Morality Play (6 page)

'I pray you give your ears and eyes. See Eden lost by Satan's lies ...'

I looked round the barn door and watched him standing there with the light behind him. There was some talk and laughter from the people, not much. They had not come in great numbers, a glance was enough to show that; the yard was less than half-full. I was dressed for the first of my roles, that of an attendant demon, in a horned mask and a red, belted tunic with a rope tail attached, at the end of which was an iron spike. I carried with me a devil's trident for roasting the damned. I had nothing to say for this first part, I had merely to attend to Satan and make forays among the people, hissing and jabbing with my fork so as to create alarm. This I thought of as fortunate, as it accustomed me to being in public view before my more important role of Devil's Fool.

When Martin had said his lines he moved quickly away from the light, made his way to the far corner of the space and lay down there. Covered by the dark cloak, with his face hidden, he seemed to disappear. This too had been his idea; he had thought of it when first we saw the way the brands were set against the wall. In all concerning spectacle he was clever and quick beyond any of the others.

Now it was time for Stephen to appear as God the Father and make his slow, majestic way through the people. In order to increase the impact of his presence he walked on six-inch stilts, tied to his legs below the robe. The gait of a stilt-walker has a sway of majesty about it, something stiff and slightly hindered, as God might move among men, and quarrelsome Stephen looked truly like the King of Heaven with his gilded mask and triple crown, as he paced from light to dark and back again, delivering his monologue.

'I, God, great in majesty

In whom no first or last can be

But ever was and aye shall be,

Heaven and earth is made through me.

At my bidding now be light...'

On this, Tobias, in his first role of an attendant angel, in wig and half-mask and wings briefly borrowed from the Serpent, came through the people with a flame and lit all the brands along the wall and so made a flood of light over everything. God walked now in the light of his Creation and the dark heap of Adam was visible in the corner.

'Now man we make to our likeness

With breath and body him to bless

Over all beasts great and less

For to hold sway ...'

Adam crept out from under his cloak, rubbing his eyes, his naked legs shapely, though pimpled with cold. And now Straw appeared as the Serpent before the Curse, in wings hastily recovered from Tobias and a round and smiling sun-mask. He came through the people and he was singing as he came, a crooning chant that women sing at the spinning-wheel. Adam was lulled to sleep by this song, but not very quickly. He kept catching himself up with a start every time the Serpent paused in his singing and the Serpent grew impatient at this and turned to the people to make the sign of impatience, which is done by raising the hands to shoulder height with the fingers pressed back and turning the head stiffly from side to side.

While the people were watching this lulling of Adam, Eve came quietly along the side of the yard with a dark shawl over her head. When Adam finally slept, God swayed forward on his stilts and raised his right hand and turned it quickly at the wrist in the sign of conjuring, and at this Eve dropped her shawl and stepped in her yellow wig and white smock into the brighter space, and was born. She was bare-legged also. She caused laughter and lewdness among the people by her vanity and preening and by the sway of her boy's buttocks as she walked before Adam when God was not looking. When God retired to rest, there was a game of catch between them, he clumsily reaching for her, she evading.

Now came the time for me to follow Satan, played by Tobias in the red robe that also served for Herod and a very hideous red and yellow mask with four horns. I hissed and jabbed and made sorties among the people and flipped up my spiked tail behind. I put much energy into this performance and some effect it had -several of those watching hissed back at me, a child started to cry loudly and the child's mother shouted words of abuse. This I took for success, my first as a player. But it came to me again that the people were not so many, and I knew this thought would also be in the minds of the others.

I had to get quickly back to the barn and change into the mask and motley of the Devil's Fool and take the tambourine, because Satan retires to Hell and sulks when Eve refuses at first to take the fruit and he has to be comforted. There was hostility towards me from the people. A man tried to pull off my demon's mask as I went by but I avoided him. Despite the cold of the evening, I was sweating.

There was only God inside the barn, sitting on the straw, drinking ale. He seemed depressed and did not speak to me. It took little more than a minute to strip off my demon's dress and put on the Fool's tunic and shoulder-pieces and the cap and bells. But it was long enough for me to become aware again of Brendan's presence under his heap of straw in the corner. My mask now was a plain white one, full face, with a long nose-piece like the beak of a bird. I shook my bells and struck the tambourine as I went back through the people. I was a different person now, they did not hate me. They knew me for a japer, not a demon. I understood then, as I passed through the people and shook my bells and saw them smile, what all players come to know very well, how quickly shifting are our loves and hates, how they depend on mocks and disguises. With a horned mask and a wooden trident I was their fear of hell-fire. Two minutes later, still the same timorous creature as before, with a fool's cap and a white mask, I was their hope of laughter.

I was discovering also the danger of disguise for the player. A mask confers the terror of freedom, it is very easy to forget who you are. I felt it now, this slipping of the soul, and I was confused because in body I was the more restricted - the mask did not admit much light to my eyes and I could see nothing at all to the sides. Close before me, through my narrow slits, I saw the ornate and fearsome mask of Satan and I heard the strangely remote and hollowed voice of Tobias bemoaning his failure and loss.

'Ghostly paradise I was in

But thence I fell through my sin.

Earthly paradise by God's gift

Man and Woman dwell within.

I have tried all in vain

By my wiles to bring them pain ...'

I had learned Brendan's song and now I sang it and I shook the tambourine in time to the song and sang as sweetly as I was able, to soothe the Devil. I quavered at first, through fear, and this caused some laughter. But my voice strengthened as I went on and the fear fell away. When fear dies, daring is born. I finished the song, but instead of saying the lines I had learned I made the three-fingered sign to Tobias to show I would speak my own words.

'If the world belonged to thee

Lord of all things wouldst thou be Lord of life ...'

It was the Fool tempting the Devil with the World, a reversal of roles. Something new. Tobias answered with "words of his own also, having had some moments to think.

'If the world belonged to me Women all would ready be To harken to the Devil.'

Saying this, he made the two-handed gesture of copulation. By some instinct, instead of remaining still I began to circle round him, speaking now the lines I had learned, trying to remember the movements of hands and body that I had been taught. Tobias, though he had not known I would behave thus, made a comic business of it, craning round his horned mask to follow the tinkle of my bells, looking always the wrong way, always startled by the new direction of my voice. There was laughter at this and I joined in this laughter at the Devil and pointed and then tripped and fell, as I had been taught to do, but jarred my left elbow a little, and the laughter grew and it was sweet to me, I will not deny it. Turning into the light I was dazzled and for some moments I could see nothing and the laughter sounded in my ears...

CHAPTER SIX

T
his my first appearance as a player I felt to have been a success. But afterwards, with the others, I did not like to show elation because their mood was gloomy. Margaret had been set to watch the gate and take the money. She had taken one shilling and elevenpence and of this the innkeeper had taken threepence and three farthings. The hire of the barn was fivepence. Our triumphant entry into the town had been too much for the cart: one wheel was buckled and would need repairing. This was beyond the skill of Tobias and he thought the cost of repair would be threepence at the least. We would be left with less than a shilling to add to the common stock. And there were six of us and a horse. And we were promised for Christmas at Durham.

It was a clear night and very cold. A cladding of frost lay already on the cobblestones of the yard. It had a shine like satin where the light fell. Martin gave out twopence to each of us. Springer got out the brazier and made a fire with wood we had brought with us on the cart. Straw sat near it, huddled under a blanket. Tobias had still kept Satan's robe on and sat with the dog across his lap. Nobody mentioned Brendan. When they got the money Stephen and Margaret went off together.

There was some talk among us about the play. Straw, whose esteem of himself was always low, took the poor attendance as a failure of his, and sought to shift the blame. Hugging his knees unhappily, he gave as his opinion that God had been too long-winded and Satan too smooth. 'There was not enough movement in it,' he said. 'People cannot listen for so long.'

'They can listen if there is something to listen to,' Tobias said. He was angered by the reflection on his playing. 'You want all to be done in gesture,' he said, 'but it is words and mime together that make a play. It was not our fault tonight, it was the jongleurs that took away our custom.'

'Eve can be played without words,' Springer said. He had come to sit beside Straw and they shared the blanket. 'I have done it so,' he said.

'Eve, yes,' Martin said. 'Adam also. They are not personages, they are a man and a woman. But God and the Devil need words.' In the torchlight his face looked famished and gaunt. The high bones of his cheeks and his narrow eyes gave him the look of a wolf and this impression was strengthened by the way he leaned forward and raised his shoulders against the cold. I was struck by his loneliness and his severity - two things inseparably mixed in him. The burden of our failure lay on him; yet he was intent to correct us, to make his meaning plain. 'God and the Devil are personages,' he said. 'God is a judge, Satan is an advocate. Judging and pleading need different ways of speech. In that difference is the true play, if someone could be found to write the true words.'

'Well, certainly, there is reason in that,' said Straw, whose view of things was formed by his feelings of the moment and changed direction as rapidly as did these.

Springer's eyes were beginning to close as he felt the first heat of the fire. Weariness smoothed his thin face. 'What can words do?' he said. 'God and the Devil both know how the story ends.' He spoke slowly, like a sleepy child. 'And the people know it too,' he said.

'They know how the story ends,' Martin repeated, also speaking slowly, in what might have seemed mockery at first, but his eyes were fixed and on to his face had come a half-startled expression, as if at some recognition.

He was about to say more but I did not wait, I had been distressed to hear him speak of our Father in Heaven as a circumscribed being, the more so as I follow William of Occam, the Great Franciscan, in believing that God dwells beyond the reach of our reason, in absolute liberty and power. 'No words can bring us to the nature of God,' I said. 'Our language is human, it is we who made the rules of it. It is the sin of pride to think that our human language can lead to knowledge of the Creator. And to speak of the person of God as you have done is to break the Seventh Commandment.'

That strange quickening look had gone from his face now. He was looking at me with pity for my understanding. 'We are talking of
plays,
brother,' he said. 'It was the Church that first made God a player. The priests played Him before the altar and do so still, as they also play Christ and his Holy Mother and others, to help our understanding. As a player He can have his own voice, but He cannot take the voices of others. The Father of Lies has more privilege, who can borrow the tongue of the Serpent.'

'It is damnable to speak of God in such a way, as if He were no more than a voice among other voices.'

Seeing my distress, he smiled but not to deride me. His smile was lazy, coming slowly, at odds with the tenseness of his face in repose. 'In some way we have to see Him, if we put Him in a play,' he said. 'Let us see Him then as a great nobleman, owner of very vast estates. Adam and Eve are his tenants, in bondage of service. They do not pay their dues of obedience, they want to possess their holding. If He grants them all they ask there will be nothing to punish, and then what is left of His power?'

This was worse still and I began to get to my feet, but he smiled again and raised his right hand in God's gesture of silence and said, 'You did well tonight, Nicholas, considering that it was the first time. You fell badly at the end, but urging Satan with his own words was a bold thing to conceive and you made the signs clearly and stepped neatly round him. All of us felt this.'

At these words I forgot the argument and felt my heart swell with pleasure. More to me than the praise itself was the proof that he had watched me carefully, noted what I did. Martin made himself loved, even in his profanities. And profane he did not feel himself to be, not when he talked of playing. For him the life of the play was set apart from the life outside it, with its own rules of behaviour and speech, to which all were subject, strong and weak, high and low. I did not see the danger of it then, God forgive me my folly.

Silence fell upon us now as we relaxed in the warmth from the fire. I thought of our Play of Adam and of that Garden lost by our first parents at Satan's prompting. Unlike most, I know where it lies. In the library of Lincoln Cathedral, where I had held my office of sub-deacon, there is a map which shows the place of it, at the farthest limit on the eastern side, quite cut off from the rest of the world by a great mountain. God keeps it still and walks there sometimes in the evening. Meanwhile it waits empty for the Saints to repossess it. I thought how strange it was that such a garden should stand empty and how delightful to be among that company of the Blessed, to walk amidst dwellings of jasper and crystal, through groves where every kind of tree and flower grows and birds sing with unwearied throats, where there are a thousand scents that never fade and streams flow over jewelled rocks and sands that shine brighter than silver. Cold never comes there nor wind nor rain. There is no sorrow or sickness or decay. Death himself cannot pass over that high mountain. And all this we had figured in an inn-yard with a tree cut out of board and a paper apple painted red and for a brief while people had taken it for Paradise. I have heard it said that the mountain beyond which it lies is so high that it touches the sphere of the moon, but this is difficult to believe as it would cause an eclipse ...