Mysteries and Miracle Plays must not be forgotten, though in their
origin they were not a plant of strictly popular growth. Some writers
consider that they were instituted by ecclesiastics as rivals to
the lay or pagan plays which were still in great favour in the first
Christian centuries. Others think with Dr Hermann Ulrici,[8] that they
grew naturally out of the increasingly pictorial celebration of
the early Greek liturgy,--painted scenes developing into _tableaux
vivants_, and these into acted and spoken interludes. It is certain
that they were started by the clergy, who at first were the sole
actors, assuming characters of both sexes. As time wore on, something
more lively was desired, and clowns and buffoons were accordingly
introduced. They appeared in the Innsbruck Play of the fourteenth
century; and again in 1427, in the performances given at Metz, while
the serious parts were acted by ecclesiastics, the lighter, or comic
parts, were represented by laymen. These performances were held in a
theatre constructed for the purpose, but mysteries were often played
in the churches themselves, nor is the practice wholly abandoned.
A Nativity play is performed in the churches of Upper Gascony on
Christmas Eve, of which the subjoined account will, perhaps, be read
with interest:--
In the middle of the Midnight Mass, just when the priest has
finished reading the gospel, Joseph and Mary enter the nave,
the former clad in the garb of a village carpenter with his
tools slung across his shoulder, the latter dressed in a robe
of spotless white. The people divide so as to let them pass up
the church, and they look about for a night's lodging. In one
part of the church the stable of Bethlehem is represented
behind a framework of greenery; here they take up their
position, and presently a cradle is placed beside them which
contains the image of a babe. The voice of an angel from on
high now proclaims the birth of the Infant Saviour, and calls
on the shepherds to draw near to the sound of glad music. The
way in which this bit of theatrical "business" is managed, is
by a child in a surplice, with wings fastened to his
shoulders, being drawn up to the ceiling seated on a chair,
which is supported by ropes on a pulley. The shepherds, real
shepherds in white, homespun capes, with long crooks decked
with ribbons, are placed on a raised dais, which stands for
the mountain. They wake up when they hear the angel's song,
and one of them exclaims:
Diou dou ceou, quino vero vouts!
Un anjou mous parlo, pastous;
Biste quieten noste troupet!
Mes que dit l'anjou, si vous plait?
(Heavens! with how sweet a voice
The angel calls us to rejoice;
Quick leave your flocks: but tell me, pray,
What doth the heavenly angel say?)
The angel replies in French:
Rise, shepherd, nor delay,
'Tis God who summons thee,
Hasten with zeal away
Thy Saviour's self to see.
The Lord of Hosts hath shown
That since this glorious birth,
War shall be no more known,
But peace shall reign on earth.
The shepherds, however, are not very willing to be disturbed:
"Let me sleep! Let me sleep!" says one of them, and another
goes so far as to threaten to drive away the angel if he does
not let them alone. "Come and render homage to the new-born
babe," sings the angel, "and cease to complain of your happy
lot." They answer:
A happy lot
We never yet possest,
A happy lot
For us poor shepherd folk existeth not;
Then wherefore utter the strange jest
That by an infant's birth we shall be blest
With happy lot?
The shepherds begin to bestir themselves. One says that he
feels overcome with fear at the sound of so much noise and
commotion. The angel responds, "Come without fear; do not
hesitate, but redouble your speed. It is in this village, in a
poor place, near yonder wood, that you may see the Infant
Lord." Another of the shepherds, who seems to have only just
woke up, inquires:
What do you say?
This to believe what soul is able;
What do you say?
Where do these shepherds speed away?
To see their God within a stable:
This surely seems an idle fable;
What do you say?
"To understand how it is, go and behold with your own eyes,"
replies the angel; to which the shepherd answers, "Good
morrow, angel; pardon me if I have spoken lightly; I will go
and see what is going on." Another, still not quite easy in
his mind, observes that he cannot make out what the angel
says, because he speaks in such a strange tongue. The angel
immediately replies in excellent Gascon patois:
Come, shepherds, come
From your mountain home,
Come, see the Saviour in a stable born,
This happy morn.
Come, shepherds, come,
Let none remain behind,
Come see the wretched sinners' friend,
The Saviour of mankind.
When they hear the good news, sung to a quaint and inspiriting
air in their own language, the shepherds hesitate no longer,
but set off for Bethlehem in a body. One of them, it is true,
expresses some doubts as to what will become of the flocks in
their absence; but a veteran shepherd strikes his crook upon
the ground and sternly reproves him for being anxious about
the sheep when a heavenly messenger has declared that "God has
made Himself the Shepherd of mankind." They leave the dais,
and march out of the church, the whole of which is now
considered as being the stable. After a while the shepherds
knock for admittance, and their voices are heard in the calm
crisp midnight air chaunting these words to sweet and solemn
strains:
Master of this blest abode,
O guardian of the Infant God,
Open your honoured gate, that we
May at His worship bend the knee.
Joseph fears that the strangers may perchance be enemies, but
reassured by an angel, he opens the door, only naively
regretting that the lowly chamber "should be so badly
lighted." They prostrate themselves before the cradle, and the
choir bursts forth with:
Gloria Deo in excelsis,
O Domine te laudamus,
O Deus Pater rex caelestis,
In terra pax hominibus.
The shepherdesses then render their homage, and deposit on the
altar steps a banner covered with flowers and greenery, from
which hang strings of small birds, apples, nuts, chestnuts,
and other fruits. It is their Christmas offering to the cure;
the shepherds have already placed a whole sheep before the
altar, in a like spirit.
The next scene takes us into Herod's palace, where the magi
arrive, and are directed to proceed to Bethlehem. During their
adoration of the Infant Saviour, Mass is finished, and the
Sacrament is administered; after which the play is brought to
a close with the flight into Egypt and the massacre of the
Innocents.
This primitive drama gives a better idea of the early mysteries than
do the performances at Ober Ammergau, which have been gradually pruned
and improved under the eye of a critical public. But it is unusually
free from the absurdities and levities which abound in most miracle
plays; such as the wrangle between Noah and his wife in the old
Chester Mysteries, in which the latter declares "by St John" that the
Flood is a false alarm, and that no power on earth shall make her go
into the Ark. Noah ends with putting her on board by main force, and
is rewarded by a box on the ear.
The best surviving sample of a non-scriptural rustic play is probably
_Saint Guillaume of Poitou_, a Breton versified drama in seven acts.
The history of the Troubadour Count whose wicked manhood leads to a
preternaturally pious old age, corresponds to every requirement of the
peasant play-goer. Time and space are set airily at defiance; saints
and devils are not only called, but come at the shortest notice;
the plot is exciting enough to satisfy the strongest craving for
sensation, and the dialogue is vigorous, and, in parts, picturesque.
One can well believe that the fiery if narrow patriotism of a Breton
audience would be stirred by the scene where the reformed Count
William, who has withstood all other blandishments, is almost lured
out of his holy seclusion by the Evil One coming to him in the shape
of a fellow-townsman who represents his city as hard pressed by
overwhelming foes, and in its extremest need, imploring his aid; that
the religious fervour of Breton peasants would be moved by the
recital of the vision in which a very wicked man appears at the bar
of judgment: his sins out-number the hairs of his head, you would call
him an irredeemable wretch; yet it does so happen that once upon a
time he gave two pilgrims a bed of straw in a pig-stye, and now St
Francis throws this straw into the balance, and it bends down the
scale!
So in the Song of the Sun, in Saemund's _Edda_, a fierce freebooter,
who has despoiled mankind, and who always ate alone, opens his door
one evening to a tired wayfarer, and gives him meat and drink. The
guest meditates evil; then in his sleep he murders his host, but he is
doomed to take on him all the sins of the man he has slain, while the
one-time evil-doer's soul is borne by angels into a life of purity,
where it shall live for ever with God. This motive is repeatedly
introduced into folk-lore, and was made effective use of by Victor
Hugo in _Sultan Mourad_, the infamous tyrant who goes to Heaven on the
strength of having felt momentary compassion for a pig.
In plays of the _Saint Guillaume_ class, the plain language in which
the vices and oppression of the nobles is denounced shows signs of
the slow surging up of the democratic spirit whose traces through the
middle ages are nowhere to be more fruitfully sought than in popular
literature--though they lie less in the rustic drama than in the great
mediaeval satires, such as _Reynard the Fox_ and _Marcolfo_, the
latter of which is still known to the Italian people under the form of
_Bertoldo_, in which it was recast in the sixteenth century, by G. B.
Croce, the rhyming blacksmith of Bologna.