|
THE COLLECTIVE STORY
OF THE ENGLISH CYCLES |
IN
the miracle plays of our forefathers the mirth, the proverbial
philosophy, the social aims, the aesthetic and religious ideals
of the middle ages still live for us. At first, these plays existed
as units, each commemorating some episode in the life of Christ
or of the saints, or some important fragment of Old Testament
history. But gradually they coalesced in this town and that into
a cycle or sequence (of anywhere from five to fifty dramatic
compositions), covering in one vast survey the whole of sacred
history and prophecy, as told in scripture and in ecclesiastical
legend, from the Fall of the Angels to the Day of Judgment. The
cycle of York stands to one of its component pageants as the
minister itself to chapel, cloister, nave, or crypt. And the
same simple, patient, practical mystics built both cycle and
cathedral. If we would know how our fathers lived and dreamed
we should study their temples of dramatic verse as well as their
aspirations in stone.
The collective story of sacred plays falls
readily into five groups. The first is that of the Creation
and of Old Testament History. It presents in kaleidoscopic
spectacle God making the angels and the universe, Lucifer and
his hosts aspiring and descending; the creation of Adam and Eve,
the temptation and the expulsion from Paradise; the promise of
the Oil of Mercy; the birth of the first children of men; their
instruction in worship and industry; then, the blood of Abel
crying from the ground, the curse upon Cain, his wanderings,
and his death like a hunted thing at the hands of Lamech; Adam
in his old age weary of delving, and sick unto death, sending
Seth to the angel who keeps Paradise to obtain that Oil of Mercy
if he may; Seth's vision of the Tree in the Garden and of the
unborn Christ, and his return to Adam with the kernels of the
fruit whence should spring the wood of the Cross; Adam's joy,
his pious resignation and his death, and the planting of the
holy kernels; Enoch's walk with God; the corruption of mankind,
and God repenting him of his creation; the mission of Noah, the
building of the Ark and the history of the Flood; the meeting
of Abraham and Melchisedec; the sacrifice of Isaac; Jacob and
his wily mother cheating Esau of his birthright and blessing;
the wanderings of Jacob and the vision at Bethel; the Israelites
in Egypt, the plagues, and the passage of the Red Sea; Moses
and the chosen people in the wilderness, the giving of the laws,
and the discovery of the Sacred Rods sprung from the "pippins"
of Seth; Balaam on his errand of imprecation,
- "Go forth, Burnell, go forth, go!
- What the Devil, my ass will not go!"--
the Angel in the way, and Balaam's prophecy
of the Star to come out of Jacob, the sceptre out of Israel;
then, the transplantation of the Holy Rods by David; the royal
psalmist's sin with Bathsheba; Soloman building the Temple, and
cutting down the Kingly Tree,--the beam that the builders rejected;
and of that beam Maximilla prophesying that Christ should hang
thereon; the bridge over Cedron; and finally, the procession
of the prophets who foretell the Christ: Balaam and Isaiah, --Jesse,
David, and Solomon, and chosen rulers of the disrupted kingdom,--Jeremiah
and Jonah and Daniel and Micah, and other righteous,--a glorious
pomp preceding the Dawn, and singing in many tones
- Virgo concipiet
- Et pariet filium, nomen Emanuel;
- Egredietur virga de radice Jesse
- Et flos de radice ejus ascendet.
As the Processus Prophetarum closes
the prologue of the cosmic history, so it also opens the divine
Mystery of the Atonement. This is itself a unit, but it falls
into three dramatic groups,--the Nativity, the Ministry, and
the Passion of Christ.
The Nativity
casts its nimbus before: with the angelic prophecy of a daughter,
- Which shall hight Mary, and Mary shall
bear Jesus
- Which shall be Savior of all the world
and us,
the childless home of Joachim and Anna
is glorified. The days pass, and the promised maid is born. "All
in white as a child of three," she mounts the steps of the
Temple, to be dedicated "to Godde's service" and to
chastity. Then follow the choice of a husband for the maiden
turned fourteen, the flowering of old Joseph's rod, and the betrothal;
the departure of Joseph from his "little bride," and
the fair one with her virgins working on the curtain for the
temple of the Lord; then, Gabriel on his high embassy, and the
Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, the visit to Elizabeth,
and the salutation of the Mother of our Lord; then, Joseph's
return and his trouble about Mary, and the trial scene in the
Temple where, miraculously, the Virgin is vindicated and her
detractors are put to shame; next, royalty and the palace,--Caesar
Augustus taking counsel with Cyrenius against the coming of the
Child; the Emperor and the Sibyl, her prophecy of Christ; then,
the riches of poverty,--the journey to Bethlehem, the stable,
the birth of Christ, and the sign shown to the midwives; Emperor
and Sibyl again, Christ's birth announced and the Emperor converted;
the shepherds and the star; the Magi and the star, and Herod
on his throne; after that the Temple,--the purification of Our
Lady, the presentation of the Child and the Nunc dimittis
of Simeon; then, the offering of the Magi; Herod deceived and
furious, the flight of Joseph, Mary, and the Child into Egypt
and the massacre of the innocents; again, the palace, and high
revel of Herod and his knights,--to them Death entering to strike,
and the Devil issuing from Hell to claim his own.
Here ends the group of the Nativity, and
the active Ministry of Christ begins: the Temple, and
Christ with the doctors, disputing; the baptism in the Jordan;
the mountain of temptation; the marriage in Cana of Galilee;
the transfiguration; the absolution of the adulteress; the healing
of the blind in Siloam; the raising of Lazarus from the dead,
and the cure of blind Bartimaeus.
Then follows the group of plays of which
the focus is the Passion: the entry into Jerusalem, and
the cleansing of the Temple; Jesus in the house of Simon the
leper and Mary Magdalen anointing him "aforehand for his
burying"; the conspiracy of the Jews, the treachery of Judas,
and the Last Supper; the garden of Gethsemane,--the agony, the
betrayal, the flight of the disciples; the trial before Caiaphas,
the buffeting, the denial of Peter; the trial before Pilate,
and the dream of Pilate's wife; the trial before Herod; the second
accusation before Pilate, the remorse and self-murder of Judas,
and the purchase of the Field of Blood; the condemnation and
the scourging; the recovery of the cross-wood from the brook
Cedron, the forging of the nails for the cross, and the leading
of Christ up to Calvary; the ministrations of Simon the Cyrenian
and Veronica; the lamentation of Mary and the daughters of Jerusalem;
the crucifixion; the casting of lots for the seamless coat; the
promise to the pentitent thief; and the undying triumph of the
Saviour's death. The miracle, then, by which the centurion receives
his sight; the descent from the cross, and the burial; the harrowing
of hell; the imprisonment of Joseph and Nicodemus, and the setting
of the watch; the resurrection, the discomfiture of the Jews,
and the release of the prisoners; the angels--to the Maries:
"Whom seek ye?" (Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, Christicolae?);
the appearance of the risen Christ--to the Magdalene, to the
pilgrims for Emmaus, to the Eleven; the rebuke to Thomas, the
promise of the Holy Ghost, and the ascension.
Here end the passion plays, properly so-called;
and the last division begins,--the History of the Living Church:
the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost; the meeting of Veronica
and Tiberius, the conversion of the Emperor, the condemnation
and death of Pilate; the ministry of the apostles; the death
and burial, the assumption and coronation of the Mother of our
Lord; the piety and martyrdom and miracles of the saints--Paul
and Magdalene, Christina and Catharine, and of others a numerous
host; the miracles of Our Lady; the miracles of the Blessed Sacrament;
the signs of Judgment; the coming of Antichrist and his destruction.--Doomsday.
From this river of history, ecclesiastical
and profane, of apocrypha, apocalypse, and legend, the medieval
playwrights of pageants,
single or cyclic, drew the waters of poetic life. The miracles
of the saints, indeed (except one or two of the Virgin and those
of St. Paul and Mary Magdalene), and the histories of certain
Old Testament heroes, such as Daniel and Tobit, are not included
in any of the English cycles; but they are in the French. And
one and another of them occurs in independent form in the annals
of medieval English drama. I have already mentioned the St.
Katharine of Geoffrey, and the Daniel and St. Nicholas
of the twelfth century Hilarius. A Tobit was acted
at Lincoln in 1564 and 1567; the Deaths of the Apostles
and a play of Sts. Crispin and Crispinianus, in Dublin, in 1528;
a St. Meriasek in Cornwall; and plays of numerous others--St.
James, St. Andrew, St. Laurence, St. Susanna, St. Lucy, St. Margaret--in
various places. It has been recently announced by Mr. Chambers
that the "dumb show of St. George," of which the subtle
J. P. Collier says that it was presented by Henry the Fifth for
the entertainment of Emperor Sigismund of "Almayne"
was nothing more than a "soteltie" or ornamented cake;
but the probability still remains that many a miracle of the
patron saint preceded by centuries of mummings of St. George
which obtain in England even at the present day. Plays of St.
Paul and Mary Magdalene form part of the Digby cycle; and a miracle
of the Blessed Sacrament is preserved in the well-known Croxton
play, which was composed between 1461 and 1500. This latter day
episode of the history of Christ's saints represents the desecration
by Jews of a wonder-working wafer, their discomfiture and ultimate
conversion, and is a striking example of the transition from
the sacred and didactic drama to the realistic and comic play
of contemporary life.
The five groups of plays into which the
collective miracles, above enumerated, may be resolved, are,
as we have noticed, but three, in effect; that of pre-christian
history and legend, that of Christ's ministry, and that of his
church. Of these, the first is the prologue to the swelling theme
of the second, the essential drama of the Atonement--God born
into the world; living, suffering, dying for man; harrowing hell,
rising from the dead, and ascending into heaven; and to that
the third is the epilogue.
This article was originally
published in Plays of Our Forefathers. Charles Mills Gayley.
New York: Duffield & Co., 1907. pp. 118-24.
RELATED WEBSITES
|
