THE PRIDE OF LIFE: FOOTNOTES

1 My speech shall [be] pleasing [to] you, [my] sworn retainers

2 Then, having closed the curtain, the Queen speaks privately with the messenger
 

THE PRIDE OF LIFE: NOTES

Abbreviations: CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; MED: Middle English Dictionary; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; s.d.: stage direction; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Pro­verbial Phrases.

4 Although the fragmentary manuscript of the play survived to modern times among the archives of the Augustinian priory of the Holy Trinity, the fact that the playwright invites both the “lered” and the “lewed” to enjoy the play would argue strongly in favor of a public performance, rather than a cloistered audience. Alan J. Fletcher has shown that the priory was involved in other modes of public perform­ance as well (Drama, Performance, and Polity, p. 84).

10 The reference to the weather would seem to imply an outdoor performance.

15–112 It is common for medieval drama to present a summary of a play (or cycle), called the banns, before the action begins. The banns were often used as an adver­tise­ment, not unlike a modern movie trailer, to generate interest in the play and to announce the performance. Banns were also shouted to spread official news, as in line 459 (“My banis for to crye”). See Introduction, p. 3, and note to line 503.

60 a wommanis tal. Coldeway’s gloss, “an old wive’s tale,” has merit, providing an early example of that idiom. OED cites Marlowe’s Faust V.133 as the earliest in­stance of the gendered saying.

69 couthe. I have followed Norman Davis’ gloss here (“could”), though Coldeway’s “knew” works well too, especially given the sense of chout in line 68.

73 tham. MS yam. Holthausen, following Brandl, reads ham. Davis and Coldeway: than.

97 The banns do not make it clear if the Virgin Mary’s prayers and the king’s sub­sequent redemption actually formed a part of the play, but to make sense of the argument it would seem that they must have done so.

98 There are many dialogue poems consisting of a debate between the body and the soul, both in Middle English and in other European vernaculars. It is not clear in the banns whether this description is intended to describe such a debate on stage or simply to indicate that it is the body’s pride (line 95) by which the soul is damned (line 96).

98, 100 Holthausen transposes these two lines; Coldeway follows the transposition, the sense of lines 97–100 thus being: “Through the prayers of Our Lady mild / She would repay all goodness; / She will pray to her son so mild, / [That] the soul and body shall part ways.” Davis glosses “dispyte” as “dispute, contend,” but “part ways” gets better at the sense, since the next two stanzas present just such a sever­ance as the body learns the pains of death (lines 101–04) while Mary would reclaim the soul from the fiends so that it might abide (lines 105–08).

110 “Place” here likely has the specific sense of the Latin “platea” (see also line 470 s.d.), the neutral space on the ground which must be constantly renegotiated between actors and audience. The line’s meaning then would be: “Don’t inter­fere with our playing area.”

126 This is the first break between sections of text in the manuscript in which text has been lost; the faulty rhyme scheme shows that at least two lines of the stanza have disappeared between the blocks of text, as well as the following speech heading.

135 knytis. MS: kyntes.

213 undir myne eye. Rex evokes courtly conventions whereby all in the king’s presence bow to his authority. Death is viewed here as a member of the court and thus stands in awe of the king’s purview.

263 The king’s messenger is variously called “Mirth” (Pleasure) and “Solas” (Com­fort). He is the king’s principal servant, while the two soldiers, Strength and Health, represent the king’s protection. Mirth represents the king’s primary interests in life, pleasure and creature comforts.

285 Berewik upon Twede. A town in the far northeast of England, just south of the Scottish border. Mirth will travel great distances in his king’s service.

301 Many suggestions have been made for the identity of “Gailispire on the Hill,” most of them in England. Fletcher has shown that the reference is very likely to Gilt­spur, in the northern part of County Wicklow, not far south of Dublin. In the eighteenth century it was known as Gilsper or Gillspur Hill, and the Augustinian canons of Dublin owned land in the area (Drama, Performance, and Polity, pp. 84–86).

302 The earldom of Kent reverted to the crown in 1407, and it is possible that this line could imply a date for the play prior to this, when the title was still in pri­vate hands; or after, if Rex Vivus is the king of England, as he again has Kent to give as a reward.

303 The king asks Strength to draw the cord which pulls a curtain across a space on the stage, likely an inner room or booth. In its simplest form, this would have been the back part of the stage, separated from the front by the curtain and cord to which he refers. It might well have contained a couch or bed on which the king can take his rest (as in line 304).

322, s.d. There is no indication of what song Mirth might sing, but any popular tavern song of a secular nature would be appropriate, and the decision might well have been left to the actor. Unfortunately, this is exactly the type of song that is least likely to survive, and no appropriate songs from the later fourteenth century have come down to us. See Appendix 2 for a suggestion.

326 This is the second place where a break between two text blocks also seems to indicate a loss of some text. It might be quite a substantial loss here, since Mirth the messenger needs to explain his errand to the bishop.

327–90 The bishop’s complaint is derived from a well-known poem usually called “The Abuses of the Age.” Two representative versions are printed in Appendix 1.

332 Streyint. The bishop’s complaint is not likely a reference to the first soldier, also called “Strength” (line 143 s.n.), but to brute force.

343 Slet. The manuscript reads “Slot,” which could be an error either for “slet,” an un­usual word meaning “crafty” or “wise” (cognate with modern English “sleight”), or for “sot,” which would be an orthographic variant of “soth” (“true”).

362 gret eteit the smal. Proverbial; see Whiting G 444. Compare F 232 (“great fish eat the small”) and D 146 (“mickle feer heve the little”).

380 A writ of “supersedeas” suspends a court’s proceedings, generally in favor of a participant’s involvement in a case in a higher court. The legal terminology re­minds all that they have an irrevocable date with death.

390, s.d. In the missing lines (see note to line 326), the bishop must have returned to the king, who has emerged from behind the curtain (line 303). The ser­mon is likely for the king as well as the audience.

401–02 Det is not the man . . . wil spar. Coldeway glosses: Death is not “the kind of man / Who will spare you anything.”

442 Then artou but a page. The bishop suggests the king’s power is useless against death, that the king is as powerless against death as a page is to the king.

456 Solas. There is only one messenger, alternately named Mirth (lines 263 and 279), later called Solas (lines 295, 321, and 456). This is not a second messenger.

502 I have followed Davis and Coldeway in placing a period at the end of this line despite the fact that the manuscript simply breaks off here.

503 The banns give some indication of the rest of the play, though their description of the action is not entirely clear. Mirth delivers his message to Death, who ac­cepts the king’s challenge. In the following battle — defined in the banns as a battle between Life and Death — the King of Life is killed, and his soul is seized by devils. The soul prays to the Virgin Mary for deliverance. The banns do not indicate whether the king’s soul is a speaking character, nor whether the soul’s prayers to Mary are successful (though the action of the rest of the play would suggest that they are). It is also not clear whether Mary herself appears at the end of the play; although the playwright notes that she “will pray to her son” (line 99) and “will reward goodness” (line 100), the banns do not specify that these are actions which take place as part of the play.