Читать книгу Shakespeare the Boy - W. J. Rolfe - Страница 11

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The road from Warwick to Kenilworth is one of the loveliest in England; and that from Kenilworth five miles further on to Coventry is acknowledged to be the most beautiful in the kingdom; yet it is only a different kind of beauty from the other, as that is from the beauty of the road between Warwick and Stratford.

COVENTRY CHURCHES AND PAGEANT

Till you reach Kenilworth you have all the varieties of charming rural scenery—hill and dale, field and forest, river-bank and village, hall and castle and church, grouping themselves in ever-changing pictures of beauty and grandeur; and now you come to a straight road for nearly five miles, bordered on both sides by a double line of stately elms and sycamores, as impressive in its regularity as the preceding stretch had been in its kaleidoscopic mutations.

This magnificent avenue with its over-arching foliage brings us to Coventry, no mean city in our day, but retaining only a remnant of its ancient glory. In the time of Shakespeare it was the third city in the realm—the "Prince's Chamber," as it was called—unrivalled in the splendor of its monastic institutions, "full of associations of regal state and chivalry and high events."

In 1397 it had been the scene of the famous hostile meeting between Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford (afterwards Henry IV.), and Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, which Shakespeare has immortalized in Richard II. Later Henry IV. held more than one parliament here; and the city was often visited and honored with many marks of favor by Henry VI. and his queen, as also by Richard III., Henry VII., Elizabeth, and James I.

Coventry, moreover, played an important part in the history of the English Drama. It was renowned for the religious plays performed by the Grey Friars of its great monastery, and kept up, though with diminished pomp, even after the dissolution of their establishment. It was not until 1580 that these pageants were entirely suppressed; and Shakespeare, who was then sixteen years old, may have been an eye-witness of the latest of them. No doubt he heard stories of their attractions in former times, when, as we are told by Dugdale, they were "acted with mighty state and reverence by the friars of this house, had theatres for the several scenes, very large and high, placed upon wheels, and drawn to all the eminent parts of the city for the better advantage of spectators; and contained the story of the New Testament composed into old English rhyme." There were forty-three of these ancient plays, performed by the monks until, as Tennyson puts it,

"Bluff Harry broke into the spence,

And turned the cowls adrift."

When the boy Shakespeare saw them—if he did see them—they were played by the different guilds, or associations of tradespeople. Thus the Nativity and the Offering of the Magi, with the Flight into Egypt and the Slaughter of the Innocents, were rendered by the company of Shearmen and Tailors; the Smiths' pageant was the Crucifixion; that of the Cappers was the Resurrection; and so on. The account-books of the guilds are still extant, with charges for helmets for Herod and gear for his wife, for a beard for Judas and the rope to hang him, etc. In the accounts of the Drapers, whose pageant was the Last Judgment, we find outlays for a "link to set the world on fire," "the barrel for the earthquake," and kindred stage "properties."

In the books of the Smiths or Armorers, some of the charges are as follows:—

"Item, paid for v. schepskens for gods cote and for makyng, iiis.

Item, paid for mendyng of Herods hed and a myter and other thyngs, iis.

Item, paid for dressyng of the devells hede, viiid.

Item, paid for a pair of gloves for god, iid."

The most elaborate and costly of the properties was "Hell-Mouth," which was used in several plays, but specially in the representation of the Last Judgment. This was a huge and grotesque head of canvas, with vast gaping mouth armed with fangs and vomiting flames. The jaws were made to open and shut, and through them the Devil made his entrance and the lost souls their exit. The making and repairing of this was a constant expense, and frequent entries like the following occur in the books of the guilds:—

"Paide for making and painting hell mouth, xiid.

Paid for keping of fyer at hell mouthe, iiiid."

Many curious details of the actors' dresses have come down to us. The representative of Christ wore a coat of white leather, painted and gilded, and a gilt wig. King Herod wore a mask and a helmet, sometimes of iron, adorned with gold and silver foil, and bore a sword and a sceptre. He was a very important character, and the manner in which he blustered and raged about the stage became proverbial. In Hamlet (iii. 2. 16) we have the expression, "It out-herods Herod"; and in the Merry Wives of Windsor (ii. 1. 20), "What a Herod of Jewry is this!"

All the actors were paid for their services, the amount varying with the importance of the part. The same actor, as in the theatres of Shakespeare's day, often played several parts. In addition to the payment of money, there was a plentiful supply of refreshments, especially of ale, for the actors. Pilate, who received the highest pay of the company, was moreover allowed wine instead of ale during the performance.

Reference has been made above to the "lost souls" in connection with Hell-Mouth. There were also "saved souls," who were dressed in white, as the lost were in black, or black and yellow. There is an allusion to the latter in Henry V. (ii. 3. 43), where the flea on Bardolph's rubicund nose is compared to "a black soul burning in hell-fire."

The Devil wore a dress of black leather, with a mask, and carried a club, with which he laid about him vigorously. His clothes were often covered with feathers or horsehair, to give him a shaggy appearance; and the traditional horns, tail, and cloven feet were sometimes added.

The regular time for these religious pageants was Corpus Christi Day, or the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, but they were occasionally performed on other days, especially at the time of a royal visit to Coventry, like that of Queen Margaret in 1455. Prince Edward was thus greeted in 1474, Prince Arthur in 1498, Henry VIII. in 1510, and Queen Elizabeth in 1565.

Shakespeare has other allusions to these old plays besides those here mentioned, showing that he knew them by report if he had not seen them.

Historical pageants, not Biblical in subject, were also familiar to the good people of Coventry a century at least before the dramatist was born. "The Nine Worthies," which he has burlesqued in Love's Labour's Lost, was acted there before Henry VI. and his queen in 1455. The original text of the play has been preserved, and portions of Shakespeare's travesty seem almost like a parody of it.

But we must not linger in the shadow of the "three tall spires" of Coventry, nor make more than a brief allusion to the legend of Godiva, the lady who rode naked through the town to save the people from a burdensome tax. It was an old story in Shakespeare's time, if, indeed, it had not been dramatized, like other chapters in the mythic annals of the venerable city. It has been proved to be without historical foundation, being mentioned by no writer before the fourteenth century, though the Earl who figures in the tale lived in the latter part of the eleventh century. The Benedictine Priory in Coventry, of which some fragments still remain, is said to have been founded by him in 1043. He died in 1057, and both he and his lady were buried in the porch of the monastery.

The effigy of "Peeping Tom" is still to be seen in the upper part of a house at the corner of Hertford Street in Coventry.

Shakespeare makes no reference to this story of Lady Godiva, though it was probably well known to him.