THE MYSTERY PLAY (Continued)

As regards the aesthetic side of this drama, modern standards should not be applied. This theatre does not even offer unity of action, for the scenes are not derived from one another: they succeed one another without any other unity than the interest which attaches to the chief personage and the general idea of eternal salvation, whether of a single man or of humanity, which constitutes the common foundation of the picture. Moreover, side by side with pathetic and exalted scenes are found others which savour of buffoonery. The plays used as many as one, two, and even five hundred characters, not counting the chorus, and they were so long that they could not be played on one occasion. This is true at least of the mysteries dating from the middle of the fifteenth century; on the other hand, the oldest of them and the miracles were rather short.

Two faults have at every period characterized this dramatic style--weakness and wordiness. The poets said things as they occurred to them, without display of selection, gradation, or taste. They had facility, but they abused it and never amended. Furthermore, in the drawing of character there was no art whatever. The dramas of the Middle Ages are simply grand and animated spectacles. Doubtless their authors sometimes, though rarely, succeeded in fittingly depicting the patience and meekness of the august Victim of the Passion. In this they were assisted by recollections of the Gospel. More often they succeeded in attractively interpreting the complex emotions experienced by the soul of the Blessed Virgin, but as a definite object the analysis of the soul did not occupy them at all.

A few words may be said as to the manner of representation and technic. Places were indicated by vast scenery, rather than really represented. Two or three trees, for example, represented a forest, and although the action often changed from place to place the scenery did not change, for it showed simultaneously all the various localities where the characters successively appeared in the course of the drama, and which were thus in close proximity, even though in reality they were often far removed from each other. For the rest nothing was neglected to attract the eye. If the scenery was immovable, it was very rich and secrets of theoretical mechanism often produced surprising and fairy-like effects. The actors were richly dressed, each defrayed the cost of his own costume and looked more for beauty than for truth. The subject-matter admitted of the marvelous and was borrowed from religion. For the rest there was some difference between the miracles and the mysteries. The miracles emphasized the supernatural intervention of a saint or the Blessed Virgin the events might be infinitely varied, and this afforded the authors a wide field of which, however, they did not take full advantage, though they incidentally supply us a host of details regarding the manners of the times which are not found elsewhere.

The mysteries, at least in the Old and New Testament cycles, followed a previously traced out path from which they could with difficulty depart since the foundation was borrowed from Holy Scripture. The traditional doctrine and the august characters of the chief personages had to be respected. But, to offset this handicap, what exalted, dramatic, and affecting subjects were theirs! These poets recalled not only the events of this world, but depicted before their audience the terrors and the hopes of the next. They set forth at the same time heaven, earth, and hell, and this enormous subject gave occasion for scenes of powerful interest. The scenes of the Passion are surely the most wonderful the most moving, and the most beautiful that can be enacted on earth. The poet lacked art, but he was saved by his subject, as Sainte-Beuve himself has observed, and from time to time he became sublime despite himself. And what the spectator saw represented was not fiction, but the holy realities which from his childhood he had learned to venerate. What was put before his eyes was most calculated to affect him, the doctrines of his faith the consolations it afforded in the sorrows of this life, and the immortal joys it promised in the next. Hence the great success of these religious performances.

The greatest celebration a city could indulge in on a solemn occasion was to play the Passion. On this occasion the entire populace crowded into the enormous theatre, the city was deserted, and it was necessary to organize bands of armed citizens to protect the deserted houses against robbery. This custom endured until 1548, when the Parliament of Paris forbade the Confreres de la Passion to play thenceforth "the Sacred mysteries". The prohibition was due to the opposition of the Protestants against the mixing of comedy and fabulous traditions with Biblical teachings. These attacks aroused the scruples of some Catholics, and the judiciary considered it time to interfere. The mysteries perished; for the example of Paris, where they were forbidden to be played, was by degrees followed by the provinces Thus the religious drama of the Middle Ages disappeared in France at the height of its success.