CHAPTER CCXXVI.

THE AUTHOR DIGRESSES A LITTLE, AND TAKES UP A STITCH WHICH WAS DROPPED IN THE EARLIER PART OF THIS OPUS.—NOTICES CONCERNING LITERARY AND DRAMATIC HISTORY, BUT PERTINENT TO THIS PART OF OUR SUBJECT.

_Jam paululum digressus a spectantibus, Doctis loquar, qui non adeo spectare quam Audire gestiunt, logosque ponderant, Examinant, dijudicantque pro suo Candore vel livore; non latum tamen Culmum (quod aiunt) dum loquar sapientibus Loco movebor._

MACROPEDIUS.

The boy and his schoolmaster were not mistaken in thinking that some of Textor's Moralities would have delighted the people of Ingleton as much as any of Rowland Dixon's stock pieces. Such dramas have been popular wherever they have been presented in the vernacular tongue. The progress from them to the regular drama was slow, perhaps not so much on account of the then rude state of most modern languages, as because of the yet ruder taste of the people. I know not whether it has been observed in literary history how much more rapid it was in schools, where the Latin language was used, and consequently fit audience was found, though few.

George von Langeveldt, or Macropedius as he called himself, according to the fashion of learned men in that age, was contemporary with Textor, and like him one of the pioneers of literature, but he was a person of more learning and greater intellectual powers. He was born about the year 1475, of a good family in the little town or village of Gemert, at no great distance from Bois-le-Duc. As soon as his juvenile studies were compleated he entered among the _Fratres Vitæ Communis_; they employed him in education, first as Rector in their college at Bois-le-duc, then at Liege, and afterwards at Utrecht from whence in 1552, being infirm and grievously afflicted with gout, he returned to Bois-le-duc there to pass the remainder of his days, as one whose work was done. Old and enfeebled however as he was, he lived till the year 1558, and then died not of old age, but of a pestilential fever.

There is an engraved portrait of him in the hideous hood and habit of his order; the countenance is that of a good-natured, intelligent, merry old man: underneath are these verses by Sanderus the topographer.

_Tu Seneca, et nostri potes esse Terentius ævi, Seu struis ad faciles viva theatra pedes, Sen ploras tragicas, Macropedi, carmine clades, Materiam sanctis adsimilante modis. Desine jam Latios mirari Roma cothurnos; Nescio quid majus Belgica scena dabit._

Macropedius published Rudiments both of the Greek and Latin languages; he had studied the Hebrew and Chaldee; had some skill in mathematics, and amused his leisure in making mathematical instruments, a branch of art in which he is said to have been an excellent workman. Most of the men who distinguished themselves as scholars in that part of the Low Countries, toward the latter part of the 16th century had been his pupils: for he was not more remarkable for his own acquirements than for the earnest delight which he took in instructing others. There is some reason for thinking that he was a severe disciplinarian, perhaps a cruel one. Herein he differed widely from Textor, who took every opportunity for expressing his abhorrence of magisterial cruelty. In one of these Dialogues with which Guy and young Daniel were so well acquainted, two schoolmasters after death are brought before Rhadamanthus for judgement; one for his inhumanity is sent to be tormented in Tartarus, part of his punishment in addition to those more peculiarly belonging to the region, being that

_Verbera quæ pueris intulit, ipse ferat:_

the other who indulged his boys and never maltreated them is ordered to Elysium, the Judge saying to him

—_tua te in pueros clementia salvum Reddit, et æternis persimilem superis._

That Textor's description of the cruelty exercised by the pedagogues of his age was not overcharged, Macropedius himself might be quoted to prove, even when he is vindicating and recommending such discipline as Dr. Parr would have done. I wish Parr had heard an expression which fell from the honest lips of Isaac Reid, when a school, noted at that time for its consumption of birch, was the subject of conversation; the words would have burnt themselves in. I must not commit them to the press; but this I may say, that the Recording Angel entered them on the creditor side of that kind-hearted old man's account.

Macropedius, like Textor, composed dramatic pieces for his pupils to represent. The latter, as has been shown in a former chapter, though he did not exactly take the Moralities for his model, produced pieces of the same kind, and adapted his conceptions to the popular facts, while he clothed them in the language of the classics. His aim at improvement proceeded no farther, and he never attempted to construct a dramatic fable. That advance was made by Macropedius, who in one of his dedicatory epistles laments that among the many learned men who were then flourishing, no Menander, no Terence was to be found, their species of writing, he says, had been almost extinct since the time of Terence himself, or at least of Lucilius. He regretted this because comedy might be rendered useful to persons of all ages, _quid enim plus pueris ad eruditionem, plus adolescentibus ad honesta studia, plus provectioribus, immò omnibus in commune ad virtutem conducat?_

Reuchlin, or Capnio (as he who was one of the lights of his generation was misnamed and misnamed himself,) who had with his other great and eminent merits that of restoring or rather introducing into Germany the study of Hebrew, revived the lost art of comedy. If any one had preceded him in this revival, Macropedius was ignorant of it, and by the example and advice of this great man he was induced to follow him, not only as a student of Hebrew, but as a comic writer. Hrosvitha indeed, a nun of Gandersheim in Saxony, who lived in the tenth century and in the reign of Otho II. composed six Latin comedies _in emulation_ of Terence, but in praise of virginity; and these with other of her poems were printed at Nuremberg in the year 1501. The book I have never seen, nor had De Bure, nor had he been able (such is its rarity) to procure any account of it farther than enabled him to give its title. The name of Conrad Celtes, the first German upon whom the degree of Poet Laureate was conferred, appears in the title, as if he had discovered the manuscript; _Conrado Celte inventore_. De Bure says the volume was _attribué au même Conradus Celtes_. It is rash for any one to form an opinion of a book which he has never examined, unless he is well acquainted with the character and capacity of its author; nevertheless I may venture to observe that nothing can be less in unison with the life and conversation of this Latin poet, as far as these may be judged of by his acknowledged poems, than the subjects of the pieces published under Hrosvitha's name; and no reason can be imagined why if he had written them himself, he should have palmed them upon the public as her composition.

It is remarkable that Macropedius when he spoke of Reuchlin's comedies should not have alluded to these, for that he must have seen them there can be little or no doubt. One of Reuchlin's is said to have been imitated from _la Farce de Pathelin_, which under the title of the Village Lawyer has succeeded on our own stage, and which was so deservedly popular that the French have drawn from it more than one proverbial saying. The French Editor who affirms this says that Pathelin was printed in 1474, four years before the representation of Reuchlin's comedy, but the story is one of those good travellers which are found in all countries, and Reuchlin may have dramatised it without any reference to the French drama, the existence of which may very probably have been unknown to him, as well as to Macropedius. Both his pieces are satirical. His disciple began with a scriptural drama upon the Prodigal Son, Asotus is its title. It must have been written early in the century, for about 1520 he laid it aside as a juvenile performance, and faulty as much because of the then comparatively rude state of learning, as of his own inexperience.

_Scripsi olim adolescens, trimetris versibus, Et tetrametris, eâ phrasi et facundiâ Quæ tum per adolescentiam et mala tempora Licebat, evangelicum Asotum aut Prodigum Omnis quidem mei laboris initium._

After it had lain among his papers for thirty years, he brought it to light, and published it. In the prologue he intreats the spectators not to be offended that he had put his sickle into the field of the Gospel, and exhorts them while they are amused with the comic parts of the dialogue, still to bear in mind the meaning of the parable.

_Sed orat author carminis vos res duas: Ne ægre feratis, quod levem falcem tulit Sementem in evangelicam, eamque quod audeat Tractare majestatem Iambo et Tribracho; Neve insuper nimis hæreatis ludicris Ludisque comicis, sed animum advortite Hic abdito mysterio, quod eruam._

After these lines he proceeds succinctly to expound the parable.

Although the grossest representations were not merely tolerated at that time in the Miracle Plays, and Mysteries, but performed with the sanction and with the assistance of the clergy, it appears that objections were raised against the sacred dramas of this author. They were composed for a learned audience,—which is indeed the reason why the Latin or as it may more properly be called the Collegiate drama, appeared at first in a regular and respectable form, and received little or no subsequent improvement. The only excuse which could be offered for the popular exhibitions of this kind, was that they were if not necessary, yet greatly useful, by exciting and keeping up the lively faith of an ignorant, but all-believing people. That apology failed, where no such use was needed. But Macropedius easily vindicated himself from charges which in truth were not relevant to his case; for he perceived what scriptural subjects might without impropriety be represented as he treated them, and he carefully distinguished them from those upon which no fiction could be engrafted without apparent profanation. In the prologue to his Lazarus he makes this distinction between the Lazarus of the parable, and the Lazarus of the Gospel History: the former might be thus treated for edification, the latter was too sacred a theme,

—_quod is sine Filii Dei persona agi non possiet._

Upon this distinction he defends himself, and carefully declares what were the bounds which ought not to be overpassed.

_Fortassis objectabit illi quispiam Quod audeat sacerrimam rem, et serio Nostræ saluti a Christo Jesu proditam Tractare comicè, et facere rem ludicram. Fatetur ingenuè, quod eadem ratio se Sæpenumero deterruit, ne quid suum, Vel ab aliis quantumlibet scriptum, piè Doctève, quod personam haberet Christi Jesu Agentis, histrionibus seu ludiis Populo exhibendum ex pulpito committeret._

From this passage I am induced to suspect that the Jesus Scholasticus, and the tragedy De Passione Christi, which are named in the list of his works, have been erroneously ascribed to him. No date of time or place is affixed to either, by the biographers. After his judicious declaration concerning such subjects it cannot be thought he would have written these tragedies; nor that if he had written them before he seriously considered the question of their propriety, he would afterwards have allowed them to appear. It is more probable that they were published without an author's name, and ascribed to him, because of his reputation. No inference can be drawn from their not appearing in the two volumes of his plays; because that collection is entitled _Omnes Georgii Macropedii Fabulæ_ COMICÆ, and though it contains pieces which are deeply serious, that title would certainly preclude the insertion of a tragedy. But a piece upon the story of Susanna which the biographers have also ascribed to him is not in the collection;[1] the book was printed after his retirement to Bois-le-duc, when from his age and infirmities he was most unlikely to have composed it, and therefore I conclude, that like the tragedies, it is not his work.

[Footnote 1: This must be a comic drama.—R. S.]

Macropedius was careful to guard against anything which might give offence and therefore he apologizes for speaking of the _fable_ of his Nama:

_Mirabitur fortasse vestrûm quispiam, Quod fabulam rem sacrosanctam dixerim. Verum sibi is persuasum habebit, omne quod Tragico artificio comicovè scribitur, Dici poetis fabulam; quod utique non Tam historia veri texitur, quod proprium est, Quam imago veri fingitur, quod artis est. Nam comicus non propria personis solet, Sed apta tribuere atque verisimilia, ut Quæ pro loco vel tempore potuere agi Vel dicier._

For a very different reason he withdrew from one of these dramas certain passages, by the advice of his friends, he says, _qui rem seriam fabulosius tractandum dissuaserunt._ These it seems related to the first chapter of St. Luke, but contained circumstances derived not from that Gospel, but from the legends engrafted upon it, and therefore he rejects them as _citra scripturæ authoritatem_.

From the scrupulousness with which Macropedius in this instance distinguishes between the facts of the Gospel history, and the fables of man's invention, it may be suspected that he was not averse at heart to those hopes of a reformation in the church which were at that time entertained. This is still further indicated in the drama called Hecastus (_ἕκαστος_,—Every one,) in which he represents a sinner as saved by faith in Christ and repentance. He found it necessary to protest against the suspicion which he had thus incurred, and to declare that he held works of repentance, and the sacraments appointed by the Church necessary for salvation.[2]

[Footnote 2: Hecastus was represented by the schoolboys in 1538 _non sine magno spectantium plausu_. It was printed in the ensuing year; and upon reprinting it, in 1550, the author offers his apology. He says, “_fuere multi quibus (fabulæ scopo recte considerato) per omnia placuit; fuere quibus in ea nonnulla offenderunt; fuere quoque, quibus omnino displicuit, ob hoc præcipue, quod erroribus quibusdam nostri temporis connivere et suffragari videretur. Inprimis illi, quod citra pænitentiæ opera (satisfactionem dicimus) et ecclesiæ sacramenta, per solam in Christum fidem et cordis contritionem, condonationem criminum docere, vel asserere videretur: et quod quisque certo se fore servandum credere teneretur: Id quod nequaquam nec mente concepi, nec unquam docere volui, licet quibusdam fortassis fabulæ scopum non exactè considerantibus, primâ (quod aiunt) fronte sic videri potuerit. Si enim rei scopum, quem in argumento indicabam, penitus observassent, secus fortassis judicaturi fuissent._”—R. S.]

Hecastus is a rich man, given over to the pomps and vanities of the world, and Epicuria his wife is of the same disposition. They have prepared a great feast, when Nomodidascalus arrives with a summons for him to appear before the Great King for Judgment. Hecastus calls upon his son Philomathes who is learned in the law for counsel; the son is horror-stricken, and confesses his ignorance of the language in which the summons is written:

_Horror, pater, me invadit, anxietas quoque Non mediocris; nam elementa quanquam barbara Miram Dei potentiam præ se ferunt, Humaniores literas scio; barbaras Neque legere, neque intelligere, pater, queo._

The father is incensed that a son who had been bred to the law for the purpose of pleading his cause at any time should fail him thus; but Nomodidascalus vindicates the young man, and reads a severe lecture to Hecastus, in which Hebrew words of aweful admonishment are introduced and interpreted. The guests arrive, he tells them what has happened, and entreats them to accompany him, and assist him when he appears before the Judge; they plead other engagements, and excuse themselves. He has no better success with his kinsmen; though they promise to look after his affairs, and say that they will make a point of attending him with due honour as far as the gate. He then calls upon his two sons to go with him unto the unknown country whereto he has been summoned. The elder is willing to fight for his father, but not to enter upon such a journey; the lawyer does not understand the practice of those courts, and can be of no use to him there; but he advises his father to take his servants with him, and plenty of money.

Madam Epicuria, who is not the most affectionate of wives, refuses to accompany him upon this unpleasant expedient, and moreover requests that her maids may be left with her; let him take his man servants with him, and gold and silver in abundance. The servants bring out his wealth. Plutus, _ex arcâ loquens_ is one of the Dramatis Personæ, and the said Plutus when brought upon the stage in a chest, or strong box, complains that he is shaken to pieces by being thus moved. Hecastus tells him he must go with him to the other world and help him there, which Plutus flatly refuses. If he will not go of his own accord he shall be carried whether he will or no, Hecastus says. Plutus stands stiffly to his refusal.

_Non transferent; prius quidem Artus et ilia ruperint, quam transferant. In morte nemini opitulor usquam gentium, Quin magis ad alienum dominum transeo._

Hecastus on his part is equally firm, and orders his men to fetch some strong poles, and carry off the chest, Plutus and all. Having sent them forward, he takes leave of his family, and Epicuria protests that she remains like a widowed dove, and his neighbours promise to accompany him as far as the gate.

Death comes behind him now:

_Horrenda imago, larva abominabilis, Figura tam execranda, ut atrum dæmona Putetis obvium._[3]

[Footnote 3: The reader should by all means consult Mr. Sharpe's “Dissertation on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries anciently performed in Coventry.” “The Devil,” he observes, “was a very favorite and prominent character in our Religious Mysteries, wherein he was introduced as often as was practicable, and considerable pains taken to furnish him with appropriate habiliments, &c.” p. 31. also pp. 57-60. There are several plates of “_Hell-Mought and Sir Sathanas_” which will not escape the examination of the curious. The bloody Herod was a character almost as famous as “_Sir Sathanas_”—hence the expression “_to out-herod Herod_” _e.g._ in Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. ii. With reference to the same personage Charmian says to the Soothsayer in Antony and Cleopatra, “Let me have a child at fifty, to whom _Herod of Jewry_ may do homage.” Act i. Sc. ii., and Mrs. Page asks in the Merry Wives of Windsor, “What _Herod of Jewry_ is this?” Act ii. Sc. i.]

This dreadful personage is with much difficulty intreated to allow him the respite of one short hour, after which Death declares he will return, and take him, will he or nill he before the Judge, and then to the infernal regions. During this interval who should come up but an old and long-neglected friend of Hecastus, Virtue by name; a poor emaciated person, in mean attire, in no condition to appear with him before the Judge, and altogether unfit to plead his desperate cause. She promises however to send him a Priest to his assistance and says moreover that she will speak to her sister Faith, and endeavour to persuade her to visit him.

Meantime the learned son predicts from certain appearances the approaching end of his father.

_Actum Philocrate, de patris salute, uti Plane recenti ex lotio prejudico, Nam cerulea si tendit ad nigredinem Urina mortem proximam denunciat._

He has been called on, he says, too late,

_Sero meam medentis admisit manum._

The brothers begin to dispute about their inheritance, and declare law against each other; but they suspend the dispute when Hieronymus the Priest arrives, that they may look after him lest he should prevail upon the dying to dispose of too large a part of his property in charitable purposes.

_Id cautum oportet maximè. Novimus enim Quàm tum sibi, tum cæteris quibus favent, Legata larga extorqueat id hominum genus, Cum morte ditem terminandum viderint._

Virtue arrives at this time with his sister Faith; they follow Hieronymus into the chamber into which Hecastus has been borne; and as they go in up comes Satan to the door, and takes his seat there to draw up a bill of indictment against the dying man, he must do it carefully, he says, that there may be no flaw in it.

_Causam meam scripturus absolutius Adversum Hecastum, hic paululum desedero; Ne si quid insit falsitatis maximis Facinoribus, res tota veniat in gravem Fœdamque controversiam. Abstinete vos, Quotquot theatro adestis, à petulantiâ, Nisi si velitis et hos cachinnos scribier._

Then he begins to draw up the indictment, speaking as he writes,

_Primum omnium superbus est et arrogans,— Superbus est et arrogans,—et arrogans;— Tum in ædibus,—tum in ædibus; tum in vestibus,— Tum in vestibus. Jam reliqua tacitus scripsero, Loquaculi ne exaudiant et deferant._

While Satan is thus employed at the door, the priest Hieronymus within is questioning the patient concerning his religion. Hecastus possesses a very sound and firm historical belief. But this the Priest tells him is not enough, for the Devils themselves believe and tremble, and he will not admit Faith into the chamber till Hecastus be better instructed in the true nature of a saving belief.

_Credis quod omnia quæ patravit Filius Dei unicus, tibi redimendo gesserit? Tibi natus est? tibi vixerit? tibi mortuus Sit? tibi sepultus? et tibi surrexerit? Mortemque tibi devicerit?_

Hecastus confesses in reply that he is a most miserable sinner, unworthy of forgiveness, and having brought him into this state of penitence the Priest calls Fides in.

Then says Fides,

_Hæc tria quidem, cognitio nempe criminis, Horror gehennæ, et pœnitentia, læta sunt Veræ salutis omnium primordia, Jam perge, ut in Deum excites fiduciam._

When this trust has been given him, and he has declared his full belief, he confesses that still he is in fear,

—_est quod adhuc parit mihi scrupulum; Mors horrida, atque aspectus atri Dæmonis, Queis terribilius (inquiunt) nil hominibus, Post paululum quos adfuturos arbitros._

But Hieronymus assures him that Fides and Virtus will defend him from all danger, and under their protection he leaves him.

The scene is now again at the door, Mors arrives. Satan abuses her for having made him wait so long, and the _improba bestia_ in return reproaches him for his ingratitude and imprudence. However they make up their quarrel. Satan goes into the house expecting to have a long controversy with his intended victim, and Mors amuses herself in the mean time with sharpening her dart. Satan, however, finds that his controversy is not to be with Hecastus himself, but with his two advocates Fides and Virtus, and they plead their cause so provokingly that the old Lawyer tears his bill, and sculks into a corner to see how Mors will come off.

Now comes his son the Doctor and prognosticates speedy dissolution _ex pulsu et atro lotio_. And having more professional pride than filial feelings he would fain persuade the Acolyte who is about to assist in administering extreme unction, that he has chosen a thankless calling, and would do wisely if he forsook it for more gainful studies. The youth makes a good defence for his choice, and remains master in the argument, for the Doctor getting sight of Death brandishing the sharpened dart, takes fright and runs off. Having put the Doctor to flight, Death enters the sick chamber, and finding Fides there calls in Satan as an ally: their joint force avails nothing against Virtus, Fides and Hieronymus, and these dismiss the departing Spirit under a convoy of Angels to Abraham's bosom.

Three supplementary scenes conclude the two dramas; in the two first the widow and the sons and kinsmen lament the dead, and declare their intention of putting themselves all in mourning, and giving a funeral worthy of his rank. But Hieronymus reproves them for the excess of their grief, and for the manner by which they intended to show their respect for the dead. The elder son is convinced by his discourse, and replies

_Recte mones vir omnium piissime, Linquamus omnem hunc apparatum splendidum, Linquamus hæcce cuncta in usum pauperum, Linquamus omnem luctum inanem et lachrymas; Moresque nostros corrigamus pristinos. Si multo amœniora vitæ munia, Post hanc calamitatem, morantur in fide Spe ut charitate mortuos, quid residuum est Nisi et hunc diem cum patre agamus mortuo Lætissimum? non in cibis et poculis Gravioribus, natura quam poposcerit; Nec tympanis et organis, sed maximas Deo exhibendo gratias. Viro pio Congaudeamus intimis affectibus; Et absque pompâ inituli exequias pias Patri paremus mortuo._

The Steward then concludes the drama by dismissing the audience in these lines;

_Vos qui advolastis impigri ad Nostra hæc theatra, tum viri, tum fœminæ, Adite nunc vestras domos sine remorâ. Nam Hecastus hic quem Morte cæsum exhibuimus, Non ante tertium diem tumulandus est, Valete cuncti, et si placuimus, plaudite._

We have in our own language a dramatic piece upon the same subject, and of the same age. It was published early in Henry the Eighth's reign, and is well known to English philologists by the name of Every Man. The title page says, “Here begynneth a treatyse how the hye Fader of Heven sendeth Dethe to somon every creature to come and gyve a counte of theyr lyves in this worlde, and is in maner of a moralle Playe.”

The subject is briefly stated in a prologue by a person in the character of a Messenger, who exhorts the spectators to hear with reverence.

This mater is wonders precyous; But the extent of it is more gracyous, And swete to here awaye. The story sayth, Man, in the begynnynge Loke well and take good heed to the endynge, Be you never so gay.

God (the Son) speaketh at the opening of the piece, and saying that the more He forbears the worse the people be from year to year, declares his intention to have a reckoning in all haste of every man's person, and do justice on every man living.

Where art thou, Deth, thou mighty messengere?

Dethe. Almighty God, I am here at your wyll Your commaundement to fulfyll.

God. Go thou to Every-man And shewe hym in my name, A pylgrymage he must on hym take, Whiche he in no wyse may escape: And that he brynge with him a sure rekenynge, Without delay or ony taryenge.

Dethe. Lorde, I wyll in the world go renne over all And cruelly out serche bothe grete and small.

The first person whom Death meets is Every-man himself, and he summons him in God's name to take forthwith a long journey and bring with him his book of accounts. Every-man offers a thousand pounds to be spared, and says that if he may but have twelve years allowed him, he will make his accounts so clear that he shall have no need to fear the reckoning. Not even till to-morrow is granted him. He then asks if he may not have some of his acquaintances to accompany him on the way, and is told yes, if he can get them. The first to whom he applies, is his old boon-companion Fellowship, who promises to go with him anywhere,—till he hears what the journey is on which Every-man is summoned: he then declares that he would eat, drink and drab, with him, or lend him a hand to kill any body, but upon such a business as this he will not stir a foot; and with that bidding him God speed, he departs as fast as he can.

Alack, exclaims Every-man, when thus deserted,

Felawship herebefore with me wolde mery make, And now lytell sorowe for me dooth he take. Now wheder for socoure shall I flee Syth that Felawship hath forsaken me? To my kynnesmen I wyll truely, Prayenge them to helpe me in my necessyte. I byleve that they wyll do so; For kynde wyll crepe where it may not go.

But one and all make their excuses; they have reckonings of their own which are not ready, and they cannot and will not go with him. Thus again disappointed he breaks out in more lamentations; and then catches at another fallacious hope.

Yet in my mynde a thynge there is; All my lyfe I have loved Ryches; If that my good now helpe me myght He wolde make my herte full lyght. I wyll speke to hym in this distresse, Where art thou, my Goodes, and Ryches?

Goodes. Who calleth me? Every-man? What hast thou haste? I lye here in corners, trussed and pyled so hye, And in chestes I am locked so fast, Also sacked in bagges, thou mayst se with thyn eye I cannot styrre; in packes low I lye. What wolde ye have? lightly me saye,— Syr, an ye in the worlde have sorowe or adversyte That can I helpe you to remedy shortly.

Every-man. In this world it is not, I tell thee so, I am sent for an other way to go, To gyve a strayte counte generall Before the hyest Jupiter of all: And all my life I have had joye and pleasure in the, Therefore, I pray the, go with me: For paraventure, thou mayst before God Almighty My rekenynge helpe to clene and puryfye; For it is said ever amonge That money maketh all ryght that is wrong.

Goodes. Nay, Every-man, I synge an other songe; I folowe no man in such vyages. For an I wente with the, Thou sholdes fare moche the worse for me.

Goodes then exults in having beguiled him, laughs at his situation and leaves him. Of whom shall he take council? He bethinks him of Good Dedes.

But alas she is so weke That she can nother go nor speke. Yet wyll I venter on her now My Good Dedes, where be you?

Good Dedes. Here I lye colde on the grounde, Thy sinnes hath me sore bounde That I cannot stere.

Every-man. I pray you that ye wyll go with me.

Good Dedes. I wolde full fayne, but I can not stand veryly.

Every-man. Why, is there any thynge on you fall?

Good Dedes. Ye, Sir; I may thanke you of all. If ye had parfytely sheved me, Your boke of counte full redy had be. Loke, the bokes of your workes and dedes eke, A! se how they lye under the fete, To your soules hevynes.

Every-man. Our Lorde Jesus helpe me, For one letter here I cannot se!

Good Dedes. There is a blynde rekenynge in tyme of dystres!

Every-man. Good-Dedes, I pray you, helpe me in this nede, Or elles I am for ever dampned in dede.

Good Dedes calls in Knowledge to help him to make his reckoning; and Knowledge takes him lovingly to that holy man Confession; and Confession gives him a precious jewel called Penance, in the form of a scourge.

When with the scourge of Penance man doth hym bynde, The oyl of forgyvenes than shall he fynde,— Now may you make your rekenynge sure.

Every-man. In the name of the holy Trynyte, My body sore punyshed shall be. Take this, Body, for the synne of the flesshe! Also thou delytest to go gay and fresshe, And in the way of dampnacyon thou dyd me brynge, Therefore suffre now strokes of punysshynge. Now of penaunce I wyll wede the water clere To save me from Purgatory, that sharpe fyre.

Good Dedes. I thanke God, now I can walke and go; And am delyvered of my sykenesse and wo, Therfore with Every-man I wyll go and not spare; His good workes I wyll helpe hym to declare.

Knowlege. Now Every-man, be mery and glad, Your Good Dedes cometh now, ye may not be sad. Now is your Good Dedes hole and sounde, Goynge upryght upon the grounde.

Every-man. My herte is lyght, and shall be evermore, Now wyll I smyte faster than I dyde before.

Knowledge then makes him put on the garment of sorrow called contrition, and makes him call for his friends Discretion, Strength and Beauty to help him on his pilgrimage, and his Five Wits to counsel him. They come at his call and promise faithfully to help him.

Strength. I Strength wyll by you stande in dystres, Though thou wolde in batayle fyght on the grownde.

Fyve-Wyttes. And thought it were thrugh the world rounde, We wyll not depart for swete ne soure.

Beaute. No more wyll I unto dethes howre, Watsoever therof befall.

He makes his testament, and gives half his goods in charity. Discretion and Knowledge send him to receive the holy sacrament and extreme unction, and Five-Wits expatiates upon the authority of the Priesthood, to the Priest he says,

God hath—more power given Than to ony Aungell that is in Heven, With five wordes he may consecrate Goddes body in flesshe and blode to make, And handeleth his maker bytwene his handes. The preest byndeth and unbyndeth all bandes Both in erthe and in heven.— No remedy we fynde under God But all-onely preesthode. —God gave Preest that dygnyte, And setteth them in his stede among us to be: Thus they be above Aungelles in degree.

Having received his viaticum Every-man sets out upon this mortal journey: his comrades renew their protestations of remaining with him; till when he grows faint on the way, and his limbs fail,—they fail him also.

Every-man. —into this cave must I crepe, And tourne to erth, and there to slepe.

What, says Beauty; into this Grave?

—adewe by saynt Johan, I take my tappe in my lappe and am gone.

Strength in like manner forsakes him; and Discretion says that “when Strength goeth before, he follows after ever more.” And Fyve-Wyttes, whom he took for his best friend, bid him, “farewell and then an end.”

Every-man. O Jesu, helpe! all hath forsaken me!

Good Dedes. Nay, Every-man, I wyll byde with the, I wyll not forsake the in dede; Thou shalt fynde me a good frende at nede.

Knowledge also abides him till the last; the song of the Angel who receives his spirit is heard, and a Doctour concludes the piece with an application to the audience.

This morall men may have in mynde, —forsake Pryde for he deceyveth you in the ende, And remembre Beaute, Fyve-Wyttes, Strength and Dyscrecyon They all at the last do Every-man forsake, Save his Good Dedes, these doth he take: But be ware, an they be small, Before God he hath no helpe at all!