is no play,

We no longer draw one way,

So mickle have I espied.

_4th Torturer._ No, for as I have bliss

Some can twig whoso it is

Seeks his ease on his own side.

_1st Torturer._ It is better, as I hope

Each by himself to draw this rope,

And then may we see

Who it is that erewhile

All his fellows can beguile

Of this company.

_2nd Torturer._ Since thou wilt so have, here's for me!

How draw I?--as might thou the![296]

_3rd Torturer._ Men drew right well!

Have here for me, half a foot.

_4th Torturer._ Wema,[297] man! thou came not to't.

Men drew it never a deal

But have for me here that I may!

_1st Torturer._ Well drawnën, son, by this day!

Thou goes well to thy work.

_2nd Torturer._ Yet after, whilst thy hand is in

Pull thereat with some engine.

_3rd Torturer._ Yea, and bring it to the mark.

_4th Torturer._ Pull, pull!

_1st Torturer._ Have now!

_2nd Torturer._ Let see!

_3rd Torturer._ Aha!

_4th Torturer._ Yet, a draught!

_1st Torturer._ Thereto with all my might.

_2nd Torturer._ Aha, hold still thore.[298]

_3rd Torturer._ So, fellows, look now alive,

Which of you can best drive,

And I shall take the bore.

_4th Torturer._ Let me go to it, if I shall

I hope that I be the best marshal[299]

For to clink[300] it right.

Do raise him up now when we may,

For I hope he and his palfrey

Shall not twine[301] this night.

_1st Torturer._ Come hither, fellows, and have done,

And help that this tree soon

Be lift with all your sleight.

_2nd Torturer._ Yet let us work awhile,

And no man now the other beguile

Till it be brought on height.

_3rd Torturer._ Fellows, lay on all your hende[302]

For to raise this tree on ende

And lets see who is last.

_4th Torturer._ I rede we do as he says,

Set we the tree on the mortase,[303]

And there, will it stand fast.

_1st Torturer._ Up with the timber.

_2nd Torturer._ Ah, it holds!

For him, that all this world wields,

Put from thee, with thy hand.

_3rd Torturer._ Hold even! amongst us all.

_4th Torturer._ Yea, and let it into the mortise fall,

For then will it best stand.

_1st Torturer._ Go we to it, and be we strong,

And raise it, be it never so long,

Since that it is fast bound.

_2nd Torturer._ Up with the timber fast on ende.

_3rd Torturer._ Ah fellows, fair fall now your hende.

_4th Torturer._ So, sir, gape against the sun!

[_To Christ._

_1st Torturer._ Ah, fellow, wear thy crown!

_2nd Torturer._ Trowest thou this timber will come down?

_3rd Torturer._ Yet help, to make it fast.

_4th Torturer._ Bind him well, and let us lift.

_1st Torturer._ Full short shall be his thrift.

_2nd Torturer._ Ah, it stands up like a mast.

_Jesus._ I pray you, people, that pass me by,

That lead your life so lykandly[304]

Raise up your heart on high;

Behold if ever ye saw body

Buffet[305] and beaten thus bloody,

Or dight thus dolefully;

In this world was never no wight

That suffered half so sair.

My mayn,[306] my mode,[307] my might

Is naught but sorrow to sight,

And comfort--none but care!

My folk, what have I done to thee

That thou all thus shall torment me?

Thy sin bear I full soon.

How have I grieved thee? answer me.

That thou thus nailest me to a tree,

And all for thine error.

Where shalt thou seek succour?

This fault how shalt thou amende

When that thou thy saviour

Drivest to this dishonour

And nail'st through feet and hende.[308]

All creatures whose kinds may be trest,[309]

Beasts and birds, they all have rest

When they are woe begone.

But God's own son, that should be best,

Has not whereon his head to rest,

But on his shoulder bone:

To whom now may I make my moan

When they thus martyr me?

And sackless[310] will me slone,[311]

And beat me blood and bone,

That should my brethren be?

What kindness should I kythe[312] them to?

Have I not done what I ought to do,

Made thee in my likeness?

And thou thus rives my rest and ro[313]

And thinkest lightly on me, lo,

Such is thy caitifness.

I have shown thee kindness, unkindly thou me 'quitest,[314]

See thus thy wickedness, look how thou me despitest.

Guiltless thus am I put to pine,

Not for my sin, man, but for thine.

Thus am I rent on rood;

For I that treasure would not tyne[315]

That I marked and made for mine.

Thus buy I Adam's blood,

That sunken was in sin,

With none earthly good,

But with my flesh and blood

That loath was for to wyn.[316]

My brother, that I came for to buy,

Has hanged me here, thus hideously,

Friends find I few or none;

Thus have they dight me drearily,

And all be-spit me piteously,

A helpless man in wone.[317]

But, Father, that sittest on throne,

Forgive thou them this guilt.

I pray to thee this boon--

They know not what they doon,

Nor whom they thus have spoilt![318]

_1st Torturer._ Yes, what we do full well we know.

_2nd Torturer._ Yes, that shall he find within a throw.

_3rd Torturer._ Now, with a mischance to his corse!

Wenys[319] he that we give any force[320]

What evil so ever he ail?

_4th Torturer._ For he would tarry us all day,

Of his death to make delay,

I tell you sans fail.

_1st Torturer._ Lift we this tree amongst us all.

_2nd Torturer._ Yea, and let it into the mortise fall

And that shall make him brest.[321]

_3rd Torturer._ Yea, and all to rive him, limb from limb.

_4th Torturer._ And it will break each joint in him;

Let see now, who does best?

_Mary._ Alas, the dole I dree![322] I droop, I go in dread.

Why hang'st thou, son, so high? my woe begins to breed,

All blemished is thy ble,[323] I see thy body bleed,

In the world, my son, we were never so woe, as now in weed.[324]

My food[325] that I have fed,

In life--longing thee led!

Full straight art thou bestead

Among these foemen fell:

Such sorrow for to see.

My dearest child, on thee,

Is more mourning to me

Than any tongue may tell.

Alas! thy holy head

Has not whereon to held[326]

Thy face with blood is red,

Was fair as flower in field;

How should I stand in stead![327]

To see my bairn thus bleed,

Beaten as blo[328] as lead.

And has no limb to wield?

Fastened both hands and feet,

With nalys[329] full unmeet,

His wounds all wringing wet.

Alas, my child, for care!

For all rent is thy hide,

I see on either side

Tears of blood down glide

Over all thy body bare.

Alas that ever I should bide, and see my feyr[330] thus fare!

_John._ Alas, for dule, my lady dear!

All for changèd is thy cheer,

To see this prince without a peer,

Thus lappéd all in woe;

He was thy food, thy fairest foine,[331]

Thy love, thy like,[332] thy lovesome son,

That high on tree thus hangs alone

With body black and blo,[333] alas!

To me and many mo,[334]

A good master he was.

But, lady, since it is his will

The prophecy to fulfil,

That mankind in sin not spill,[335]

For them to thole[336] the pain;

And with his death ransom to make,

As prophets before of him spake.

I counsel thee, thy grief to slake,

Thy weeping may not gain

In sorrow;

Our boot[337] he buys full bayne,[338]

Us all from bale to borrow.

_Mary._ Alas, thine eyes as crystal clear,

That shone as sun in sight,

That lovely were in lyere[339]

Lost they have their light,

And wax all fa'ed[340] in fear,

All dim then are they dight;

In pain thou hast no peer,

That is withouten pight.[341]

Sweet son, say me thy thought;

What wonders hast thou wrought

To be in pain thus brought

Thy blessed blood to blend?

Ah, son, think on my woe,

Why will thou from me go?

On earth is no man mo[342]

That may my mirth amend.

_John._ Comely lady, good and couth,[343]

Fain would I comfort thee;

Me mynnys[344] my master with mouth

Told unto his menyee.[345]

That he should suffer many a pain,

And die upon a tree,

And to the life rise up again,

Upon the third day should it be

Full right;

For thee, my lady sweet,

Stint awhile to greet,[346]

Our bale then will be beat,[347]

As he before has bight.[348]

_Mary._ My sorrow it is so sad,

No solace may me save:

Mourning makes me mad,

No hope of help I have.

I am redeless[349] and afraid

For fear that I should rave,

Nought may make me glad,

Till I be in my grave.

To death my dear is driven,

His robe is all to-riven,[350]

That by me was him given

And shapen with my sides.

These Jews and he have striven

That all the bale he bides.

Alas! my lamb so mild,

Why wilt thou from me go

Among these wolvés wild,

That work on thee this woe?

For shame, who may thee shield,

For friends now hast thou foe.

Alas, my comely child,

Why will thou from me go?

Maidens, make your moan,

And weep, ye wives, every one

With me, most sad, in wone[351]

The child that born was best:

My heart is stiff as stone

That for no bale will brest.[352]

_John._ Ah, lady, well wot I,

Thy heart is full of care,

When thou thus openly

Seest thy child thus fare;

Love drives him rathly.

Himself he will not spare,

Us all from bale to buy,

Of bliss that are full bare

For sin;

My dear lady, therefore of mourning look thou blyn.[353]

_Mary._ "Alas!" may ever be my song,

While I may live in leyd,[354]

Methinks now that I live too long,

To see my bairn thus bleed.

Jews work with him all wrong,

Wherefore do they this deed?

Lo, so high have they him hung,

They let[355] for no dread;

Why so?

His foeman he is among.

No friend he has, but foe,

My frely food[356] from me must go

What shall become of me?

Thou art warpyd[357] all in woe,

And spread here on a tree

Full hie;[358]

I mourn, and so may mo[359]

That see this pain on thee.

_John._ Dear lady, well for me

If that I might comfort thee,

For the sorrow that I see

Shears my heart in sunder;

When that I see my master hang

With bitter pains and strong;

Was never wight with[360] wrong

Wrought so mickle wonder.

_Mary._ Alas, death, thou dwellest too long,

Why art thou hid from me?

Who bid thee to my child to gang?[361]

All black thou mak'st his ble;[362]

Now witterly,[363] thou workest wrong

The more I will wyte[364] thee.

But if thou wilt my heart now sting

That I may with him dee,[365]

And bide.

Sore sighing is my song. For pierced is his side!

Ah, death, what hast thou done?

With thee will I fare soon,

Since I had children none but one,

Best under sun or moon.

Friends I had full foyn[366]

That gars me greet[367] and groan

Full sore.

Good Lord, grant me my boon,

And let me live no more!

Gabriel! that art so good

Sometime thou did me greet,

And then I understood

Thy words that were so sweet.

But now they vex my mood,

For grace thou canst me hete,[368]

To bear all of my blood

A child our bale should beat[369]

With right.

Now hangs he here on rood,

Where is that thou me hight.[370]

All that thou of bliss

Hight me in that stede[371]

From mirth is far amiss.

And yet I trow thy rede[372]

Counsel me now of this,

My life how shall I lead

When from me gone is

He that was my head

On high?

My death, now, come it is:

My dear son, have mercy!

_Jesus._ My mother mild, change thou thy cheer,

Cease from thy sorrow and sighing sere,

It syttes[373] unto my heart full sore;

The sorrow is sharp, I suffer here;

But the dole thou drees,[374] my mother dear,

Me martyrs mickle more.

Thus wills my father I fare

To loose mankind from bands

His son will he not spare,

To loose that bond was e'er

Full fast in fiends' hands.

The first cause, mother, of my coming

Was for mankind miscarrying,

To save them sore I sought;

Therefore, mother make no mourning

Since mankind, through my dying,

May thus to bliss be brought.

Woman, weep thou right nought,

Take there, John, unto thy child,

Mankind must needs be bought;

And thou cast, cousin, in thy thought.[375]

John, lo, there, thy mother mild!

Blue and bloody thus am I beat,

Swongen with swepys[376] and all a-sweat,

Mankind, for thy misdeed.

For my love's sake when wouldst thou let,[377]

And thy heart sadly set,

Since I thus for thee have bled?

Such life for sooth, I lead,

That nothing may I more.

This I suffer for thy need,

To mark thee, man, thy meed!

Now thirst I wonder sore.

_1st Torturer._ Nought but hold thy peace,

Thou shalt have drink within a resse,[378]

Myself shall be thy knave;

Have here the draught that I thee hete,[379]

And I shall warrant it is not sweet

By all the good I have.

_2nd Torturer._ So, sir, say now all your will,

For if ye could have holden you still

Ye had not had this brade.[380]

_3rd Torturer._ Thou would'st all gate[381] be King of Jews,

But by this I trow thou rues

All that thou has said.

_4th Torturer._ He has him rused of great prophës[382]

That he should make us tempyllës

And make it clean fall down;

And yet he said he should it raise

As well as it was within three days,

He lies, that wot we all;

And for his lies in great despite

We will divide his clothing tyte[383]

Save he can more of art.[384]

_1st Torturer._ Yes, as ever might I thrive,

Soon will we this mantle rive,

And each man take his part.

_2nd Torturer._ How, wouldst thou we share this cloth?

_3rd Torturer._ Nay, forsooth, that were I loth,

For then it were all gate[385] spoilt.

But assent thou to my saw,[386]

And let us all cut draw[387]

And then is none begylt.[388]

_2nd Torturer._ Howe'er befall, now I draw,

This is mine by common law,

Say not there again.

_1st Torturer._ Now since it may no better be,

Chevithe thee with it for me;

Methinks thou art full fain.

_2nd Torturer._ How, fellows, see ye not yon scraw?[389]

It is written yonder within a thraw,

Now since that we drew lot.

_3rd Torturer._ There is no man that is alive,

Unless Pilate, as I might thrive

That durst it there have put.

_4th Torturer._ Go we fast, and let us look

What is written on yon book

And what it may be, mean.

_1st Torturer._ All the more I look thereon,

All the more I think I fon;[390]

All is not worth a bean.

_2nd Torturer._ Yes for sooth, methinks I see

Thereon written language three

Hebrew and Latýn

And Greek methinks written thereon,

For it is hard for to expoun.

_3rd Torturer._ Thou read, by Apollyon!

_4th Torturer._ Yea, as I am a true knight.

I am the best Latin wright

Of this company;

I will go withouten delay

And tell you what it is to say.

Behold, sirs, verily,

Yonder is written--Jesus of Nazarene

He is King of Jews, I ween.

_1st Torturer._ Ah, that is written wrong.

_2nd Torturer._ He calls himself so, but he is none.

_3rd Torturer._ Go we to Pilate and make our moan,

Have done, and dwell not long. [_They go to Pilate._

Pilate, yonder is a false table,

Thereon is written naught but fable,

Of Jews he is not king,

He calls him so, but he not is,

It is falsely written, I wis,

This is a wrong-wise thing.

_Pilate._ Boys, I say, what melle ye yon?[391]

As it is written shall it be now,

I say certain

_Quod scriptum scripsi_,[392]

That same wrote I,

What gadlyng[393] grumbles there again.

_4th Torturer._ Since that he is a man of law

He must needs have his will;

I trow he had not written that saw

Without some proper skill.

_1st Torturer._ Yea, let it hang above his head

It shall not save him from the dead

Naught that he can write.

_2nd Torturer._ Now ill a hale[394] was he born!

_3rd Torturer._ My faith, I tell his life is lorn

He shall be slain as tyte.[395]

If thou be Christ, as men thee call

Come down now among us all

And thole[396] not these missays.[397]

_4th Torturer._ Yea, and help myself that we may see

And we shall all believe in thee,

Whatsoever thou says.

_1st Torturer._ He calls himself good of might,

But I would see him be so wight[398]

To do such a deed.

He raised Lazare out of his delf[399]

But he cannot help himself

Now in his great need.

_Jesus._ Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani!

My God, my God! wherefor and why

Hast thou forsaken me?

_2nd Torturer._ How, hear ye not as well as I

How he can upon Eli cry

Upon this wise?

_3rd Torturer._ Yea, there is no Eli in this country

Shall deliver him from this meneye[400]

No, in no wise.

_4th Torturer._ I warrant you now at the last

That he shall soon yield the ghost

For bursten is his gall.

_Jesus._ Now is my passion brought to end,

Father of heaven, into thy hende[401]

I do commend my soul.

_1st Torturer._ Let one prick him with a spear,

And if it should do him no dere[402]

Then is his life near past.

_2nd Torturer._ This blind knight may best do that.

_Longeus._ Gar me not do, save I wit what.

_3rd Torturer._ Naught, but strike up fast.

_Longeus._ Ah! Lord, what may this be?

Once I was blind, now I can see;

Gode's son, hear me, Jesu!

For this trespass on me thou rue[403]

For, Lord, other men me gart[404]

That I thee struck unto the heart,

I see thou hangest here on high,

And dies to fulfil the prophecy.

_4th Torturer._ Go we hence, and leave him here

For I shall be his bail, this year

He feels now no more pain;

For Eli, ne for none other man

All the good that ever he won

Gets not his life again. [_Exeunt Torturers._

_Joseph._ Alas, alas, and well a way!

That ever I should abide this day

To see my master dead;

Thus wickedly as he is shent,

With so bitter tornament[405]

Thro' the false Jews' red.[406]

Nicodeme, I would we yede[407]

To Sir Pilate, if we might spede

His body for to crave;

I will strive with all my might

For my service to ask that knight,

His body for to grave.[408]

_Nicodemus._ Joseph, I will wend with thee

For to do what is in me

For that body to pray;

For our good-will and our travail

I hope that it may us avail

Hereafterward some day.

_Joseph._ Sir Pilate, God thee save!

Grant me what I crave

If that it be thy will.

_Pilate._ Welcome, Joseph, might thou be,

What so thou askest, I grant it thee

So that it be skill.[409]

_Joseph._ For my long service, I thee pray,

Grant me the body, say me not nay

Of Jesus dead on rood.

_Pilate._ I grant it well if he dead be,

Good leave shalt thou have of me.

Do with him what thou think good.

_Joseph._ Gramercy, sir, of your good grace

That you did grant me in this place.

Go we our way:

Nicodeme, come me forth with,

For I myself shall be the smith

The nails out for to dray.[410]

_Nicodemus._ Joseph, I am ready here

To go with thee with full good cheer

To help with all my might.

Pull forth the nails on either side

And I shall hold him up this tide;

Ah, Lord, how art thou dight!

[_They take down the body._

_Joseph._ Help now, fellow, with all thy might,

That he be wounden[411] and well dight,

And lay him on this bier:

Bear we him forth into the kirk

To the tomb that I gar'd[412] work

Since full many a year.

_Nicodemus._ It shall be so, withouten nay,

He that died on Good Friday,

And crownèd was with thorn;

Save you all that now here be

That Lord that thus would dee,

And rose on Paschë[413] morn.

THE CORNISH MYSTERY-PLAY OF THE THREE MARIES

CHARACTERS

The Gardener--Jesus Christ

The Three Maries--

Mary Magdalene

Mary, Mother of James

Mary Salome

First Angel

Second Angel

THE MYSTERY OF THE THREE MARIES

[_Enter Mary Magdalene, and Mary, mother of James._]

_Mary Magdalene._ What shall I do, alas!

My Lord went to the tomb,

To-day is the third day;

Go now see indeed

If he comes and rises,

As he said to me truly.

_Mary, Mother of James._ I will go and see

The body _of him_ who redeemed me with pain,

If it be risen again.

Great comfort he was to us;

That we should have seen his death!

Alas! alas!

[_Enter Mary Salome_

_Mary Salome._ The third day is to-day;

If the body of Christ be risen,

Go to see.

For the torment which he had

Is ever in my heart;

This sorrow does not leave me.

[_Here she shall meet the other Maries._

_Mary Magdalene._ Women, joy to ye!

And Mary, _mother_ of James,

And Salome also.

Sorrow is in my heart, alas!

If the body of God himself is gone,

Where may it be found?

_Mary, Mother of James._ So it is with me,

Much and great torment for him;

If he will not, through his grace,

Help me in a short time,

My heart in me will break

Very really through troubles.

_Mary Salome._ So with me is sorrow

May the Lord see my state

After him.

As he is head of sovereignty,

I believe that out of the tomb

To-day he will rise.

_Mary Magdalene._ Oh! let us hasten at once,

For the stone is raised

From the tomb.

Lord, how will it be this night,

If I know not where goes

The head of royalty?

_Mary, Mother of James._ And too long we have stayed,

My Lord is gone his way

Out of the tomb, surely.

Alas! my heart is sick;

I know not indeed if I shall see him,

Who is very God.

_Mary Salome._ I know truly, and I believe it,

That he is risen up

In this day.

How will it be to us now,

That we find not our Lord?

Alas! woe! woe!

[_They sing._

[_The Dirge._]

_Alas! mourning I sing, mourning I call,

Our Lord is dead that bought us all._

_Mary Magdalene._ Alas! it is through sorrows,

My sweet Lord is dead

Who was crucified.

[_Mary Magdalene weeps at the tomb._

He bore, without complaining,

Much pain on his dear body,

For the people of the world

_Mary, Mother of James._ I cannot see the form

Of him on any side;

Alas! woe is me!

I would like to speak with him,

If it were his will,

Very seriously.

_Mary Salome._ There is to me sharp longing

In my heart always,

And sorrow;

Alas! my Lord Jesus,

For thou art full of virtue,

All mighty.

[_The Dirge._]

_Alas! mourning I sing, mourning I call,

Our Lord is dead that bought us all._

_Mary Magdalene._ Jesus Christ, Lord of Heaven,

O hear now our voice;

Who believes not in thee, miserable he!

He will not be saved.

When I think of his Passion,

There is not any joy in my heart;

Alas! that I cannot at once

Speak to thee.

_Mary, Mother of James._ Gone he is to another land,

And with him many angels;

Alas! now for grief

I am sorrowful.

I pray thee, Lord of grace,

To send a messenger to us,

That something we may be knowing

How it is to thee.

_Mary Salome._ O Jesus, full of mercy,

Do think of us;

To thy kingdom when we come,

Hear our voice.

For desire I become very sick,

I cannot stand on my standing,

Alas! now what shall I do?

O Lord of heaven!

[_The Dirge._]

_Alas! mourning I sing, mourning I call,

Our Lord is dead, that bought us all._

_1st Angel._ I know whom ye seek:

Jesus is not here,

For he is risen

To life in very earnest,

As I tell you,

Like as he is worthy.

_Mary Magdalene._ O angel, now tell me,

The body (none, equal to him),

To what place is it gone?

Like as his grace is great,

Joy to me, with my eyes

To see him yet.

_2nd Angel._ O Mary, go forthwith,

Say to his disciples

And to Peter,

Like as he promised to them

He will go to Galilee,

Very truly without doubt.

_Mary, Mother of James._ Now he is risen again indeed,

Jesus our Saviour,

Gone from the tomb.

Worship to him always;

He is Lord of heaven and earth,

Head of sovereignty.

_Mary Salome._ Hence go we to the city,

And let us say in every place

As we have seen:

That Jesus is risen,

And from the tomb forth gone,

To heaven really.

_Mary Magdalene._ Never to the city shall I go,

If I do find not my Lord,

Who was on the cross tree.

O Jesus, King of grace,

Joy to me once to see thee,

Amen, amen.

_Mary, Mother of James._ Mary, be with thee

All the blessings of women,

And the blessing of Jesus Son of grace;

Of full heart I pray him,

Joy and grace always good to do

To us now, from God the Father.

_Mary Magdalene._ My blessing on ye also,

From Christ, as he is gone to the tomb,

Joy to ye to do well to-day.

Lord, give me the grace

Once to see thy face,

If it be thy will with thee.

_Mary Salome._ Amen, amen, let us seek

Christ, who redeemed us in pain,

With his flesh and with his blood;

Much pain he suffered,

For love of the people of the world,

As he is the King of power.

[_Here Mary, the mother of James, and Salome retire from the tomb, and

sit down a little way from it._

_Mary Magdalene._ He who made heaven, · as he is gone to the tomb,

After him · great is my desire.

Christ, hear my voice, · I pray also

That thou be with me · at my end.

Lord Jesus, · give me the grace,

As I may be worthy · to find a meeting,

With thee to-day, · in some sure place,

That I may have a view · and sight of thy face.

As thou art Creator · of heaven and earth,

And a Redeemer · to us always,

Christ my Saviour, · hear, if it regards thee

Disclose to me, · what I so much desire.

Through great longing · I am quite weary,

And my body also, · bones and back.

Where is there to-night · any man who knows

Where I may yet find · Christ full of sorrow.

[_She goes to the garden._

[_Enter the Gardener._

_Gardener_ (_Jesus_). O woeful woman, · where goest thou?

For grief thou prayest, · cry out thou dost.

Weep not nor shriek, · he whom thou seekest

Thou didst dry his feet · with thy two plaits.

_Mary Magdalene._ Good lord, · if thou hast chanced to see

Christ my Saviour, · where is he truly?

To see him · I give thee my land;

Jesus, Son of grace, · hear my desire.

_Gardener._ O Mary, · as I know thee to be

Within this world, · one of his blood,

If thou shouldst see him · before thee,

Couldst thou · know him?

_Mary Magdalene._ Well I do, · know the form

Of the son of Mary, · named Jesus;

Since I see him not · in any place,

I feel sorrow; · else I would not sing "alas!"

[_And then Jesus shall shew his side to Mary Magdalene, and say:_

_Gardener._ Mary, see · my five wounds,

Believe me truly · to be risen;

To thee I give thanks · for thy desire,

Joy in the land · there shall be truly.

_Mary Magdalene._ O dear Lord, · who wast on the cross tree,

To me it becomes not · to kiss thy head.

I would pray thee · let me dare

Now to kiss · once thy feet.

[_Woman, touch me not!_]

_Gardener._ O woeful woman, · touch me not near,

No, it will not serve, · nor be for gain;

The time is not come;

Until I go · to heaven to my Father,

And I will return · again to my country,--

To speak with thee.

_Mary Magdalene._ Christ, hear my voice, · say the hour

That thou comest from heaven · again to earth

To speak with us.

Thy disciples · are very sad,

And the Jews · with violence always

Are round about them.

_Gardener._ O Mary, · tell them,

Truly I go · to Galilee,

As I said;

And besides that, · bear in memory to speak

Good comfort · to Peter by me;

Much he is loved.

THE CORNISH MYSTERY-PLAY OF MARY MAGDALENE

AND HOW SHE BROUGHT THE NEWS OF THE RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD JESUS

CHRIST TO THE APOSTLES

CHARACTERS

Jesus

Mary Magdalene

Thomas

Peter

Andrew

John

James the Greater

James the Less

Matthew

Philip

Simon

Judah

THE MYSTERY OF MARY MAGDALENE AND THE APOSTLES

[_Now Mary comes to the apostles, and says to them in Galilee:_

_Mary Magdalene._ Now, O apostles,

I will tell you news:

Jesus is risen from the tomb;

I saw him lately,

I spoke to him also,

I looked on his wounds,

Pitiful it was to see them;

To the world they bring healing.

_Thomas._ Silence, woman, with thy tales,

And speak truth, as I pray thee;

Christ who was cruelly slain,

To be alive I will not believe;

Waste no more words,

For lies I do not love;

Our Lord is dead;

Alas! I tell the truth.

_Mary Magdalene._ I speak true, Thomas,

And I, though poor, will prove it.

Lately I saw him,--

The Lord (none equal to him),

And by me he sent,

I swear to ye, as ye may know,

Like as he promised;

He named to me none but Peter.

_Thomas._ Silence, and speak not, woman!

I pray thee, mockery with us

Now do not make;

Stout though Castle Maudlen be,

If thou mock, I will break thy head

About thee from above.

_Mary Magdalene._ I will not be silent from fear

I will prove it true what I say

Before _we_ separate.

Like as he is King of heaven,

He is with God the Father,

On his right side.

_Peter._ Ah! Jesus Christ, happy am I

To hear that he is risen

Out of the tomb;

For I know very well

That he is son to Mary,

And God likewise.

_Thomas._ Peter, peace, and leave thy mockery,

For idle it is to say

That he is risen.

Never can, for the world,

Any man be raised

After dying.

_James the Greater._ Thomas, very well it may be;

The Son of God will rise

When he will;

For Jesus, Son of Mary,

He made heaven, and this world,

And every thing that was not.

_Thomas._ O James, it is no use for thee;

A man who is dead certainly

Does not live again.

Foolish idleness, not to leave it,

But to go to assert

A thing of no benefit.

_John._ O Thomas, thou art a fool;

That is the belief of all:

Jesus Christ after dying,

To be put into the ground;

After that to rise again

At the end of three days, and to stand up.

_Thomas._ O John, be not absurd,

For my wonder,--it is great,

That thou shouldst speak folly.

Christ through sufferings was

Indeed put to death on the cross tree;

My curse on him that did it!

_Bartholomew._ Thomas, believe me, though I am gray;

Man could not have power

To put him to death.

For us he would die,

And go into the tomb, and rise,

To carry all Christians to heaven.

_Thomas._ O Bartte, thou art mad

And fond beyond all men

Who are fools.

God, without dying, might have

Caused all men to be saved,

Over all the world.

_Matthew._ That is true, he could

Destroy every thing again,

That it be no more.

But nevertheless for us,

Christ wished to go into the ground,

And to live again.

_Thomas._ And thou art a fool, Matthew;

If thou art wise thou wilt be silent,

And withdraw.

He lives not, through all thy words,

When I saw him, he was dead

On the cross tree.

_Philip._ Alas! to be so foolish!

Crooked, wilt thou not believe

The Head of sovereignty;

And he saying to us

That after dying he would rise

Out of the tomb?

_Thomas._ Sit silent, wilt thou, Philip,

For in faith thou swearest wrongly

About him.

Christ's limbs were bruised,

And on his body a thousand wounds;

Alas! he is not risen.

_James the Greater._ O do not say so,

That Jesus the best Lord

Cannot rise,

For very truly he is risen;

To be his servant thou art not worthy,

It appears well.

_Thomas._ O thou James, if he were alive

His servant I would be

Very joyfully.

But he is not alive, leave off thy noise;

The thorn even into his brain,

Went to his head.

_Simon._ Though the thorn went into his head,

And through his heart and side

The spear was seen,

Nevertheless need is to believe

Jesus Christ will rise again,

As he is true God.

_Thomas._ O Simon, do not speak a word;

Never, never, unhappily,

He has not risen again.

But if it were so,

Together we should all be

Exceedingly at ease.

_Judah._ Sir Thomas, it is so,

He has risen again to-day

Out of the tomb.

For if he should not rise again,

Never with us would there be

Joy without end.

_Thomas._ O Judah, Judah, leave thy belief;

His heart torn in pieces

I saw.

Notwithstanding what any man may say,

That same body will remain;

It has not risen.

_Andrew._ Peace, Thomas, and say not a word;

Very truly our dear Lord

Is risen again.

Surely too much thou hast disbelieved,

For Mary has spoken

With him to-day.

_Thomas._ Thou art a fool, Andrew;

The girl has told a lie,

Do not think otherwise.

That he ever rose again

I will not believe it.

As long as I am alive.

_Mary Magdalene._ I have not said an untrue word;

For to me all his wounds

He shewed.

And to that I will

Bear witness at all times,

That the tale is true.

[_Here let Thomas and Mary Magdalene go down._

_Thomas._ Notwithstanding vain words,

I do not believe thee; thou failest

To make me believe.

Though thou dost chatter so much,

Any thing from thee regards me not,

Though thou be busy.

_Mary Magdalene._ I tell thee the truth;

The angel said to us,

Surely at the tomb,

That he was risen up,

And was gone to the bright heaven,

With many angels.

_Thomas._ Peace, chattering woman, say no more;

I will not believe thee,

_That_ is gone to heaven.

The body, which I saw dead,--

Great are my anxieties

After it.

_Mary Magdalene._ Surely Mary, mother of James,

And Mary Salome,

Will witness to me;

Like as I saw,

So I tell the tale to thee;

Do believe it.

_Thomas._ Never can it go into my heart,

That the body dead before us

Should rise again;

When I think on his passion,

Grief takes me immediately

For him, woe is me!

_Mary Magdalene._ There is to me wonder of thee,

That thy heart is so hard,

Thou believest it not.

If thou doest not believe it,

Never shalt thou come to the joy

Surely which is in heaven.

_Thomas._ Silence thou, now, for shame;

With Jesus thou hast no secrets:

Surely not! I believe

Thou art a sinner, without a mistake;

The greatest that was in the country

By every body thou wast called.

_Mary Magdalene._ I have been a sinner;

I have sinned wondrous much;

On Jesus I cried,

That he would forgive me my trespass;

And he said to me,

Thy sin is forgiven to thee,

Through thy faith thou art saved:

Now no more, do not sin.

Thomas, thou art very stupid,

Because thou wilt not believe

The Lord to have risen

Easter-day morning.

Who believes not shall not be saved,

Nor with God shall he dwell,

And for that, I pray thee,

Believe in time.

* * * * *

_Thomas._ Hold thy prate, nor be busy,

For I will not believe thee;

The body was seen by me

Fastened on the cross with nails;

With a sharp spear they pierced him,

So that it passed through the heart;

To the earth the blood fell,

And made him soon dead.

That body cannot live,

Nor rise up again,

Surely, thou woman.

There is not any man of this world

Who shall make me now

Believe otherwise.

_Mary Magdalene._ Thomas, thou art mad,

And in madness lost;

Evil it is with me now.

I advise thee believe,

And if thou dost not, seriously,

Thou shalt have sharp repentance.

_Thomas._ With you since there is no peace,

From you I will go

My ways in the country.

Are ye not now fools?

So God help me,

I love not lies.

[_Then Jesus comes to the apostles, and says (in Galilee, the doors

being closed, he kisses them_):

_Jesus._ The peace of God, O apostles!

I, Christ, to rise from the tomb,

Believe well;

For certainly as many as believe it,

And are faithfully baptized,

Shall be saved.

_Peter._ O dear Lord, happy is my lot

To see thee risen again,

Jesus, though I denied thee.

Abundant mercy, I pray,

As the Jews are always

Here laying snares for us.

Jesus, Lord of heaven and earth,

And Saviour to us also,

Pardon me my trespass,

For great are my sorrows.

For sharp repentance falls on me

For denying thee: now

Mercy I pray at all times,

Certainly, with full heart.

_Jesus._ Peter, pardon thou shalt get,

For thy repentance is perfect,

Through the Holy Ghost.

Like as I redeemed thee dearly,

Strengthen also thy brethren

In full belief.

_John._ O Lord, I am glad

That thou wouldst come with us

Hither, for our joy;

That I will say likewise,

We are, through great longing,

After thee pining.

_Jesus._ From you I go to my country;

At the right side of God the Father,

I shall sit.

To strengthen you in belief,

To you the comfort of the Holy Ghost

I shall send.

_James the Greater._ Lord, it is wonderful;

When thou comest, Jesus powerful,

To look at us,

And to speak peace to us,

Though they were fast, thou didst open

Our doors.

[_Here Jesus goes away from the apostles._

He is the Lord of power,

And he has purchased with his blood

The people of the world;

That Jesus Christ is risen again,--

A day is coming that shall tell

All them that do believe it not!

THE WAKEFIELD PAGEANT OF THE HARROWING OF HELL

OR

EXTRACTION OF SOULS FROM HELL

CHARACTERS

Jesus

Adam

Eve

Simeon

John the Baptist

Moses

Esaias

David

Ribald

Beelzebub

Sathanas

THE HARROWING OF HELL

EXTRACTIO ANIMARUM

AB INFERNO

[_The Extraction of Souls from Hell._]

_Jesus._ My fader[414] me from blys has send

Till's erthe for mankynde sake,

Adam mys[415] for to amend,

My deth nede must I take:

I dwellyd ther thyrty yeres and two,

And som dele more, the sothe to say,[416]

In anger, pyne, and mekylle wo,

I dyde on cros this day.

Therefor tille helle now wille I go,

To chalange[417] that is myne,

Adam, Eve, and othere mo,

Thay shalle no longer dwelle in pyne;

The feynde[418] theym wan withe trayn,[419]

Thrughe fraude of earthly fode,[420]

I have theym boght agan

With shedyng of my blode.

And now I wille that stede[421] restore,

Whiche the feynde felle from for syn,

Som tokyn wille I send before,

Withe myrthe to gar[422] thare gammes begyn.

A light I wille thay have,

To know I wille com sone;

My body shalle abyde in grave

Tille alle this dede be done.

_Adam._ My brether, herkyn unto me here,

More hope of helth never we had,

Four thousand and six hundred yere

Have we bene in darknes stad;[423]

Now se I tokyns of solace sere,[424]

A gloryous gleme to make us glad,

Wherthrughe I hope that help is nere,

That sone shalle slake[425] oure sorrowes sad.

_Eve._ Adam, my husband heynd,[426]

This menys solace certan,

Siche lighte can on us leynd[427]

In paradyse fulle playn.

_Isaias._ Adam, thrugh thi syn

Here were we put to dwelle,

This wykyd place within,

The name of it is helle;

Here paynes shalle never blyn[428]

That wykyd ar and felle,

Love, that lord, withe wyn

His lyfe for us wold selle.

[_Et cantent omnes "Salvator mundi" primum versum._[429]

Adam, thou welle understand,

I am Isaias, so Crist me kende,[430]

I spake of folk in darknes walkand,[431]

I saide a light shuld on them lende;

This light is alle from Crist commande,

That he tille us has hethir sende,

Thus is my poynt proved in hand,

As I before to fold[432] it kende.

_Simeon._ So may I telle of farlys feylle,[433]

For in the tempylle his freyndes me fande,

Me thoght dayntethe[434] with hym to deylle,

I halsyd[435] hym homely with my hand,

I saide, Lord, let thi servandes leylle[436]

Pas in peasse to lyf lastande,[437]

Now that myn eeyn has sene thyn hele[438]

No longer lyst[439] I lyf in lande.

This light thou has purvayde

For theym that lyf in lede,[440]

That I before of the have saide

I se it is fulfillyd in dede.

_Johannes Baptista._ As a voice cryand I kend[441]

The wayes of Crist, as I welle can,

I baptisid hym with bothe myn hende

In the water of flume[442] Jordan;

The Holy Gost from heven discende

As a white dowfe downe on me than,

The Fader voyce, oure myrthes to amende,

Was made to me lyke as a man;[443]

"Yond is my son," he saide,

"And whiche pleasses me fulle welle,"

His light is on us layde,

And commys oure karys to kele.[444]

_Moyses._ Now this same nyght lernyng have I,

To me, Moyses, he shewid his myght,

And also to another one, Hely,[445]

Where we stud on a hille on hyght,

As whyte as snaw was his body,

His face was like the son for bright,

No man on mold[446] was so mighty

Grathly[447] durst loke agans[448] that light,

And that same lighte here se I now

Shynyng on us, certayn,

Wherethrughe truly I trow

That we shalle sone pas fro this payn.

_Rybald._ Sen fyrst that helle was mayde and I was put therin

Siche sorow never ere I had, nor hard I siche a dyn,[449]

My hart begynnys to brade,[450] my wytt waxys thyn,[451]

I drede we can not be glad, thise saules mon fro us twyn;[452]

How, Belsabub! bynde thise boys, siche "Harow"[453]

was never hard in helle.

_Belzabub._ Out, Rybald! thou rorest what is betyd? can thou oght telle?

_Rybald._ Whi, herys[454] thou not this ugly noyse?

Thise lurdans[455] that in lymbo dwelle,

They make menyng[456] of many joyse,

And muster myrthes theym emelle.[457]

_Belzabub._ Myrth? nay, nay! that poynt is past,

More hope of helthe shalle they never have.

_Rybald._ They cry on Crist fulle fast,

And says he shalle thaym save.

_Belzabub._ Yee, though he do not, I shalle,

For thay ar sparyd[458] in specyalle space,

Whils I am prynce and pryncypalle,

Thay shalle never pas out of this place;

Calle up Astarot[459] and Anaballe,

To gyf us counselle in this case;

Belle, Berith and Bellyalle[460]

To mar theym that siche mastry mase;[461]

Say to sir Satan oure syre,

And byd hym bryng also

Sir Lucyfer lufly of lyre.[462]

_Rybald._ Alle redy, lord, I go.

_Jesus._ _Attolite portas, principes vestras, et elevamini portœ æternales,

et introibit rex gloriæ._[463]

_Rybald._ Out, harro,[464] out!--what deville is he

That callys hym kyng over us alle?

Hark Belzabub, com ne,[465]

For hedusly[466] I hard hym calle.

_Belzabub._ Go spar the yates,[467] ylle mot thou the![468]

And set the waches[469] on the walle,

If that brodelle[470] come ne

With us ay won[471] he shalle:

And if he more calle or cry,

To make us more debate,

Lay on hym hardlly,

And make hym go his gate.[472]

_David._ Nay, withe hym may ye not fyght,

For he is king and conqueroure,

And of so mekille myght,

And styf in every stoure;[473]

Of hym commys alle this light

That shynys in this bowre;

He is fulle fers in fight,

Worthi to wyn honoure.

_Belzabub._ Honoure! harsto,[474] harlot, for what dede

Alle erthly men to me ar thralle,[475]

That lad that thou callys lord in lede[476]

He had never harbor, house, ne halle;

How, sir Sathanas, com nar

And hark this cursid rowte!

_Sathanas._ The dewille you alle to har![477]

What ales the so to showte?[478]

And see, if I com nar,

Thy brayn bot I bryst owte.[479]

_Belzabub._ Thou must com help to spar,[480]

We ar beseged abowte.

_Sathanas._ Besegyd aboute! whi, who durst be so bold

For drede to make on us a fray?

_Belzabub._ It is the Jew that Judas sold

For to be dede this othere day.

_Sathanas._ How, in tyme that tale was told,

That trature travesses[481] us alle way;

He shalle be here fulle hard in hold,

Bot loke he pas not I the pray.

_Belzabub._ Pas! nay, nay, he wille not weynde[482]

From hens or it be war,[483]

He shapys hym for to sheynd[484]

Alle helle e'er he go far.

_Sathanas._ Fy, faturs,[485] therof shalle he faylle,

For alle his fare[486] I hym defy;

I know his trantes[487] fro top to taylle,[488]

He lyffes by gawdes[489] and glory.

Therby he broght furthe of oure baylle[490]

The lathe[491] Lazare of Betany,

Bot to the Jues I gaf counsaylle

That thay shuld cause hym dy:

I entered there into Judas

That forward[492] to fulfylle,

Therfor his hyere[493] he has

Alle wayes to won here stylle.[494]

_Rybald._ Sir Sathan, sen we here the say[495]

Thou and the Jues were at assent,

And wote,[496] he wan the Lazare away

That unto us was taken to tent,[497]

Hopys thou that thou mar hym may

To muster[498] the malyce that he has ment?

For and he refe[499] us now oure pray

We wille ye witt e'er he is went.

_Sathanas._ I byd the noght abaste[500]

Bot boldly make you bowne,[501]

Withe toyles that ye intraste,[502]

And dyng[503] that dastard downe.

_Jesus. Attolite portas, principes vestras, et elevamini portæ

æternales, et introibit rex gloriæ._[504]

_Rybald._ Outt, harro![505] what harlot is he

That says his kyngdom shal be cryde?

_David._ That may thou in sawter se,[506]

For of this prynce thus err I saide;[507]

I saide that he shuld breke

Youre barres and bandes by name,[508]

And of youre wareks take wreke;[509]

Now shall thou se the same.

_Jesus._ Ye prynces of helle open youre yate,

And let my folk furthe gone,

A prynce of peasse shalle enter therat

Wheder ye wille or none.

_Rybald._ What art thou that spekys so?

_Jesus._ A kyng of blys that hight Jesus.

_Rybald._ Yee hens fast I red[510] thou go,

And melle[511] the not with us.

_Belzabub._ Oure yates[512] I trow wille last,

Thay ar so strong I weyn,[513]

Bot if oure barres brast,

For the, thay shalle not twyn.[514]

_Jesus._ This stede[515] shalle stande no longer stokyn;[516]

Open up and let my pepille pas.

_Rybald._ Out, harro![517] oure baylle is brokyn,[518]

And brusten ar alle oure bandes of bras.

_Belzabub._ Harro! oure yates begyn to crak,

In sonder, I trow, thay go,

And helle, I trow, wille all to-shak;

Alas, what I am wo![519]

_Rybald._ Lymbo is lorn, alas!

Sir Sathanas, com up!

This wark is wars[520] than it was.

_Sathanas._ Yee, hangyd be thou on a cruke;[521]

Thefys, I bad ye shuld be bowne[522]

If he maide mastres[523] more

To dyng[524] that dastard downe,

Sett[525] hym bothe sad and sore.

_Belzabub._ "So sett hym sore" that is sone saide.

Com thou thi self and serve hym so;

We may not abyde his bytter bradye,[526]

He wold us mar and we were mo.[527]

_Sathanas._ Fy, fature![528] wherfore were ye flayd?[529]

Have ye no force to flyt hym fro?

Loke in haste my gere be grayd,[530]

My self shalle to that gadlyng go.[531]

How, thou belamy, abyde,[532]

Withe alle thi boste and beyr,[533]

And telle me in this tyde

What mastres[523] thou makes here.

_Jesus._ I make no mastry bot for myne,

I wille theym save, that shalle the sow,

Thou has no powere theym to pyne,[534]

Bot in my pryson for thare prow[535]

Here have thay sojornyd,--not as thyne,

Bot in thi wayrd,[536] thou wote as how.

_Sathanas._ Why, where has thou hene ay syn[537]

That never wold neghe[538] theym nere e'er now?

_Jesus._ Now is the tyme certan

My Fader ordand herfor,[539]

That they shuld pas fro payn

In blys to dwelle for ever more.

_Sathanas._ Thy fader knew I welle by syght,

He was a wright his meett to wyn,[540]

Mary, me mynnys,[541] thi moder hight,

The utmast ende of alle thy kyn:

Say who made the so mekille[542] of myght?

_Jesus._ Thou wykyd feynde lett be thi dy[n],

My Fader wonnes[543] in heven on hight,

In blys that never more shalle blyn:[544]

I am his oonly son his forward[545] to fulfylle,

Togeder wille we won, in sonder when we wylle.

_Sathanas._ Goddes son! nay, then myght thou be glad

For no catelle thurt the crave;[546]

Bot thou has lyffed ay lyke a lad,

In sorow, and as a sympille[547] knave.

_Jesus._ That was for the hartly[548] luf I had

Unto man's saulle, it for to save,

And for to make thee masyd[549] and mad,

And for that reson rufully to rafe.[550]

My Godhede here I hyd

In Mary, moder myne,

Where it shalle never be kyd[551]

To the, ne none of thyne.[552]

_Sathanas._ How now? this wold I were told in towne,

Thou says God is thi syre;

I shalle the prove by good reson

Thou moyttes[553] as man dos into myre.

To breke thi byddyng they were fulle bowne,[554]

And soon they wroght at my desyre,

From paradise thou putt thym downe,

In helle here to have thare hyre;[555]

And thou thi self, by day and nyght,

Taght[556] ever alle men emang,

Ever to do reson and right,

And here thou wyrkys[557] alle wrang.

_Jesus._ I wyrk no wrang, that shalle thou wytt.[558]

If I my men fro wo wille wyn;[559]

My prophettes playnly prechyd it,

Alle the noytys[560] that I begyn;

They saide that I shud be that ilke

In helle where I shud entre in,

To save my servandes fro that pytt

Where dampynyd saullys[561] shalle syt for syn.

And ilke true prophete taylle[562]

Shalle be fulfillid in me;

I have thaym boght fro baylle,[563]

In blis now shalle thay be.

_Sathanas._ Now since thou list to legge the lawes[564]

Thou shalbe tenyd or we twyn,[565]

For those that thou to witnes drawes

Fulle even agans the shalle begyn;

As Salaman saide in his sawes,[566]

Who that ones commys helle within

He shalle never owte, as clerkes knawes

Therfor, belamy, let be thy dyn.[567]

Job thi servande also

In his tyme can telle

That nawder freynde nor fo

Shalle fynde relese in helle.[568]

_Jesus._ He sayde fulle soythe, that shalle thou se,

In helle shalbe no relese,

Bot of that place then ment he

Where synfulle care shalle ever encrese.

In that baylle ay shalle thou be,

Where sorrowes seyr shalle never sesse[569]

And my folk that wer most fre[570]

Shalle pas unto the place of peasse;

For thay were here with my wille,

And so thay shalle furthe weynde,[571]

Thou shalle thi self fulfylle,

Ever wo withoutten ende.

_Sathanas._ Whi, and wille thou take theym alle me fro?[572]

Then thynk me[573] thou ar unkynde;

Nay, I pray the do not so,

Umthynke[574] the better in thy mynde,

Or els let me with the go;

I pray the leyfe me not behynde.

_Jesus._ Nay, tratur, thou shalle won in wo,[575]

And tille a stake[576] I shalle the bynde.

_Sathanas._ Now here I how thou menys[577] emang

With mesure and malyce for to melle,[578]

Bot sen thou says it shalbe lang,

Yit som let alle wayes with us dwelle.

_Jesus._ Yis, witt thou welle, els were greatt wrang,

Thou shalle have Caym[579] that slo Abelle,

And alle that hastes theym self to hang,

As dyd Judas and Architophelle;

And Daton and Abaron and alle of thare assent,[580]

Cursyd tyranttes ever ilkon[581] that me and myn tormente.

And alle that wille not lere[582] my law

That I have left in land for new[583]

That makes my commyng knaw,[584]

And alle my sacramentes persew;

My deth, my rysyng, red by raw,[585]

Who trow thaym not thay ar untrewe,

Unto my dome[586] I shalle theym draw,

And juge thaym wars[587] then any Jew.

And thay that lyst to lere my law and lyf therby

Shalle never have harmes here, bot welth as is worthy.

_Sathanas._ Now here my hand, I hold me payde,

Thise poyntes ar playnly for my prow,[588]

If this be trew as thou has saide

We shalle have mo then we have now;

Thise lawes that thou has late here laide

I shalle thym lere not to alow,[589]

If thay myn take[590] thay ar betraide,

And I shalle turne thym tytte I trow.[591]

I shalle walk eest, I shalle walk west,

And gar theym wyrk welle war.[592]

_Jesus._ Nay feynde, thou shalbe feste,[593]

That thou shalle flyt no far.[594]

_Sathanas._ Feste? fy! that were a wykyd treson!

Belamy, thou shalle be smytt.[595]

_Jesus._ Deville, I commaunde the to go downe

Into thi sete where thou shalle syt.

_Sathanas._ Alas! for doylle[596] and care,

I synk into helle pyt.

_Rybald._ Sir Sathanas, so saide I are,[597]

Now shalle thou have a fytt.

_Jesus._ Com now furthe, my childer alle,

I forgyf you youre mys;[598]

Withe me now go ye shalle

To joy and endles blys.

_Adam._ Lord, thou art fulle mekylle of myght,[599]

That mekys thi self on this manere,

To help us alle as thou had us hight,

When bothe frofett I and my fere;[600]

Here have we dwelt withoutten light

Four thousand and six hundreth yere,

Now se we by this solempne sight

How that mercy makes us dere.

_Eva._ Lord, we were worthy more tornamentes[601] to tast,[602]

Thou help us lord of thy mercy, as thou of myght is mast.[603]

_Johannes._ Lord, I love the inwardly,

That me wold make thi messyngere,

Thi commyng in erthe to cry,

And teche thi fayth to folk in fere;[604]

Sythen before the forto dy,[605]

To bryng theym bodword[606] that be here,

How thay shuld have thi help in hy,

Now se I alle those poyntes appere.

_Moyses._ David, thi prophette trew,

Of tymes told unto us;

Of thi commyng he knew,

And saide it shuld be thus.

_David._ As I said ere yit say I so,

_Ne derelinquas, domine,

Animam meam in inferno_;[607]

Leyfe never my saulle, Lord, after the,

In depe helle whedur[608] dampned shalle go

Suffre thou never thi sayntes to se

The sorrow of thaym that won in wo,[609]

Ay, fulle of fylthe, and may not fle.[610]

_Moyses._ Make myrthe bothe more and les,

And love oure lord we may,

That has broght us fro bytternes

In blys to abyde for ay.

_Ysaias._ Therfor now let us syng

To love oure lord Jesus,

Unto his blys he wille us bryng,

_Te Deum laudamus._

THE INTERLUDE OF "GOD'S PROMISES"

BY JOHN BALE

CHARACTERS

Pater Cœlestis _The Heavenly Father_

Adam Primus Homo _Adam, the First Man_

Justus Noah _Just Noah_

Abraham Fidelis _Faithful Abraham_

Moses Sanctus _Saint Moses_

David Rex Pius _The Pious King, David_

Esaias Propheta _The Prophet Isaiah_

Baleus Prolocutor _John Bale, who speaks the Prologue_

GOD'S PROMISES

_A Tragedy or interlude manifesting the chief promises of God unto man

by all ages in the old law, from the Fall of Adam to the Incarnation of

the Lord Jesus Christ. Compiled by John Bale, (Anno Domini MDXXXVIII.)._

_Baleus Prolocutor._ If profit may grow, most Christian audience,

By knowledge of things which are but transitory,

And here for a time, of much more congruence,

Advantage might spring, by the search of causes heavenly,

As those matters are that the gospel specify.

Without whose knowledge no man to the truth can fall,

Nor ever attain to the life perpetual,

For he that knoweth not the living God eternal

The Father, the Son and also the Holy Ghost,

And what Christ suffered for redemption of us all,

What he commanded, and taught in every coast,

And what he forbode, that man must needs be lost,

And clean secluded, from the faithful chosen sort,

In the Heavens above, to his most high discomfort.

You therefore, good friends, I lovingly exhort,

To weigh such matters as will be uttered here,

Of whom ye may look to have no trifling sport

In fantasies feigned, nor such-like gaudy gear,

But the things that shall your inward stomach cheer.

To rejoice in God for your justification,

And alone in Christ to hope for your salvation.

Yea first ye shall have the eternal generation

Of Christ, like as John in his first chapter write,

And consequently of man the first creation

The abuse and fall, through his first oversight,

And the rise-again through God's high grace and might;

By promises first which shall be declared all:

Then by his own Son, the worker principal.

After that, Adam bewaileth here his fall;

God will shew mercy to every generation,

And to his kingdom of his great goodness call

His elected spouse, or faithful congregation,

As shall appear by open protestation,

Which from Christ's birth shall to his death conclude:

They come, that thereof will shew the certitude.

ACT I

ADAM THE FIRST MAN

_Pater Cœlestis._ In the beginning before the heavens were create,

In me and of me was my Son sempiternal

With the Holy Ghost, in one degree or estate

Of the high Godhead, to me the Father coequal

And this my Son was with me one God essential

Without separation at any time from me.

True God he is of equal dignity.

Since the beginning my Son hath ever been

Joined with his father in one essential being.

All things were create by him in each degree,

In heaven and earth and have their diverse working:

Without his power, was never made any thing

That was wrought; but through his ordinance

Each have his strength, and whole continuance.

In him is the life and the just recoverance

For Adam and his, which nought but death deserved.

And this life to men is an high perseverance

Or a light of faith, whereby they shall be saved.

And this light shall shine among the people darkened

With unfaithfulness. Yet shall they not with him take

But of wilful heart his liberal grace forsake.

Which will compel me against man for to make

In my displeasure, and send plagues of correction

Most grievous and sharp, his wanton lusts to slake,

By water and fire, by sickness and infection

Of pestilent sores, molesting his complexion;

By troublous war, by dearth and painful scarceness,

And after this life by an extreme heaviness.

I will first begin with Adam for his lewdness

Which for an apple neglected my commandment.

He shall continue in labour for his rashness,

His only sweat shall provide his food and raiment:

Yea, yet must he have a greater punishment,

Most terrible death shall bring him to his end

To teach him how he his Lord God shall offend.

[_Here Adam falls headlong upon the earth and after rolling over four

times, at last gets up._

_Adam._ Merciful Father, thy pitiful grace extend

To me, careful wretch, which have me sore abused

Thy precept breaking, O Lord, I mean to amend,

If now thy great goodness would have me excused,

Most heavenly Maker, let me not be refused,

Nor cast from thy sight for one poor sinful crime;

Alas! I am frail, my whole kind is but slime.

_Pater Cœlestis._ I wot it is so, yet art thou no less faulty

Than thou hadst been made of matter much more worthy.

I gave thee reason and wit to understand

The good from the evil, and not to take on hand

Of a brainless mind, the thing which I forbade thee.

_Adam._ Such heavy fortune hath chiefly chanced me

For that I was left to mine own liberty.

_Pater Cœlestis._ Then thou are blameless, and the fault thou layest to

me?

_Adam._ Nay, all I ascribe to my own imbecility.

No fault in thee Lord but in my infirmity,

And want of respect in such gifts as thou gavest me.

_Pater Cœlestis._ For that I put thee at thine own liberty,

Thou oughtest my goodness to have in more regard.

_Adam._ Avoid it I cannot, thou layest it to me so hard.

Lord, now I perceive what power is in man,

And strength of himself, when thy sweet grace is absent,

He must needs but fall, do he the best he can,

And endanger himself, as appeareth evident;

For I sinned not so long as thou wert present;

But when thou wert gone, I fell to sin by and by,

And thee displeased. Good Lord, I ask thee mercy.

_Pater Cœlestis._ Thou shalt die for it and all thy posterity.

_Adam._ For one fault, good Lord, avenge not thyself on me,

Who am but a worm, or a fleshly vanity.

_Pater Cœlestis._ I say thou shalt die with thy whole posterity.

_Adam._ Yet mercy, sweet Lord, if any mercy may be.

_Pater Cœlestis._ I am immutable, I may change no decree.

Thou shalt die, I say, without any remedy.

_Adam._ Yet gracious Father, extend to me thy mercy,

And throw not away the work which thou hast create

To thine own image, but avert from me thy hate.

_Pater Cœlestis._ But art thou sorry from bottom of thy heart?

_Adam._ Thy displeasure is to me most heavy smart.

_Pater Cœlestis._ Then will I tell thee what thou shalt stick unto,

Life to recover, and my good favour also.

_Adam._ Tell it me, sweet Lord, that I may thereafter go.

_Pater Cœlestis._ This is my covenant to thee and all thy offspring.

For that thou hast been deceived by the serpent,

I will put hatred betwixt him for his doing

And the woman kind. They shall hereafter dissent;

His seed with her seed shall never have agreement;

Her seed shall press down his head unto the ground,

Slay his suggestions, and his whole power confound.

Cleave to this promise with all thy inward power,

Firmly enclose it in thy remembrance fast,

Fold it in thy faith with full hope, day and hour,

And thy salvation it will be at the last.

That seed shall clear thee of all thy wickedness past,

And procure thy peace, with most high grace in my sight,

See thou trust to it and hold not the matter light.

_Adam._ Sweet lord, the promise that thyself here hath made me,

Of thy mere goodness and not of my deserving,

In my faith I trust shall so established be,

By help of thy grace, that it shall be remaining

So long as I shall have here continuing;

And shew it I will to my posterity

That they in like case have thereby felicity.

_Pater Cœlestis._ For a closing up, take yet one sentence with thee.

_Adam._ At thy pleasure, Lord, all things might ever be.

_Pater Cœlestis._ For that my promise may have the deeper effect

In the faith of thee and all thy generation,

Take this sign with it, as a seal thereto connect.

Creep shall the serpent, for his abomination,

The woman shall sorrow in painful propagation.

Like as thou shalt find this true in outward working,

So think the other, though it be a hidden thing.

_Adam._ Incessant praising to thee most heavenly lord

For this thy succour, and undeserved kindness,

Thou bindest me in heart thy gracious gifts to record,

And to bear in mind, now after my heaviness,

The bruit of thy name, with inward joy and gladness.

Thou disdainest not, as well appeareth this day,

To fetch to thy fold thy first sheep going astray.

Most mighty Maker, thou castest not yet away

Thy sinful servant, which hath done most offence.

It is not thy mind for ever I should decay,

But thou reservest me, of thy benevolence,

And hast provided for me a recompence,

By thy appointment, like as I have received

In thy strong promise here openly pronounced.

This goodness, dear Lord, is of me undeserved,

I so declining from thy first institution,

At so light motions. To one that thus hath swerved,

What a lord art thou, to give such retribution!

I, damnable wretch, deserved execution

Of terrible death, without all remedy,

And to be put out of all good memory.

I am enforced to rejoice here inwardly,

An imp though I be of hell, death and damnation,

Through my own working: for I consider thy mercy

And pitiful mind for my whole generation.

It is thou, sweet Lord, that workest my salvation,

And my recovery. Therefore of a congruence

From hence thou must have my heart and obedience.

Though I be mortal, by reason of my offence,

And shall die the death like as God hath appointed:

Of this I am sure, through his high influence,

At a certain day again to be revived.

From ground of my heart this shall not be removed,

I have it in faith and therefore I will sing

This anthem to him that my salvation shall bring.

[_Then with sonorous voice, on his bent knees, he begins an antiphon, "O

Sapientia," which the chorus follows with instruments, as it removes

from the stage. Or else in the same it may thus be sung in English:_

O Eternal Sapience, that proceedest from the mouth of the highest,

reaching forth with a great power from the beginning to the end, with

heavenly sweetness disposing all creatures, come now and instruct us the

true way of thy godly prudence.