49. THEATRICAL DRAMA FOR A CHRISTIAN AUDIENCE: THE PLAY OF NOAH (FIFTEENTH CENTURY)
INTRODUCTION
The development of Christian-themed theatrical performances in the later Middle Ages in England led the way to a more sophisticated form of secular theater in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that exhibited plays by the likes of John Kidd, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare. The medieval plays, usually referred to as “mystery” plays (when referencing the Bible, especially the Passion) or “miracle” plays (often having to do with the lives of saints), were acted at certain times of year and the acting troupe was usually local or locally itinerant, producing the plays on the back of carts in the outdoors. The Play of Noah is one of the Wakefield or Townley Mystery cycle, which was compiled in the mid-fifteenth century, although the plays themselves might have been performed for many years before being written down. It was probably performed during the Feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates the mystery of the Eucharist.
A typical component of many of these Middle English plays is the combination of social commentary and humor—often in the form of slapstick antics and gender inversion. The Play of Noah is a good example of the ways in which popular culture viewed the problems and challenges of marriage and family, as well as presenting a well-known story in a dramatic way to populations unable to read it for themselves.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
As in Shakespeare’s day, only men were permitted to perform as actors in public (although there is evidence that nuns, in the privacy of their convents, did sometimes act out plays for their own personal enjoyment). This means that all female roles were played by men, who were costumed in women’s clothes. The audience for the plays—comprising both men and women—would have been well aware of this double gender inversion (a man playing a woman who refuses to be subordinated to “her” husband), and it might have heightened the comedic aspects of the plays for them, much as the cross-dressing roles assumed by the Monty Python comedy troupe were designed to push the absurdity of human behavior to an extreme.
The style of the poetry is a basic four-line alternating “tail-rhyme” (ABAB/CDCD/etc.), which cannot be preserved entirely in modern English.
Document 1: The Play of Noah
[Preface: the reason for God’s anger at humanity is detailed; Noah, a righteous man, bewails the evil of humanity.]
[God descends and comes to Noah]
Noah, my friend, I thee command
From cares thee to [cool],
A ship that thou ordained
Of nail and board, full well.
Though was always well working,
To me true as steel,
To my bidding [be] obedient,
Friendship shall thou feel
As a reward;
Of length thy ship be
Three hundredth cubits, warn I thee,
Of height even thirty,
Of fifty also in breadth.
. . .
One cubit on height
a window shall thou make;
On the side a door with slight
Beneath shall thou take;
With thee shall no man fight,
nor do thee no kin harm.
When all is done thus right,
thy wife, that is thy mate,
Take in to thee;
Thy sons of good fame,
Sem, Japhet, and Came,
Take in also Hame,
Their wives also three.
. . .
[Noah is convinced of the urgency of the situation, but worries about what his wife will say.]
Noah: Lord, homeward will I haste
as fast as that I may;
My wife will I ask
what she will say,
And I am aghast
that we get some fray
Betwixt us both;
For she is full tetchy,
For little [things] oft angry;
If anything wrong be,
Soon is she wroth.
[Noah goes to his wife]
God speed, dear wife,
how fare ye?
Noah’s Wife: Now, as ever might I thrive,
the wars I thee see;
Do tell me believe,
where has thou thus long be?
To deed may we drive
or live because of thee,
For want.
When we sweat or toil,
Thou does what thou think,
Yet of meat and of drink
Have we very little.
. . .
[Noah and his wife fight—both verbally and physically—about the ark, but he builds it and convinces his sons and their wives to enter it. His wife, however, remains adamantly in denial.]
Noah: Now are we there
as we should be;
Do get in our gear,
our cattle and possessions
Into this vessel here
my noble children.
Noah’s Wife: I was never barred up here
As ever might I prosper,
In such an hostelry as this.
In faith I cannot find
Which is before, which is behind;
But shall we here be confined,
Noah, as have thou bliss?
[The wife leaves the ark]
Noah: Dame be reasonable,
here must us abide grace;
Therefore, wife, with good will,
come into this place.
Noah’s Wife: Sir, for Jack nor for Jill
will I turn my face
Till I have on this hill
spun for a while
On my distaff;
Well were he, might get me.
Now will I down set me,
Yet I allow no man to prevent me,
For dread of a knock.
Noah: Behold to the heavens
the cataracts all,
That are open even,
great and small,
And the planets seven
Have left their stall,
This thunder and lightning
begin to fall
Full stout,
Both halls and bowers,
Castles and towers;
Full sharp are these showers,
That run all about;
Therefore, wife, have done!
Come into ship fast!
Noah’s Wife: Yee, Noah, go mend thy shoes,
the better will they last.
. . .
[The three sons and their wives plead with their mother to enter the ship, but she refuses, and continues her spinning.]
Noah: Now is this twice Come in,
dame, on my friendship.
Noah’s Wife: Whether I lose or I win
in faith, thy fellowship,
Set I not a pin.
This spindle will I slip
Upon this hill,
Before I stir one foot.
Noah: Peter! I think we are fools;
Without any more talk
Come in if you will.
Noah’s Wife: Yea, water comes so near
that I sit not dry,
Into ship with a byre
Therefore will I hie
For dread that I’ll drown here.
Noah: Dame, securely,
It’ll be bought full dear,
ye abode so long by
Out of ship.
Noah’s Wife: I will not, fat thy command,
Go from door to dunghill.
Noah: In faith, and for your long tarrying
Ye shall accept the whip.
Noah’s Wife: Spare me not, I pray thee,
but even as thou think,
These great words shall not flay me.
Noah: Abide, dame, and drink,
For beaten shall thou be
with this staff until thou stink;
Are strokes good? say me.
[Noah strikes his wife]
Noah’s Wife: What say ye, Wat Wink?
Noah: Speak!
Cry me mercy, I say!
Noah’s Wife: To that say I nay.
Noah: Unless thou do, by this day
Thy head shall I break.
Noah’s Wife: Lord, I would be at ease
and heartily contented,
If I had a bowl
of widow’s pottage;
For thy soul, without less,
should I a penny gladly pay
So would more, no matter
that I see in this place
Of wives that are here,
For the life that they lead,
Would that their husbands were dead,
For, as ever ate I bread,
So would I wish my husband were.
Noah: You men that have wives
while they are young,
If you love your lives,
chastise their tongue!
Me think my heart splits,
both liver and lung,
To see such strife wedded men have;
But I,
As have I bliss,
Shall chastise this.
Noah’s Wife: Yet may you miss,
Nicholl Nedy!
[Noah and his wife fight, ad lib.]
. . .
[The fight ends with the wife sitting atop Noah]
Noah [addresses audience]: See how she can groan,
and I lie under [her];
But, wife,
In this haste let us stop,
For my back is near [broke] in two.
Noah’s Wife: And I am bet so bruised
That I may not thrive.
First Son: A! Why fare ye thus,
Father and mother both?
Second Son: Ye should not be so spiteful,
standing in such peril.
Third Son: These are so hideous,
with many a dire disease.
Noah: We will do as ye bid us;
we will no more be wroth,
Dear bairns!
Now to the helm will I hasten,
And to my ship go.
Noah’s Wife: I see on the firmament,
Me think, the seven stars show.
[All go aboard the Ark]
Source: The Play of Noah: The Townley (Wakefield) Mystery Plays. The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Maintained by L. D. Benson. Accessed online http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/litsubs/drama/noah.html. Middle English modernized by editor.
AFTERMATH
The medieval miracle and mystery plays were one of the most important elements of popular expressions of piety in the later Middle Ages in England. Their popularity persisted until the church reformers—both Protestant and Catholic—began to condemn them for including too many extrabiblical elements: precisely the elements of pathos and comedy that drew audiences to the plays.
ASK YOURSELF
Why might the story of the flood be a popular subject for medieval playwrights?
Why is Noah’s wife depicted as a raging harridan? How would having a man portray Noah’s wife affect the way she is depicted?
How do you think this play would have been received by a medieval audience?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
Compare the depiction of women here and in the poems about marriage and discuss them in terms of the “Debate about Women” that evolved in the late Middle Ages.
Consider the relationship between the flood texts in the Bible and the embellishments of the story in the play and analyze the reasons why (what purposes they might serve beyond entertainment value) they would have been added.
Consider ways in which plays such as this might influence the growing anticlericalism movement in England in the late Middle Ages.
Further Information
Daniels, Richard J. “Uxor Noah: A Raven or a Dove?” The Chaucer Review 14, no. 1 (1979): 23–32.
Sponsler, Claire. Drama and Resistance: Bodies, Goods, and Theatricality in Late Medieval England. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Tolmie, Jane. “Mrs Noah and Didactic Abuses.” Early Theatre 5, no. 1 (2002): 11–35.