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"It out-Herods Herod"
Dec. 22nd, 2014 09:13 pmTowards the end of a rant on performance style, which seems to have been directed more by Shakespeare at the Admirals' Men and contemporary competitors rather than the performances of a past generation, Hamlet says: "O! it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o’er-doing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it."
There is some suggestion that Shakespeare might have seen the last traces of the Mystery play cycles in England before they were thoroughly suppressed under Elizabeth (the last performance of the Chester Cycle was in 1575, eleven years after his birth; the last performance of the York Cycle was in 1569). Even if he did not, he grew up in a recusant household, where they might very well have been described and referred to nostalgically.
(There is some discussion of the possible, possibly indirect, influence of the Mystery Cycles' performance mode on Shakespeare in Anne Righter/Anne Barton's Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play which is well worth reading, but seems to be out of print.)
In the cycle performances, the audience was a part of the play itself -- there was no fourth wall -- and characters such as the princes or prophets spoke directly to the audience and in some cases mingled with them: the audience in effect stood in as a player itself representing the common people of the prior times, or mankind (the title of a miracle play, itself) as a single player.
But I am interested in Herod specifically here, and in particular the mapping he represents.
Here is Herod:
or again:
Or yet again, from the Towneley collection and the Wakefield Master, a little more "in his raging":
The mystery plays are thoroughly anachronistic: bad men swear by Mahound (Muhammed) despite the fact that he had not been born yet, and attendants at Jesus' birth have a thoroughly post-Nicene understanding of the nature of God and of salvation history.[1] They are like the people whom the audience would have known, in person or by reputation, as contemporaries. In most cases, this creates realistic touches: shepherds who act like the poor the townsfolk would have known, or well-off figures who echo the burgesses of the towns where the plays were performed.
Herod is one of a set of rulers who are mapped to a contemporary good king / bad king pair of molds. (Usually bad king: David, whom one might expect to appear as a good king, has an occasional appearance among the prophets of the Old Testament, and not as a king. Come to think of it, the only good rulers I can think of are penitent sinners who appear in the Last Judgement plays). The writers of the plays were burghers, not courtiers, and their kings are almost completely abstracted into types: they bear little resemblance to the kings who were the contemporaries of the writers, or their predecessors. They expound, threaten, command, whether they are Balaak, Caesar Augustus, or Herod the Great. (Interestingly, Pilate gets a rather more ambiguous treatment: in some cycles he fits the mold and in others he is treated more leniently.)
Among this company, though, Herod is a bit of an oddity. For one thing, he is King of the Jews, not a pagan, but gets treated as a pagan. (Technically, the historical figure was an Idumaean convert to Judaism, but I doubt that this played any part in his depiction.) He also, consistently, claims to be king of the world, and to have gods and / or demons subject to him. (This despite the fact that the same cycles also refer to Augustus as lord over the whole world at the time of the Nativity, as the Martyrology had it: "anno Imperii Octaviani Augusti quadragesimo secundo, toto Orbe in pace composito, sexta mundi aetate, Jesus Christus, aeternus Deus aeternique Patris Filius, mundum volens adventu suo piissimo consecrare, de Spiritu Sancto conceptus, novemque post conceptionem decursis mensibus in Bethlehem Judae nascitur ex Maria Virgine factus Homo".) He goes beyond bombast into the territory of the terminally deluded.
Finally, he is an essentially slapstick figure in performance:
"The mediaeval context, however, allowed Herod to rage through the streets as well as in the pageant, and to do so without becoming either a circus clown or, as in the modern theatre, a self-conscious illustration of a thesis about 'reality'." (Righter/Barton)
One must think of Herod as descending from the pageant wagon to stalk among the crowd, threatening random onlookers as he went. This is the "tyrant" of Bottom's wish ("a part to tear a cat in"), only a hair's breadth removed from comedy.
The "bad" characters in the Mystery plays are close cousins to the allegorical figures in the moralities: they represent the vices in an enhanced form. All the rulers are there not just as historic characters, but as representations of the sin of Pride; Herod gets a dual role in representing the sin of Wrath as well. This lies behind the otherwise absurd over-the-top quality of their parts.
Herod is, not the but an anti-Christ, a figure who is set as a contrast to the central figure of the mystery plays. He is raging as his opposite was pacific ("No war, nor battle's sound / was heard the world around"), bombastic as his opposite was (depicted as, generally) quiet (wordless as an infant contrasted with Herod, wordless at trial in front of Pilate).
[1]This is not an indication that the (sometimes quite sophisticated) writers of the plays really thought that Caesar Augustus, say, was a Moslem ("Mahowne that is curtes and heynd, / he bryng thi Iornay well to eynd, / And wysh the that all wate."). They worked with standard tropes to signal that a figure was a pagan (they would have said, paynim) in a contemporary manner.
There is some suggestion that Shakespeare might have seen the last traces of the Mystery play cycles in England before they were thoroughly suppressed under Elizabeth (the last performance of the Chester Cycle was in 1575, eleven years after his birth; the last performance of the York Cycle was in 1569). Even if he did not, he grew up in a recusant household, where they might very well have been described and referred to nostalgically.
(There is some discussion of the possible, possibly indirect, influence of the Mystery Cycles' performance mode on Shakespeare in Anne Righter/Anne Barton's Shakespeare and the Idea of the Play which is well worth reading, but seems to be out of print.)
In the cycle performances, the audience was a part of the play itself -- there was no fourth wall -- and characters such as the princes or prophets spoke directly to the audience and in some cases mingled with them: the audience in effect stood in as a player itself representing the common people of the prior times, or mankind (the title of a miracle play, itself) as a single player.
But I am interested in Herod specifically here, and in particular the mapping he represents.
Here is Herod:
The clowdes clapped in clerenes that ther clematis inclosis-
Jubiter and Jouis, Martis and Mercurij emyde-
Raykand ouere my rialté on rawe me reioyses,
Blonderande ther blastis to blaw when I bidde.
Saturne my subgett, that sotilly is hidde,
Listes at my likyng and laies hym full lowe.
The rakke of the rede skye full rappely I ridde,
Thondres full thrallye by thousandes I thrawe
When me likis.
Venus his voice to me awe,
That princes to play in hym pikis.
The prince of planetis that proudely is pight
Sall brace furth his bemes that oure belde blithes,
THe mone at my myght he mosteres his myght,
And kayssaris in castellis grete kyndynes me kythes.
Lordis and ladis, loo, luffely me lithes,
For I am fairer of face and fressher on folde-
The soth yf I saie sall-seuene and sexti sithis
Than glorius gulles that gayer is than golde
In price.
How thynke yoe ther tales that I talde?
I am worthy, witty, and wyse. (The York Cycle, Play 16)
or again:
HERODES. Bien soies venues, royes gent.
Me detes tout vetere entent.
TERTIUS REX. Infant querenues de grand parent, et roy de celi et terre.
HERODES. Syrs, avise you what you sayne!
Such tydinges makes my harte unfayne.
I read you take those wordes agayne
for feare of velanye.
There is none soe great that me dare gayne,
to take my realme and to attayne
my power, but hee shall have payne
and punished appertlye.
I kinge of kinges, non soe keene;
I soveraigne syre, as well is seene;
I tyrant that maye both take and teene
castell, towre, and towne!
I weld this world withouten weene;
I beate all those unbuxone binne;
I drive the devils all bydeene
deepe in hell adowne.
For I am kinge of all mankynde
I byd, I beate, I loose, I bynde
I maister the moone. Take this in mynd--
that I am most of might. (Chester Cycle)
Or yet again, from the Towneley collection and the Wakefield Master, a little more "in his raging":
ffy, losels and lyars! / lurdans ilkon!
Tratoures and well wars! / knafys, bot knyghtys none!
had ye bene woth youre eres / thus had thay not gone;
Gett I those land lepars / I breke ilka bone;
ffyrst vengeance
Shall I se on thare bonys;
If ye byde in these wonys
I shall dyng you with stonys,
yei, ditizance doutance.
I wote not where I may sytt / for anger & for teyn;
we haue not done all yit / if it be as I weyn;
ffy! dewill! now how is it? / as long as I haue eyn
I think not for to flytt / bot kyng I will be seyn
ffor euer.
Bot stand I to quart,
I tell you my hart,
I shall gar thaym start,
Or els trust me neuer. (Towneley Cycle, The Play of Herod)
The mystery plays are thoroughly anachronistic: bad men swear by Mahound (Muhammed) despite the fact that he had not been born yet, and attendants at Jesus' birth have a thoroughly post-Nicene understanding of the nature of God and of salvation history.[1] They are like the people whom the audience would have known, in person or by reputation, as contemporaries. In most cases, this creates realistic touches: shepherds who act like the poor the townsfolk would have known, or well-off figures who echo the burgesses of the towns where the plays were performed.
Herod is one of a set of rulers who are mapped to a contemporary good king / bad king pair of molds. (Usually bad king: David, whom one might expect to appear as a good king, has an occasional appearance among the prophets of the Old Testament, and not as a king. Come to think of it, the only good rulers I can think of are penitent sinners who appear in the Last Judgement plays). The writers of the plays were burghers, not courtiers, and their kings are almost completely abstracted into types: they bear little resemblance to the kings who were the contemporaries of the writers, or their predecessors. They expound, threaten, command, whether they are Balaak, Caesar Augustus, or Herod the Great. (Interestingly, Pilate gets a rather more ambiguous treatment: in some cycles he fits the mold and in others he is treated more leniently.)
Among this company, though, Herod is a bit of an oddity. For one thing, he is King of the Jews, not a pagan, but gets treated as a pagan. (Technically, the historical figure was an Idumaean convert to Judaism, but I doubt that this played any part in his depiction.) He also, consistently, claims to be king of the world, and to have gods and / or demons subject to him. (This despite the fact that the same cycles also refer to Augustus as lord over the whole world at the time of the Nativity, as the Martyrology had it: "anno Imperii Octaviani Augusti quadragesimo secundo, toto Orbe in pace composito, sexta mundi aetate, Jesus Christus, aeternus Deus aeternique Patris Filius, mundum volens adventu suo piissimo consecrare, de Spiritu Sancto conceptus, novemque post conceptionem decursis mensibus in Bethlehem Judae nascitur ex Maria Virgine factus Homo".) He goes beyond bombast into the territory of the terminally deluded.
Finally, he is an essentially slapstick figure in performance:
"The mediaeval context, however, allowed Herod to rage through the streets as well as in the pageant, and to do so without becoming either a circus clown or, as in the modern theatre, a self-conscious illustration of a thesis about 'reality'." (Righter/Barton)
One must think of Herod as descending from the pageant wagon to stalk among the crowd, threatening random onlookers as he went. This is the "tyrant" of Bottom's wish ("a part to tear a cat in"), only a hair's breadth removed from comedy.
The "bad" characters in the Mystery plays are close cousins to the allegorical figures in the moralities: they represent the vices in an enhanced form. All the rulers are there not just as historic characters, but as representations of the sin of Pride; Herod gets a dual role in representing the sin of Wrath as well. This lies behind the otherwise absurd over-the-top quality of their parts.
Herod is, not the but an anti-Christ, a figure who is set as a contrast to the central figure of the mystery plays. He is raging as his opposite was pacific ("No war, nor battle's sound / was heard the world around"), bombastic as his opposite was (depicted as, generally) quiet (wordless as an infant contrasted with Herod, wordless at trial in front of Pilate).
[1]This is not an indication that the (sometimes quite sophisticated) writers of the plays really thought that Caesar Augustus, say, was a Moslem ("Mahowne that is curtes and heynd, / he bryng thi Iornay well to eynd, / And wysh the that all wate."). They worked with standard tropes to signal that a figure was a pagan (they would have said, paynim) in a contemporary manner.
