Noye's Wiffe-- Have thou that for thy note! (_Giving her husband a cuff on the head_).
Noye-- Ha, ha! Marye, this is hotte! It is good for to be still. Ha! children, me thinkes my botte remeves, Our tarryinge heare highlye me greves, Over the lande the watter spreades; God doe as he will.
This quotation will give a good idea of the human interest of these Mystery Plays and serve to show that they did not fail in dramatic power for any lack of humor or acute observation. It would be easy to illustrate this much more amply. The opportunities to enjoy these plays were abundant. We have said that the Chester Cycle is the one of which there is earliest mention. The method of its presentation has been described by Mr. Henry Morley in the fourth volume of his English Writers. He says:
"There were scaffolds erected for spectators in those places to which the successive pageants would be drawn; and a citizen who on the first day saw in any place the first pageant (that of the Fall of Lucifer), if he kept his place and returned to it in good time on each successive morning, would see the Scripture story, as thus told, pass in its right order before him. Each pageant was drawn on four or six wheels, and had a room in which the actors and properties were concealed, under the upper room or stage on which they played."
Mr. Morley then describes the action of the various parts of the cycle, showing how clearly the lessons of the Old Testament history and its symbolic and typical meaning were pointed out so that the spectators could not miss them.
How completely the story of the Bible was told may be judged from the order of the Pageants of the Play of Corpus Christi, in the time of the mayoralty of William Alne, in the third year of the reign of King Henry V., compiled by Roger Burton, town clerk.
God the Father Almighty creating and forming the heavens, angels and archangels, Lucifer and the angels that fell with him to hell.
God the Father, in his own substance, creating the earth and all which is therein, in the space of five days.
God the Father creating Adam of the clay of the earth and making Eve of Adam's rib, and inspiring them with the breath of life.
God forbidding Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life.