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The Growth of English Drama. Arnold Wynne
Читать онлайн.Название The Growth of English Drama
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isbn 4064066163204
Автор произведения Arnold Wynne
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The women in the play deserve notice. With the exception of Noah's wife, who was commonly treated in a broadly humorous vein, the principal female characters possess that sweet naturalness, depth and constancy of affection, purity and refinement which an age that had not yet lost the ideals of chivalry accepted as the normal qualities of a good woman. The mothers, wives, and daughters of that day would appear to have been before all things womanly, in an unaffected, instinctive way. Isaac (in the Chester Miracle Play), thinking, in the hour of death, of his mother's grief at home, says, 'Father, tell my mother for no thinge.' When Mary is married (Coventry Play) and must part from her mother, they bid farewell in this wise:
Anna. I pray the, Mary, my swete chylde, Be lowe[20] and buxhum[21], meke and mylde, Sad and sobyr and nothyng wylde, And Goddys blessynge thou have. …
Goddys grace on you sprede,
ffarewel, Mary, my swete fflowre,
ffareweyl, Joseph, and God you rede[22], ffareweyl my chylde and my tresowre, ffarewel, my dowtere yyng.[23]
Maria. ffarewel, fadyr and modyr dere, At you I take my leve ryght here, God that sytt in hevyn so clere, Have you in his kepyng.
The heartbroken words of Mary at the foot of the Cross have already been quoted. In the reconciliation between Joseph and Mary (Scene 12), in Mary's patient endurance of Joseph's bad temper on the journey to Bethlehem (Scene 15), in the mother's unrestrained misery at the loss of the boy Jesus and rapture on finding Him in the Temple (Scene 20), in the two sisters' forced cheerfulness by the bedside of the dying Lazarus and their sorrow at his death—nor do these by any means exhaust the number of favourable instances—there may be seen the basic elements, as it were, which, more deftly handled and blended, gave to the English stage the world's rarest gallery of noble women.
Darkness and grief are so woven into the substance of the Bible narrative that we should indeed have been surprised if the tragic note had not been sounded often throughout the play. That it could be sounded well, too, will have been seen from various references and from the Scene of Abraham's Sacrifice. Nevertheless, tragedy is a less interesting, less original, less English element than the comedy which pops up its head here, there, and everywhere. It is really a part of that absence of dramatic rules already indicated, this easy conjunction of tragedy and comedy in the same scene. English audiences never could be persuaded to forgo their laugh. After all, it was near neighbour to their tears throughout life; then why not on the stage? A funeral was not the less a warning to the living because it was rounded off with a feast. Nor was Jesus on the Cross robbed of any of the majesty and silent eloquence of vicarious suffering by the vulgar levity of those who bade him 'Take good eyd (heed) to oure corn, and chare (scare) awey the crowe'. The strong sentiment of reverence set limits to the application of this humour. Only minor characters were permitted to express themselves in this way. The soldiers at the Sepulchre, the Judaeans at the Cross, the 'detractors' in Scene 14, certain mocking onlookers in Scene 40, these and others of similar stage rank spoke the coarse jests that set free the laugh when tears were too near the surface.—These common fellows, by the way, are the prototypes of the familiar Citizens, Soldiers, Watch, of a later date: the Miracles were fertile in 'originals'.—Some characters there were, however, more individual, more of consequence than these, who attained to an established reputation for their humour. The Devil's pranks have been referred to; Joseph's rusticity also; and the obstinacy of Noah's wife has been obscurely hinted at. Her gift lay in preferring the company of her good gossips to the select family gathering assembled in the Ark, and in playing with Noah's ears very soundingly when at length she was forcibly dragged into safety. Two short extracts from the Chester Miracle will illustrate her humour.
(1)
Noye. Wyffe, in this vessel we shall be kepte, My children and thou; I would in ye lepte.
Noyes Wiffe. In fayth, Noye, I hade as leffe thou slepte! For all thy frynishe[24] fare, I will not doe after thy reade[25].
Noye. Good wyffe, doe nowe as I thee bydde.
Noyes Wiffe. Be Christe! not or I see more neede, Though thou stande all the daye and stare.
Noye. Lorde, that wemen be crabbed aye, And non are meke, I dare well saye; This is well seene by me to daye, In witnesse of you ichone[26].
(2)
Jeffate. Mother, we praye you all together, For we are heare, youer owne childer, Come into the shippe for feare of the weither, For his love that you boughte!
Noyes Wiffe. That will not I, for all youer call, But I have my gossippes all.
Sem. In faith, mother, yett you shalle, Wheither thou wylte or [nought].
Noye. Welckome, wiffe, into this botte.
Noyes Wiffe. Have thou that for thy note!
Noye. Ha, ha! marye, this is hotte! It is good for to be still.
[The reader will easily supply for himself appropriate stage-directions.]
But of all these comic characters none developed so excellent a genius for winning laughter as the Shepherds who 'watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground'. To see them at their best we must turn to the Wakefield (or Towneley) Miracle Play and read the pastoral scene (or, rather, two scenes) there. Here we come face to face with rustics pure and simple, downright moorland shepherds, homely, grumbling, coarsely clad, warm-hearted, abashed by a woman's tongue, rough in their sports. The real old Yorkshire stock of nearly six hundred years ago rises into life as we read.
In the first scene a beginning is made by the entrance of a single shepherd, grumpy, frost-bitten, and growling rebelliously against the probably widely resented practice of purveyance whereby a nobleman might exact from his farm-tenantry provisions and service for his needs, even though the farmer's own land should suffer from neglect in consequence. Thus he says,
No wonder, as it standys, if we be poore,
For the tylthe of oure landys lyys falow as the floore,
As ye ken.
We ar so hamyd[27], For-taxed[28] and ramyd[29], We ar mayde hand-tamyd, Withe thyse gentlery men. Thus they refe[30] us oure rest, Oure Lady theym wary[31]! These men that ar lord-fest, thay cause the ploghe tary. That men say is for the best we fynde it contrary. Thus ar husbandys opprest, in pointe to myscary, On lyfe.
By way of excuse for his grumblings he adds in conclusion,
It dos me good, as I walk thus by myn oone,
Of this warld for to talk in maner of mone.
The second shepherd, who enters next, has other grounds for discontent. He, poor man, has a vixen for a wife.
As sharp as thystille, as rugh as a brere,
She is browyd lyke a brystylle, with a sowre loten chere;
Had she oones well hyr whystyll she couth syng fulle clere
Hyr pater noster.
She is as greatt as a whalle
She has a galon of galle.
Conversation opens between the two, but rapidly comes to a dispute. Fortunately the timely arrival of a third shepherd dissipates the cloud, and they are quite ready to hear his complaints—this time of wide-spreading floods—coupled with further reflections on the hard