will weakened by the boy's meekness. At last, Isaac is bound upon the altar : Father, greet well my brethren young, And pray my mother of her blessing ; I come no more under her wing; But, father, I cry you mercy For all that ever I have trespassed to thee, Until doom's day. Then Abraham kisses his son and binds a scarf about his head. Isaac kneels, and while Abraham is getting his sword ready for the stroke, he says: I pray you, father, turn down my face A little, while you have space, For I am full sore adread. At this turn of the action, the Angel appears and shows Abraham the ram in the thicket, while the Expositor, who in the Chester Miracle comments on situations involving doctrine, explains to the audience how Isaac is a type of Christ. Melodrama of a ranting and roaring type, as distinguished from tragedy or pathos, had a very prominent and popular place assigned to it in the character of Herod. The Shaksperian expression to out-Herod Herod' indicates the extravagance with which this part was played, in order to please the groundlings and make sport. A large sword formed part of his necessary equipage, which he is ordered in the stage directions to cast up' and 'cast down.' He was also attended by a boy wielding a bladder tied to a stick, whose duty was probably to stir him up and prevent his rage from flagging. In the Coventry Miracle this melodramatic MELODRAMA AND COMEDY. 129 element is elaborated with real force in the banquet scene which follows the Massacre of the Innocents. Herod appears throned and feasting among his knights, boasting truculently of his empire, and listening to their savage jests upon the slaughtered children. Then Death enters unperceived except by the spectators, and strikes Herod down in the midst of his riot; whereupon the Devil springs upon the stage, and carries off the King with two of his Knights to Hell. If Herod supplied melodrama, the Devil furnished abundance of low comedy and grotesque humour. His first appearance as Lucifer in the Parliament of Heaven shows him a proud rebellious Seraph. While the angels are singing Sanctus to God upon His throne, he suddenly starts forth and interrupts their chorus:1 To whose worship sing ye this song? To worship God or reverence me? For I am the worthiest that ever may be. On this note Lucifer continues, not without dignity, defying God, menacing the loyal angels, and drawing to his side the rebels. But when the word, expelling him from heaven, is spoken, his form changes, and his language takes a baser tone. His companions rush grovelling and cursing one another to the mouth of hell, howling, Out harrow!' and 'Ho! Ho!' 2-the cries with which, when devils came upon the stage, they always advertised their entrance. When Satan reappears, he has lost all his former state and beauty. He is henceforth the hideous, deformed, and obscene fiend of medieval fancy. 1 Coventry Plays. One of his speeches may 2 Chester Plays. K suffice for a specimen. After the Fall, God curses him again in the shape of the serpent, and he answers:1 At Thy bidding, foul I fall; I creep home to my stinking stall; Shall do Thy bidding boon. With a fart my breech I break ; My sorrow cometh full soon. It was customary for the Devil to disappear thus with an unclean gesture. In addition to Satan, Beelzebub and Belial are personified; and in the Widkirk Plays a subordinate fiend named Tutivillus, who was destined to play a popular part in the Moralities, appears upon the scene of Doomsday. IX. Another kind of comedy, less fantastically grotesque, but far grosser to our modern apprehension, arose from the relations between Joseph and his wife, the Virgin Mother of our Lord. The real object of those monkish playwrights was to bring the miraculous and immaculate conception of Christ into clear relief. But they wrote as though they wanted to insist on what is coarse and disagreeable in the situation. Joseph is depicted as superfluously old, unwilling to wed, and conscious of marital incapacity. Mary professes her intention of leading a religious life in celibacy. Wedlock is thrust upon the pair by an unmistakable sign from heaven that they are appointed unto matrimony. JOSEPH AND MARY. 131 Listen to Joseph before he is dragged forth to offer up his wand: Benedicite! I cannot understand What our Prince of Priests doth mean, That every man should come and bring with him a wand, Able to be married; that is not I; so mote I then ! I have been maiden ever, and ever more will ben; I changed not yet of all my long life; And now to be married, some man would wen It is a strange thing an old man to take a young wife! Soon after the wedding, Joseph leaves his bride; and when he returns, he finds to his dismay that she has conceived a child: That seemeth evil, I am afraid, Thy womb too high doth stand. I dread me sore I am betrayed, Some other man thee had in hand Mary tells him the truth. But he can naturally not believe her. God's child! Thou liest, ifay! God did never jape so with may. Alas! alas! my name is shent ! All men may me now despise, And say, 'Old cuckold, thy bow is bent Mary repeats her story of the angel. This rouses An angel! Alas, alas! Fie for shame! Ye sin now in that ye do say, To putten an angel in so great blame. Alas, alas! let be, do way! It was some boy began this game, That clothed was clean and gay; And ye give him now an angel's name— After Joseph has been satisfied by the descent of situation is not dropped. It seemed necessary to the monkish scribe that he should drive the doctrine of the Incarnation home into the thickest skull by further evidence. Therefore he devised a scene in which Mary is arraigned for incontinence before the Bishop's Court by two detractors or false witnesses. Of their foul language and scurrilous insinuations no special account need here be taken, except it be to point out that they dwell on Joseph's age, and make merry with the common fate of old men married to young brides. The suit is decided by the ordeal of a potent drink of which Mary and Joseph both partake without injury, while the false witnesses, who are also obliged to taste the cup, fall down astonied and distraught: Out, out, alas! What aileth my skull? Ah, mine head with fire methinketh is brent! Of my cursed and false language. To our notions, Noah's wife was a better butt than Mary's husband for this comic badinage. And in the Chester Pageant of the Deluge this personage is made to furnish forth much fun. Early in the scene, she declares her intention of not entering the Ark at all. At any rate, nothing shall induce her to do so until she has made merry with her gossips, and taken a good sup of wine. Then, if she may bring them with her, she will think about it. All the beasts and fowls have been already packed away, when this dialogue between the patriarch and his wife opens: Noye. Wife, come in: why stands thou there? Thou art ever froward, I dare well swear. For fear lest that we drown. |
