A Literary History of the English People Part 50

I.

Dramatic art, in which the English people was to find one of the most brilliant of its literary glories, was evolved slowly from distant and obscure origins.

In England, as in the rest of Europe, the sources of modern drama were of two sorts: there were civil and religious sources.

The desire for amus.e.m.e.nt and the craving for laughable things never disappeared entirely, even in the darkest days; the sources of the lay drama began to spring and flow, owing to no other cause. The means formerly employed to amuse and raise a laugh cannot be expected to have shown much refinement. No refinement was to be found in them, and all means were considered good which ensured success; kicks were among the simplest and oftenest resorted to, but not at all among the grossest; others were worse, and were much more popular. Let us not wonder overmuch: some of them have recovered again, quite recently, a part of their pristine popularity. They were used by jugglers or players, "joculatores," nomadic sometimes, and sometimes belonging to the household of the great. The existence of such men is testified to from century to century, during the whole of the Middle Ages, mainly by the blame and condemnation they constantly incurred: and so it is that the best information concerning these men is not to be sought for in the monuments of the gay literature, but rather in pious treatises and in the acts of Councils.

Treatises and Councils, however, might to our advantage have been even more circ.u.mstantial; the pity is that they, naturally enough, consider it below their dignity to descend to very minute particulars; it is enough for them to give an enumeration, and to condemn in one phrase all the mimes, tumblers, histrions, wrestlers, and the rest of the juggling troup. Sometimes, however, a few particulars are added; the peculiar tricks and the scandalous practices of the ill-famed race are mentioned; and an idea can thus be formed of our ancestors' amus.e.m.e.nts. John of Salisbury in the twelfth century alludes to a variety of pastimes, and while protesting against the means used to produce laughter, places them on record: a heavy laughter indeed, noisy and tumultuous, Rabelais'

laughter before Rabelais. Of course, "such a modest hilarity as an honest man would allow himself" is not to be reproved, and John did not forbear to use this moderate way of enjoyment; but the case is different with the jugglers and tumblers: "much better it would be for them to do nothing than to act so wickedly."[742]

No doubt was possible. The jesters did not care in the least to keep within the bounds of "a modest hilarity"; nor did their audience, for in the fourteenth century we find these men described in the poem of Langland, and they have not altered in any way[743]; their tricks are the same, the same shameful exhibitions take place with the same success; for two hundred years they have been laughed at without intermission. Many things have come and gone; the nation has got tired of John's tyranny, of Henry the Third's weakness, of the Pope's supremacy, but the histrions continue to tumble and jump; "their points being broken, down fall their hose," (to use Shakespeare's words), and the great at Court are convulsed with laughter on their benches.

Besides their horseplay, jugglers and histrions had, to please their audience, retorts, funny answers, witticisms, merry tales, which they acted rather than told, for gestures accompanied the delivery. This part of the amus.e.m.e.nt, which came nearest the drama, sharp repartees, impromptu dialogues, is the one we know least about. Voices have long been silent, and the great halls which heard them are now but ivy-clad ruins, yielding no echo. Some idea, however, can be formed of what took place.

First we know from innumerable testimonies that those histrions spoke and told endless nonsense; they have been often enough reproached with it for no doubt to remain as to their talking. Then there is superabundant proof of the relish with which men enjoyed, in the Middle Ages, silly, teazing or puzzling answers; the questioner remaining at the end rolled up in the repartees, gasping as a fly caught in a spider's web. The Court fool or buffoon had for his princ.i.p.al merit his clever knack of returning witty or confusing answers; the best of them were preserved; itinerant minstrels remembered and repeated them; clerks turned them into Latin, and gave them place in their collections of _exempla_. They afforded amus.e.m.e.nt for a king, an amus.e.m.e.nt of a mixed sort, sometimes:

--Why, says the king, are there no longer any Rolands?--Because, the fool answers, there are no longer any Charlemagnes.[744]

Walter Map, as we saw, was so fond of happy answers that he formed a book of all those he heard, knew, or made in his day. The fabliau of the "Jongleur d'Ely," written in England in the thirteenth century, is a good specimen of the word-fencing at which itinerant amusers were expert. The king is unable to draw from the jongleur any answer to any purpose: What is his name?--The name of his father.--Whom does he belong to?--To his lord.--How is this river called?--No need to call it; it comes of its own accord.--Does the jongleur's horse eat well?--"Certainly yes, my sweet good lord, he can eat more oats in a day than you would do in a whole week."[745]

This is a mere sample of an art that lent itself to many uses, and to which belonged debates, "estrifs," "disputoisons," "jeux-partis,"

equally popular in England and in France. Some specimens of it are as old as the time of the Anglo-Saxons, such as the "Dialogue of Salomon and Saturnus."[746] There are found in the English language debates or dialogues between the Owl and Nightingale, thirteenth century; the Thrush and Nightingale; the Fox and Wolf, time of Edward I.; the Carpenter's Tools, and others.[747] Collections of silly answers were also made in England; one of them was composed to the confusion of the inhabitants of Norfolk; another in their honour and for their defence.[748] The influence of those estrifs, or debates, on the development of the drama cannot be doubted; the oldest dramatic fragment in the English language is nothing but an estrif between Christ and Satan. The author acknowledges it himself:

A strif will I tellen on,

says he in his prologue.[749]

Debates enjoyed great favour in castle halls; impromptu ones which, as Cathos and Madelon said, centuries later, "exercaient les esprits de l'a.s.semblee," were greatly liked; they const.i.tuted a sort of society game, one of the oldest on record. A person among those present was chosen to answer questions, and the amus.e.m.e.nt consisted in putting or returning questions and answers of the most unexpected or puzzling character. This was called the game of the "King who does not lie," or the game of the "King and Queen."[750] By a phenomenon which has been observed in less remote periods, after-dinner conversations often took a licentious turn; in those games love was the subject most willingly discussed, and it was not as a rule treated from a very ethereal point of view; young men and young ladies exchanged on those occasions observations the liberty of which gave umbrage to the Church, who tried to interfere; bishops in their Const.i.tutions mentioned those amus.e.m.e.nts, and forbade to their flock such unbecoming games as "ludos de Rege et Regina;" Walter de Chanteloup, bishop of Worcester, did so in 1240.[751]

Some of that freedom of speech survived, however, through the Middle Ages up to the time of Shakespeare; while listening to the dialogues of Beatrix and Bened.i.c.k one wonders sometimes whether they are not playing the game "de Rege et Regina."

Parody also helped in its way to the formation of the drama. There was a taste for masking, for the imitation of other people; for the caricaturing of some grave person or of some imposing ceremony, ma.s.s for example, for the reproduction of the song of birds or the noise of a storm, gestures being added to the noise, the song, or the words. Some jugglers excelled in this; they were live gargoyles and were paid "the one to play the drunkard, another the fool, a third to imitate the cat."

The great minstrels, "grans menestreus," had a horror of those gargoyles, the shame of their profession;[752] n.o.blemen, however, did not share these refined, if not disinterested, feelings, and asked to their castles and freely rewarded the members of the wandering tribe who knew how to imitate the drunkard, the fool, or the cat.

On histrionic liberties introduced even into church services, Aelred, abbot of Rievaulx in the twelfth century, gives some unexpected particulars. He describes the movements and att.i.tudes of certain chanters by which they "resembled actors": so that we thus get information on both at the same time. Chanters are found in various churches, he says, who with inflated cheeks imitate the noise of thunder, and then murmur, whisper, allow their voice to expire, keeping their mouth open, and think that they give thus an idea of the death or ecstasy of martyrs. Now you would think you hear the neighing of horses, now the voice of a woman. With this "all their body is agitated by histrionic movements"; their lips, their shoulders, their fingers are twisted, shrugged, or spread out as they think best to suit their delivery. The audience, filled with wonder and admiration at those inordinate gesticulations, at length bursts into laughter: "It seems to them they are at the play and not at church, and that they have only to look and not to pray."[753]

The transition from these various performances to little dramas or interludes, which were at first nothing but tales turned into dialogues, was so natural that it could scarcely attract any notice. Few specimens have survived; one English one, however, is extant, dating from the time of Edward I., and shows that this transition had then taken place. It consists in the dramatising of one of the most absurd and most popular tales told by wandering minstrels, the story, namely, of the Weeping b.i.t.c.h. A woman or maid rejects the love of a clerk; an old woman (Dame Siriz in the English prose text) calls upon the proud one, having in her hands a little b.i.t.c.h whom she has fed with mustard, and whose eyes accordingly weep. The b.i.t.c.h, she says, is her own daughter, so transformed by a clerk who had failed to touch her heart; the young woman at once yields to her lover, fearing a similar fate. There exist French, Latin, and English versions of this tale, one of the few which are of undoubted Hindu origin. The English version seems to belong to the thirteenth century.[754]

The turning of it into a drama took place a few years later. Nothing was easier; this fabliau, like many others, was nearly all in dialogues; to make a play of it, the jongleur had but to suppress some few lines of narrative; we thus have a drama, in rudimentary shape, where a deep study of human feelings must not be sought for.[755] Here is the conversation between the young man and the young maid when they meet:

_Clericus._ Damishel, reste wel.

_Puella._ Sir, welc.u.m, by Saynt Michel!

_Clericus._ Wer esty (is thy) sire, wer esty dame?

_Puella._ By G.o.de, es noner her at hame.

_Clericus._ Wel wor suile (such) a man to life That suile a may (maid) mihte have to wyfe!

_Puella._ Do way, by Crist and Leonard....

Go forth thi way, G.o.d sire, For her hastu losye al thi wile.

After some more supplications, the clerk, who is a student at the University, goes to old Helwis (Siriz in the prose tale) and then the author, more accustomed, it seems, to such persons than to the company of young maidens, describes with some art the hypocrisy of the matron.

Helwis will not; she leads a holy life, and what is asked of her will disturb her from her pious observances. Her dignified scruples are removed at length by the plain offer of a reward.

In this way, some time before Chaucer's birth, the lay drama came into existence in Shakespeare's country.

Other stories of the same sort were also turned into plays; we have none of them, but we know that they existed. An Englishman of the fourteenth century calls the performance of them "pleyinge of j.a.pis,"[756] by opposition to the performance of religious dramas.

Other amus.e.m.e.nts again, of a strange kind, helped in the same early period to the formation of the drama. A particularly keen pleasure was afforded during the Middle Ages by songs, dances, and carols, when performed in consecrated places, such as cemeteries, cloisters, churches. A preference for such places may seem scarcely credible; still it cannot be doubted, and is besides easily explainable. To the unbridled instincts of men as yet half tamed, the Church had opposed rigorous prescriptions which were enforced wholesale. To resist excessive independence, excessive severity was needful; b.u.t.tresses had to be raised equal in strength to the weight of the wall. But from time to time a cleft was formed, and the loosened pa.s.sions burst forth with violence. Escaped from the bondage of discipline, men found inexpressible delight in violating all prohibitions at once; the day for the beast had come, and it challenged the angel in its turn.

The propelling power of pa.s.sions so repressed was even increased by certain weird tastes very common at that period, and by the merry reactions they caused. Now oppressed by, and now in revolt against, the idea of death, the faithful would at times answer threats with sneers; they found a particular pleasure in evolving baccha.n.a.lian processions among the tombs of churchyards, not only because it was forbidden, but also on account of the awful character of the place. The watching of the dead was also an occasion for orgies and laughter. At the University, even, these same amus.e.m.e.nts were greatly liked; students delighted in singing licentious songs, wearing wreaths, carolling and deep drinking in the midst of churchyards. Councils, popes, and bishops never tired of protesting, nor the faithful of dancing. Be it forbidden, says Innocent III. at the beginning of the thirteenth century, to perform "theatrical games" in churches. Be this prohibition enforced, says Gregory IX. a little later.[757] Be it forbidden, says Walter de Chanteloup, bishop of Worcester, to perform "dishonest games" in cemeteries and churches, especially on feast days and on the vigils of saints.[758] Be it forbidden, says the provincial council of Scotland in 1225, "to carol and sing songs at the funeral of the dead; the tears of others ought not to be an occasion for laughter."[759] Be it forbidden, the University of Oxford decrees in the same century, to dance and sing in churches, and wear there disguises and wreaths of flowers and leaves.[760]

The year was divided by feasts; and those feasts, the importance of which in everybody's eyes has dwindled much, were then great events; people thought of them long before, saw them in the distance, towering above the common level of days, as cathedrals above houses Everyday life was arrested, and it was a time for rejoicings, of a religious, and sometimes of an impious, character: both kinds helped the formation of drama, and they were at times closely united On such great occasions, more than ever, the caricature and derision of holy things increased the amus.e.m.e.nt. Christmas-time had inherited the licence as well as it occupied the date of the ancient Roman saturnalia; and whatever be the period considered, be it early or late in the Middle Ages, it will be found that the anniversary was commemorated, piously and merrily, by sneering and adoring mult.i.tudes For the one did not prevent the other; people caricatured the Church, her hierarchy and ceremonials, but did not doubt her infallibility; they laughed at the devil and feared him.

"Priests, deacons, and sub-deacons," says the Pope, are bold enough, on those mad days, "to take part in unbecoming baccha.n.a.ls, in the presence of the people, whom they ought rather to edify by preaching the Word of G.o.d."[761] In those baccha.n.a.ls parodies of the Church prayers were introduced; a Latin hymn on the Nativity was transposed line for line, and became a song in honour of the good ale. Here, as a sample, are two stanzas, both of the original and of the parody, this last having, as it seems, been composed in England:

Letabundus Exultet fidelis chorus, Alleluia!

Regem Regum Intacte perfundit thorus: Res miranda!

Angelus consilii Natus est de Virgine, Sol de Stella, Sol occasum nesciens, Stella semper rutilans, Semper clara.

Or i parra: La Cerveise nos chantera _Alleluia!_ Qui que en beit, Se tele seit com estre deit, _Res miranda!_

Bevez quant l'avez en poing; Bien est droit, car mout est loing _Sol de Stella_; Bevez bien et bevez bel, El vos vendra del tonel _Semper clara_.

"You will see; the ale will make us sing, Alleluia! all of us, if the ale is as it should be, a wonderful thing! (Res miranda). Drink of it when you hold the jug; 'tis a most proper thing, for it is a good long way from sun to star (Sol de Stella); drink well! drink deep! it will flow for you from the tun, ever clear! (Semper clara)."[762]

So rose from earth at Christmastide, borne on the same winds, angels and demons, and the ancient feast of Saturn was commemorated at the same time as Christ's. In the same way, again, the scandalous feasts of the Fools, of the Innocents, and of the a.s.s, were made the merrier with grotesque parodies of pious ceremonies; they were celebrated in the church itself, thus transformed, says the bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, into a place for pleasure, amus.e.m.e.nt, and folly: G.o.d's house was defiled by the devil's inventions. He forbade, in consequence, the celebration of the feast of Fools, "festum Stultorum," on the day of Circ.u.mcision in his cathedral, and then in the whole diocese.[763]

The feast of the Innocents was even more popular in England. The performers had at their head a "boy bishop," and this diminutive prelate presided, with mitre on his head, over the frolics of his madcap companions. The king would take an interest in the ceremony; he would order the little dignitary to be brought before him, and give him a present. Edward II. gave six s.h.i.+llings and eight pence to the young John, son of Allan Scroby, who had played the part of the "boy bishop"

in the royal chapel; another time he gave ten s.h.i.+llings; Richard II., more liberal, gave a pound.[764] Nuns even were known to forget on certain occasions their own character, and to carol with laymen on the day of the Innocents, or on the day of Mary Magdalen, to commemorate the life of their patroness, in its first part as it seems.[765]

The pa.s.sion for sightseeing, which was then very keen, and which was to be fed, later, mainly on theatrical entertainments, was indulged in during the Middle Ages in various other ways. Processions were one of them; occasions were numerous, and causes for them were not difficult to find. Had the _Pui_ of London awarded the crown to the writer of the best _chanson_, a procession was formed in the streets in honour of the event. A marriage, a pilgrimage to Palestine, a patronal feast, were sufficient motives; gilds and a.s.sociations donned their liveries, drew their insignia from their chest, and paraded the streets, including in the "pageant," when the circ.u.mstance allowed of it, a medley of giants and dwarfs, monsters, gilt fishes, and animals of all sorts. On grand days the town itself was transformed; with its flower-decked houses, its tapestries and hangings, it gave, with some more realism about it, the impression we receive from the painted scenery of an opera.

The town at such times was swept with extraordinary care; even "insignificant filth" was removed, Matthew Paris notes with wondering pen in 1236.[766] The procession moved forward, men on horseback and on foot, with unfurled banners, along the decorated streets, to the sound of bells ringing in the steeples. At road-crossings the procession stopped; after having been a sight, the members of it became in their turn sightseers. Wonders had been prepared to please them: here a forest with wild beasts and St. John the Baptist; elsewhere scenes from the Bible, or from knightly romances, the "pas de Saladin," for example, where the champion of England, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, fought the champion of Islam. At times it was a dumb-show, a sort of _tableau vivant_, at others actors moved but did not speak; at others again they did both, and complimented the king. A day came when the compliments were cut into dialogues; such practice was frequent in the fifteenth century, and it approached very near to the real drama.

In 1236, Henry III. of England having married Alienor of Provence made his solemn entry into his capital. On this occasion were gathered together "so many n.o.bles, so many ecclesiastics, such a concourse of people, such a quant.i.ty of histrions, that the town of London could scarcely hold them in her ample bosom--_sinu suo capace_.--All the town was adorned with silk banners, wreaths, hangings, candles and lamps, mechanisms and inventions of extraordinary kinds."[767]

The same town, fond above all others of such exhibitions, and one of the last to preserve vestiges of them in her Lord Mayor's Show, outdid all that had been seen before when, on the 29th of August, 1393, Richard II.

made his entry in state, after having consented to receive the citizens again into his favour.[768] The streets were lined with cloth of gold and purple; "sweet smelling flowers" perfumed the air; tapestries with figures hung from the windows; the king was coming forth, splendid to look at, very proud of his good looks, "much like Troilus;" queen Anne took part also in the procession. A variety of scenes stop the progress and delight the onlookers; one had an unforeseen character. The queen was nearing the gate of the bridge, the old bridge with defensive towers and gates, and two cars full of ladies were following her, when one of the cars, "of Phaetonic make" says the cla.s.sical-minded narrator, suddenly broke. Grave as saints, beautiful as angels, the ladies, losing their balance, fell head downwards; and the crowd, while full of admiration for what they saw, "could not suppress their laughter." The author of the description calls it, as Fragonard would have done, "a lucky chance," _sors bona_; but there was nothing of Fragonard in him except this word: he was a Carmelite and Doctor of Divinity.

Things having been set right again, the procession entered Cheapside, and there was seen an "admirable tower"; a young man and a young maiden came out of it, addressed Richard and Anne, and offered them crowns; at the Gate of St. Paul's a concert of music was heard; at Temple Bar, "barram Templi," a forest had been arranged on the gate, with animals of all sorts, serpents, lions, a bear, a unicorn, an elephant, a beaver, a monkey, a tiger, a bear, "all of which were there, running about, biting each other, fighting, jumping." Forests and beasts were supposed to represent the desert where St. John the Baptist had lived. An angel was let down from the roof, and offered the king and queen a little diptych in gold, with stones and enamel representing the Crucifixion; he made also a speech. At length the queen, who had an active part to play in this opera, came forward, and, owing to her intercession, the king, with due ceremony, consented to bestow his pardon on the citizens.

Many other examples might be adduced; feasts were numerous, and for a time caused pains to be forgotten: "oubliance etait au voir," as Froissart says so well on an occasion of this sort.[769] There were also for the people the May celebrations with their dances and songs, the impersonation of Robin Hood, later the performance of short plays of which he was the hero[770]; and again those chimes, falling from the steeples, filling the air with their joyous peals. At Court there were the "masks" or "ballets" in which the great took part, wrapped in starry draperies, disguised with gold beards, dressed in skins or feathers, as were at Paris King Charles VI. and his friends on the 29th of January, 1392, in the famous Ballet of Wild Men, since called, from the catastrophe which happened, "Ballet des Ardents" (of men in fire). The taste for ballets and Masks was one of long duration; the Tudors and Stuarts were as fond of them as the Plantagenets, so much so that a branch apart in dramatic literature was created on this account, and it includes in England such graceful and touching masterpieces as the "Sad Shepherd" of Ben Jonson and the "Comus" of Milton.

II.

While histrions and amusers give a foretaste of farce and comedy in castle halls, while romantic drama is foreshadowed in the "pas de Saladin" and the "Taking of Troy," and the pastoral drama begins with May games, other sources of the modern dramatic art were springing up in the shadow of the cloister and under the naves of churches.