A Literary History of the English People Part 51

The imitation of any action is a step towards drama. Conventional, liturgical, ritualistic as the imitation was, still there was an imitation in the ceremony of ma.s.s; and ma.s.s led to the religious drama, which was therefore, at starting, as conventional, liturgical, and ritualistic as could be. Its early beginning is to be sought for in the antiphoned parts of the service, and then it makes one with the service itself. In a similar manner, outside the Church lay drama had begun with the alternate _chansons_, debates, poetical altercations of the singers of facetious or love-songs. A great step was made when, at the princ.i.p.al feasts of the year, Easter and Christmas, the chanters, instead of giving their responses from their stalls, moved in the Church to recall the action commemorated on that day; additions were introduced into the received text of the service; religious drama begins then to have an existence of its own.

"'Tell us, shepherds, whom do you seek in this stable?--They will answer: 'Christ the Saviour, our Lord.'"[771]

Such is the starting-point; it dates from the tenth century; from this is derived the play of Shepherds, of which many versions have come down to us. One of them, followed in the cathedral of Rouen, gives a minute account of the performance as it was then acted in the midst of the religious service: "Be the crib established behind the altar, and be the image of the Blessed Mary placed there. First a child, from before the choir and on a raised platform, representing an angel, will announce the birth of the Saviour to five canons or their vicars of the second rank; the shepherds must come in by the great gate of the choir.... As they near the crib they sing the prose _Pax in terris_. Two priests of the first rank, wearing a dalmatic, will represent the midwives and stand by the crib."[772]

These advent.i.tious ornaments were greatly appreciated, and from year to year they were increased and perfected. Verse replaced prose; the vulgar idiom replaced Latin; open air and the public square replaced the church nave and its subdued light. It was no longer necessary to have recourse to priests wearing a dalmatic in order to represent midwives; the feminine parts were performed by young boys dressed as women: this was coming much nearer nature, as near in fact as Shakespeare did, for he never saw any but boys play the part of his Juliet. There were even cases in which actual women were seen on the mediaeval stage. Those ameliorations, so simple and obvious, summed up in a phrase, were the work of centuries, but the tide when once on the flow was the stronger for waiting. The drama left the church, because its increased importance had made it c.u.mbersome there, because it was badly seen, and because having power it wanted freedom.

Easter was the occasion for ornaments and additions similar to those introduced into the Christmas service.[773] The ceremonies of Holy Week, which reproduced each incident in the drama of the Pa.s.sion, lent themselves admirably to it. Additions following additions, the whole of the Old Testament ended by being grouped round and tied to the Christmas feast, and the whole of the New Testament round Easter. Both were closely connected, the scenes in the one being interpreted as symbols of the scenes in the other; complete cycles were thus formed, representing in two divisions the religious history of mankind from the Creation to Doomsday. Once severed from the church, these groups of plays often got also separated from the feast to which they owed their birth, and were represented at Whitsuntide, on Corpus Christi day, or on the occasion of some solemnity or other.

As the taste for such dramas was spreading, a variety of tragical subjects, not from the Bible, were turned into dialogues: first lives of saints, later, in France, some few subjects borrowed from history or romance: the story of Griselda, the raising of the siege at Orleans by Joan of Arc, &c.[774] The English adhered more exclusively to the Bible.

Dramas drawn from the lives of saints were usually called Miracles; those derived from the Bible, Mysteries; but these appellations had nothing very definite about them, and were often used one for the other.

The religious drama was on the way to lose its purely liturgical character when the conquest of England had taken place. Under the reign of the Norman and Angevin kings, the taste for dramatic performances increased considerably; within the first century after Hastings we find them numerous and largely attended.

The oldest representation the memory of which has come down to us took place at the beginning of the twelfth century, and had for its subject the story of that St. Catherine of Alexandria whom the Emperor Maximinus caused to be beheaded after she had converted the fifty orators entrusted with the care of bringing her back to paganism by dint of their eloquence. The fifty orators received baptism, and were burnt alive.[775] The representation was managed by a Mancel of good family called Geoffrey, whom Richard, abbot of St. Albans, had asked to come from France to be the master of the Abbey school. But as he was late in starting, he found on his coming that the school had been given to another; in his leisure he caused to be represented at Dunstable a play, or miracle, of St. Catherine, "quendam ludum de Sancta Katerina quem miracula vulgariter appellamus." He borrowed from the sacristan at St.

Albans the Abbey copes to dress his actors in; but the night following upon the performance, the fire consumed his house; all his books were burnt, and the copes too: "Wherefore, not knowing how to indemnify G.o.d and St. Albans, he offered his own person as a holocaust and took the habit in the monastery. This explains the zeal with which, having become abbot, he strove to enrich the convent with precious copes." For he became abbot, and died in 1146, after a reign of twenty-six years,[776]

and Matthew Paris, to whom we owe those details, and whose taste for works of art is well known, gives a full enumeration of the splendid purple and gold vestments, adorned with precious stones, with which the Mancel Geoffrey enriched the treasury of the Abbey.[777]

A little later in the same century, Fitzstephen, who wrote under Henry II., mentions as a common occurrence the "representations of miracles"

held in London.[778] In the following century, under Henry III., some were written in the English language.[779] During the fourteenth century, in the time of Chaucer, mysteries were at the height of their popularity; their heroes were familiar to all, and the sayings of the same became proverbs. Kings themselves journeyed in order to be present at the representations; Chaucer had seen them often, and the characters in his tales make frequent allusions to them; his drunken miller cries "in Pilates vois"; "Jolif Absolon" played the part of "king Herodes,"

and is it to be expected that an Alisoun could resist king Herodes? The Wife of Bath, dressed in her best garments, goes "to pleyes of miracles," and there tries to make acquaintances that may be turned into husbands when she wants them. "Hendy Nicholas" quotes to the credulous carpenter the example of Noah, whose wife would not go on board, and who regretted that he had not built a separate s.h.i.+p for "hir-self allone."

A treatise, written in English at this period, against such representations, shows the extreme favour in which they stood with all cla.s.ses of society.[780] The enthusiasm was so general and boundless that it seems to the author indispensable to take the field and retort (for the question was keenly disputed) the arguments put forward to justify the performance of mysteries. The works and miracles of Christ, he observes, were not done for play; He did them "ernystfully," and we use them "in bourde and pleye!" It is treating with great familiarity the Almighty, who may well say: "Pley not with me, but pley with thi pere." Let us beware of His revenge; it well may happen that "G.o.d takith more venjaunce on us than a lord that sodaynly sleeth his servaunt for he pleyide to homely with hym;" and yet the lord's vengeance cannot be considered a trifling one.

What do the abettors of mysteries answer to this? They answer that "thei pleyen these myraclis in the worschip of G.o.d"; they lead men to think and meditate; devils are seen there carrying the wicked away to h.e.l.l; the sufferings of Christ are represented, and the hardest are touched, they are seen weeping for pity; for people wept and laughed at the representations, openly and noisily, "wepynge bitere teris." Besides, there are men of different sorts, and some are so made that they cannot be converted but by mirthful means, "by gamen and pley"; and such performances do them much good. Must not, on the other hand, all men have "summe recreatioun"? Better it is, "or lesse yvele, that thei han thyre recreacoun by pleyinge of myraclis than bi pleyinge of other j.a.pis." And one more very sensible reason is given: "Sithen it is leveful to han the myraclis of G.o.d peyntid, why is not as wel leveful to han the myraclis of G.o.d pleyed ... and betere thei ben holden in mennus mynde and oftere rehersid by the pleyinge of hem than by the peyntynge, for this is a deed bok, the tother a quick."

To those reasons, which he does not try to conceal, but on the contrary presents very forcibly, the fair-minded author answers his best. These representations are too amusing; after such enjoyments, everyday life seems plain and dull; women of "yvil continaunse," Wives of Bath maybe, or worse, flock there and do not remain idle. The fact that they come does not prevent the priests from going too; yet it is "uttirly"

forbidden them "not onely to been myracle pleyere but also to heren or to seen myraclis pleyinge." But they set the decree at nought and "pleyn in entirlodies," and go and see them: "The prestis that seyn hemsilf holy, and besien hem aboute siche pleyis, ben verry ypocritis and lyeris." All bounds have been overstepped; it is no longer a taste, but a pa.s.sion; men are carried away by it; citizens become avaricious and grasping to get money in view of the representations and the amus.e.m.e.nts which follow: "To peyen ther rente and ther dette thei wolen grucche, and to spende two so myche upon ther pley thei wolen nothinge grucche."

Merchants and tradesmen "bygilen ther neghbors, in byinge and sellyng,"

that is "hideous coveytise," that is "maumetrie"; and they do it "to han to spenden on these miraclis."

Many doc.u.ments corroborate these statements and show the accuracy of the description. The fondness of priests for plays and similar pastimes is descanted upon by the Council of London in 1391.[781] A hundred years earlier an Englishman, in a poem which he wrote in French, had pointed out exactly the same abuses: from which can be perceived how deeply rooted they were. Another folly, William de Wadington[782] had said, has been invented by mad clerks; it consists in what is called Miracles; in spite of decrees they disguise themselves with masks, "li forsene!"[783]

Purely liturgical drama, of course, is permissible (an additional proof of its existence in England); certain representations can be held, "provided they be chastely set up and included in the Church service,"

as is done when the burial of Christ or the Resurrection is represented "to increase devotion."[784] But to have "those mad gatherings in the streets of towns, or in the cemeteries, after dinner," to prepare for the idle such meeting-places, is a quite different thing; if they tell you that they do it with good intent and to the honour of G.o.d, do not believe them; it is all "for the devil." If players ask you to lend them horses, equipments, dresses, and ornaments of all sorts, don't fail to refuse. For the stage continued to live upon loans, and the example of the copes of St. Albans destroyed by fire had not deterred convents from continuing to lend sacred vestments to actors.[785] In the case of sacred vestments, says William, "the sin is much greater." In all this, as well as in all sorts of dances and frolics, a heavy responsibility rests with the minstrels; they ply a dangerous trade, a "trop perilus mester"; they cause G.o.d to be forgotten, and the vanity of the world to be cherished.

Not a few among these English dramas, so popular in former days, have come down to us. Besides separate pieces, histories of saints (very scarce in England), or fragments of old series, several collections have survived, the property whilom of gilds or munic.i.p.alities. A number of towns kept up those shows, which attracted visitors, and were at the same time edifying, profitable, and amusing. From the fourteenth century the performances were in most cases intrusted to the gilds, each craft having as much as possible to represent a play in accordance with its particular trade. s.h.i.+pwrights represented the building of the ark; fishermen, the Flood; goldsmiths, the coming of the three kings with their golden crowns; wine merchants, the marriage at Cana, where a miracle took place very much in their line. In other cases the plays were performed by gilds founded especially for that purpose: gild of Corpus Christi, of the Pater Noster, &c. This last had been created because "once on a time, a play setting forth the goodness of the Lord's Prayer was played in the city of York, in which play all manner of vices and sins were held up to scorn and the virtues were held up to praise.

This play met with such favour that many said: 'Would that this play could be kept in this city, for the health of souls and for the comfort of citizens and neighbours!' Hence the keeping up of that play in times to come" (year 1389).[786]

In a more or less complete state, the collections of the Mysteries performed at Chester, Coventry, Woodkirk, and York have been preserved, without speaking of fragments of other series. Most of those texts belong to the fourteenth century, but have been retouched at a later date.[787] Old Mysteries did not escape the hand of the improvers, any more than old churches, where any one who pleased added paintings, porches, and tracery, according to the fas.h.i.+on of the day.

These dramatic entertainments, which thrilled a whole town, to which flocked, with equal zeal, peasants and craftsmen, citizens, n.o.blemen, kings and queens, which the Reformation succeeded in killing only after half a century's fight, enlivened with incomparable glow the monotonous course of days and weeks. The occasion was a solemn one; preparation was begun long beforehand; it was an important affair, an affair of State.

Gilds taxed their members to secure a fair representation of the play a.s.signed to them; they were fined by the munic.i.p.al authority in case they proved careless and inefficient, or were behind their time to begin.

Read as they are, without going back in our minds to times past and taking into account the circ.u.mstances of their composition, Mysteries may well be judged a gross, childish, and barbarous production. Still, they are worthy of great attention, as showing a side of the soul of our ancestors, who in all this did _their very best_: for those performances were not got up anyhow: they were the result of prolonged care and attention. Not any man who wished was accepted as an actor; some experience of the art was expected; and in some towns even examinations took place. At York a decree of the Town Council ordains that long before the appointed day, "in the tyme of lentyn" (while the performance itself took place in summer, at the Corpus Christi celebration) "there shall be called afore the maire for the tyme beyng four of the moste connyng discrete and able players within this Citie, to serche, here and examen all the plaiers and plaies and pagentes thrughoute all the artificers belonging to Corpus Christi plaie. And all suche as thay shall fynde sufficiant in personne and connyng, to the honour of the Citie and wors.h.i.+p of the saide craftes, for to admitte and able; and all other insufficiant personnes, either in connyng, voice, or personne to discharge, ammove and avoide." All crafts were bound to bring "furthe ther pageantez in order and course by good players, well arayed and openly spekyng, upon payn of lesying 100 s. to be paide to the chambre without any pardon."[788] These texts belong to the fifteenth century, but there are older ones; and they show that from the beginning the difference between good and bad actors was appreciated and great importance was attached to the gestures and delivery. The Mystery of "Adam" (in French, the work, it seems, of a Norman), which belongs to the twelfth century, commences with recommendations to players: "Be Adam well trained so as to answer at the appropriate time without any slackness or haste. The same with the other actors; let them speak in sedate fas.h.i.+on, with gestures fitting the words; be they mindful not to add or suppress a syllable in the verses; and be their p.r.o.nunciation constantly clear."[789] The amus.e.m.e.nt afforded by such exhibitions, the personal fame acquired by good actors, suddenly drawn from the shadow in which their working lives had been spent till then, acted so powerfully on craftsmen that some would not go back to the shop, and, leaving their tools behind them, became professional actors; thus showing that there was some wisdom in the reproof set forth in the "Tretise of Miraclis pleyinge."

Once emerged from the Church, the drama had the whole town in which to display itself; and it filled the whole town. On these days the city belonged to dramatic art; each company had its cars or scaffolds, _pageants_ (placed on wheels in some towns), each car being meant to represent one of the places where the events in the play happened. The complete series of scenes was exhibited at the main crossings, or on the princ.i.p.al squares or open s.p.a.ces in the town. The inhabitants of neighbouring houses sat thus as in a front row, and enjoyed a most enviable privilege, so enviable that it was indeed envied, and at York, for example, they had to pay for it. After 1417 the choosing of the places for the representations was regulated by auction, and the plays were performed under the windows of the highest bidders. In other cases the scaffolds were fixed; so that the representation was performed only at one place.

The form of the scaffolds varied from town to town. At Chester "these pagiantes or cariage was a highe place made like a house with two rowmes beinge open on ye tope: the lower rowme they apparrelled and dressed them selves; and in the higher rowme they played: and they stoode upon six wheeles. And when they had done with one cariage in one place, they wheeled the same from one streete to an other."[790] In some cases the scaffolds were not so high, and boards made a communication between the raised platform and the ground; a horseman could thus ride up the scaffold: "Here Erode ragis in the pagond and in the strete also."[791]

Sometimes the upper room did not remain open, but a curtain was drawn, according to the necessity of the action. The heroes of the play moved about the place, and went from one scaffold to another; dialogue then took place between players on the ground and players on the boards: "Here thei take Jhesu and lede hym in gret hast to Herowde; and the Herowdys scaffald xal unclose, shewyng Herowdes in astat, alle the Jewys knelyng except Annas and Cayaphas."[792] Chaucer speaks of the "scaffold hye" on which jolif Absolon played Herod; king Herod in fact was always enthroned high above the common rabble.

The arrangements adopted in England differed little, as we see, from the French ones; and it could scarcely be otherwise, as the taste for these dramas had been imported by the Normans and Angevins. Neither in England nor in France were there ever any of those six-storied theatres described by the brothers Parfait, each story being supposed to represent a different place or country. To keep to truth, we should, on the contrary, picture to ourselves those famous buildings stretched all along on the ground, with their different compartments scattered round the public square.

But we have better than words and descriptions to give us an idea of the sight; we have actual pictures, offering to view all the details of the performances. An exquisite miniature of Jean Fouquet, preserved at Chantilly, which has never been studied as it ought to be with reference to this question, has for its subject the life of St. Apollinia. Instead of painting a fancy picture, Fouquet has chosen to represent the martyrdom of the saint as it was acted in a miracle play.[793] The main action takes place on the ground; Apollinia is there, in the middle of the executioners. Round the place are scaffolds with a lower room and an upper room, as at Chester, and there are curtains to close them. One of those boxes represents Paradise; angels with folded arms, quietly seated on the wooden steps of their stairs, await the moment when they must speak; another is filled with musicians playing the organ and other instruments; a third contains the throne of the king. The throne is empty; for the king, Julian the apostate, his sceptre, adorned with _fleurs-de-lys_, in his hand, has come down his ladder to take part in the main action. h.e.l.l has its usual shape of a monstrous head, with opening and closing jaws; it stands on the ground, for the better accommodation of devils, who had constantly to interfere in the drama, and to keep the interest of the crowd alive, by running suddenly through it, with their feathers and animals' skins, howling and grinning; "to the great terror of little children," says Rabelais, who, like Chaucer, had often been present at such dramas. Several devils are to be seen in the miniature; they have cloven feet, and stand outside the h.e.l.l-mouth; a buffoon also is to be seen, who raises a laugh among the audience and shows his scorn for the martyr by the means described three centuries earlier in John of Salisbury's book, exhibiting his person in a way "quam erubescat videre vel cynicus."

Besides the scaffolds, boxes or "estableis" meant for actors, others are reserved for spectators of importance, or those who paid best. This commingling of actors and spectators would seem to us somewhat confusing; but people were not then very exacting; with them illusion was easily caused, and never broken. This magnificent part of the audience, besides, with its rich garments, was itself a sight; and so little objection was made to the presence of beholders of that sort that we shall find them seated on the Shakesperean stage as well as on the stage of Corneille and of Moliere. "I was on the stage, meaning to listen to the play ..." says the eraste of "Les Facheux." In the time of Shakespeare the custom followed was even more against theatrical illusion, as there were gentlemen not only on the sides of the scene, but also behind the actors; they filled a vast box fronting the pit.

The dresses were rich: this is the best that can be said of them. Saints enwreathed their chins with curling beards of gold; G.o.d the Father was dressed as a pope or a bishop. For good reasons the audience did not ask much in the way of historical accuracy; all it wanted was _signs_. Copes and tiaras were in its eyes religious signs by excellence, and in the wearer of such they recognised G.o.d without hesitation. The turban of the Saracens, Mahomet the prophet of the infidels, were known to the mob, which saw in them the signs and symbols of irreligiousness and impiety.

Herod, for this cause, wore a turban, and swore premature oaths by "Mahound." People were familiar with symbols, and the use of them was continued; the painters at the Renaissance represented St. Stephen with a stone in his hand and St. Paul with a sword, which stone and sword stood for symbols, and the sight of them evoked all the doleful tale of their sufferings and death.

The authors of Mysteries did not pay, as we may well believe, great attention to the rule of the three Unities. The events included in the French Mystery of the "Vieil Testament" did not take place in one day, but in four thousand years. The most distant localities were represented next to each other: Rome, Jerusalem, Ma.r.s.eilles. The scaffolds huddled close together scarcely gave an idea of geographical realities; the imagination of the beholders was expected to supply what was wanting: and so it did. A few square yards of ground (sometimes, it must be acknowledged, of water) were supposed to be the Mediterranean; Ma.r.s.eilles was at one end, and Jaffa at the other. A few minutes did duty for months, years, or centuries. Herod sends a messenger to Tiberius; the tetrarch has scarcely finished his speech when his man is already at Rome, and delivers his message to the emperor. Noah gets into his ark and shuts his window; here a silence lasting a minute or so; the window opens, and Noah declares that the forty days are past ("Chester Plays").

To render, however, his task easier to the public, some precautions were taken to let them perceive where they were. Sometimes the name of the place was written on a piece of wood or canvas, a clear and honest means.[794] It worked so successfully that it was still resorted to in Elizabethan times; we see "Thebes written in great letters upon an olde doore," says Sir Philip Sidney, and without asking for more we are bound "to beleeve that it is Thebes." In other cases the actor followed the sneering advice Boileau was to express later, and in very simple fas.h.i.+on declared who he was: I am Herod! I am Tiberius! Or again, when they moved from one place to another, they named both: now we are arrived, I recognise Ma.r.s.eilles; "her is the lond of Mercylle."[795] Most of those inventions were long found to answer, and very often Shakespeare had no better ones to use. The same necessities caused him to make up for the deficiency of the scenery by his wonderful descriptions of landscapes, castles, and wild moors. All that poetry would have been lost had he had painted scenery at his disposal.

Some attempts at painted scenery were made, it is true, but so plain and primitive that the thing again acted as a symbol rather than as the representation of a place. A throne meant the palace of the king. G.o.d divides light from darkness: "Now must be exhibited a sheet painted, know you, one half all white and the other half all black." The creation of animals comes nearer the real truth: "Now must be let loose little birds that will fly in the air, and must be placed on the ground, ducks, swans, geese ... with as many strange beasts as it will have been possible to secure." But truth absolute was observed when the state of innocence had to be represented: "Now must Adam rise all naked and look round with an air of admiration and wonder."[796] Beholders doubtless returned his wonder and admiration. In the Chester Mysteries a practical recommendation is made to the actors who personate the first couple: "Adam and Eve shall stande nakede, and shall not be ashamed."[797] The proper time to be ashamed will come a little later. The serpent steals "out of a hole"; man falls: "Now must Adam cover himself and feign to be ashamed. The woman must also be seized with shame, and cover herself with her hands."[798]

If painted scenery was greatly neglected, machinery received more attention. That characteristic of modern times, yeast through which the old world has been transformed, the hankering after the unattainable, which caused so many great deeds, had also smaller results; it affected these humble details. Painted canvas was neglected, but people laboured at the inventing of machinery. While a sheet half white and half black was hung to represent light and chaos, in the drama of "Adam," so early as the twelfth century, a self-moving serpent, "serpens artificiose compositus," tempted the woman in Paradise. Wondering Eve offered but small resistance. Elsewhere an angel carried Enoch "by a subtile engine"

into Paradise. In the Doomesday play of the Chester Mysteries, "Jesus was to come down as on a cloud, if that could be managed." But sometimes it could not; in Fouquet's miniature the angels have no other machinery but a ladder to allow them to descend from heaven to earth. In the "Mary Magdalene" of the Digby Mysteries a boat appeared with mast and sail, and carried to Palestine the King of Ma.r.s.eilles.

h.e.l.l was in all times most carefully arranged, and it had the best machinery. The mouth opened and closed, threw flames from its nostrils, and let loose upon the crowd devils armed with hooks and emitting awful yells. From the back of the mouth appalling noises were heard, being meant for the moans of the d.a.m.ned. These moans were produced by a simple process: pots and frying-pans were knocked against each other. In "Adam," the heroes of the play are taken to h.e.l.l, there to await the coming of Christ; and the scene, according to the stage direction in the ma.n.u.script, was to be represented thus: "Then the Devil will come and three or four devils with him with chains in their hands and iron rings which they will put round the neck of Adam and Eve. Some push them and others draw them toward h.e.l.l. Other devils awaiting them by the entrance jump and tumble as a sign of their joy for the event." After Adam has been received within the precincts of h.e.l.l, "the devils will cause a great smoke to rise; they will emit merry vociferations, and knock together their pans and caldrons so as to be heard from the outside.

After a while, some devils will come out and run about the place." Pans were of frequent use; Abel had one under his tunic, and Cain, knocking on it, drew forth lugubrious sounds, which went to the heart of the audience.

The machinery became more and more complicated toward the time of the Renaissance; but much money was needed, and for long the Court or the munic.i.p.alities could alone use them. In England fixed or movable scenery reaches great perfection at Court: Inigo Jones shows a genius in arranging elegant decorations; some of his sketches have been preserved.[799] But such splendid inventions were too costly to be transferred to the stages for which Shakespeare wrote; and he never used any other magic but that of his poetry. Inigo Jones had fine scene-s.h.i.+ftings with the help of his machinists, and Shakespeare with the help of his verses; these last have this advantage, that they have not faded, and can still be seen.

III.

Whatever may be thought of so much simplicity, childishness, or barbarity of those ivy-clad ruins, the forms of which can scarcely be discerned, they must be subjected to a closer inspection; and if there were no other, this one consideration would be enough to incline us to it: while in the theatre of Bacchus the tragedies of Sophocles were played once and no more, the Christian drama, remodelled from century to century, was represented for four hundred years before immense mult.i.tudes; and this is a unique phenomenon in the history of literature.

The fact may be ascribed to several causes, some of which have already been pointed out. The desire to see was extremely keen, and there was seen all that could be wished: the unattainable, the unperceivable, miracles, the king's Court, earthly paradise, all that had been heard of or dreamt about. Means of realisation were rude, but the public held them satisfactory.

What feasts were in the year, sacraments were in the existence of men; they marked the great memorable stages of life. A complete net of observances and religious obligations surrounded the months and seasons; bells never remained long silent; they rang less discreetly than now, and were not afraid to disturb conversations by their noise. At each period of the day they recalled that there were prayers to say, and to those even who did not pray they recalled the importance of religion.

Existences were thus impregnated with religion; and religion was in its entirety explained, made accessible and visible, in the Mysteries.

The verses spoken by the actors did not much resemble those in Shakespeare; they were, in most cases, mere tattle, scarcely verses; rhyme and alliteration were sometimes used both together, and both anyhow. And yet the emotion was deep; in the state of mind with which the spectators came, nothing would have prevented their being touched by the affecting scenes, neither the lame verse nor the clumsy machinery; the cause of the emotion was the subject, and not the manner in which the subject was represented. All the past of humanity and its eternal future were at stake; players, therefore, were sometimes interrupted by the pa.s.sionate exclamations of the crowd. At a drama lately represented on the stage of the Comedie Francaise, one of the audience astonished his neighbours by crying: "Mais signe donc! Est-elle bete!..." In the open air of the public place, at a time when manners were less polished, many such interjections interrupted the performance; many insulting apostrophes were addressed to Eve when she listened to the serpent; and the serpent spoke (in the Norman drama of "Adam") a language easy to understand, the language of everyday life:

"_Diabolus._--I saw Adam; he is an a.s.s."

"_Eva._--He is a little hard."

"_Diabolus._--We shall melt him; but at present he is harder than iron."

But thou, Eve, thou art a superior being, a delicate one, a delight for the eyes. "Thou art a little tender thing, fresher than the rose, whiter than crystal, or snow falling on the ice in a dale. The Creator has badly matched the couple; thou art too sweet; man is too hard.... For which it is very pleasant to draw close to thee. Let me have a talk with thee."[800]

And for such cajolery, for such folly, thought the crowd, for this sin of our common mother, we sweat and we suffer, we observe Lent, we experience temptations, and under our feet this awful h.e.l.l-mouth opens, in which, maybe, we shall some day fall. Eve, turn away from the serpent!

Greater even was the emotion caused by the drama of the Pa.s.sion, the sufferings of the Redeemer, all the details of which were familiar to everybody. The indignation was so keen that the executioners had difficulty sometimes in escaping the fury of the mult.i.tude.