Urban Drama, Part 14

Complaints and Complications

Once Mak comes on to the stage, the Second Shepherds’ Play starts in earnest to develop its own unique plot complications.  Though he enters as though part of the same choreographed sequence of folkloric characters, he is different in kind and his complaints and speeches shift the tone of the whole production.  More than Daw (David) the young third shepherd, Mak is the outsider, the other, whose discourse is a tissue of forward-looking allusions to the appearance of the singing angels and the adoration of the Christ Child. 

To a certain extent, the surface textures of the play allow the audience to pick up some of the hints as to its structure : the several scenes of the shepherds on the northern moors of Yorkshire represent the world on the verge of receiving its Christian salvation in the incarnate person of the baby Jesus, at the same time as it exposes for all the current complaints against the injustices imposed by southern rulers who exploit the hardships of daily living in such a region of England.  Another much more subtle set of allusions and hints points towards the Jewish presence in the world—a constant reminder not only, as the Church teaches in its Augustinian tradition, that remnants of the Jewish people are allowed to exist as evidence of the historical truths of the New Testament but in their bedraggled, confused dispersion and exile as examples of what happens when a whole people turn away from God and the Savior he sent into the world.  

What the play also signals, in a far more fragmented and sub rosa text, is that the attitude expressed against the Jews can be far less vitriolic and less full of demonizing hatred, almost to the point of compassion and understanding.  That the expressions of Jewish hurt, humiliation and deep longings for their own home appear at all suggests that there may be Jewish involvement in the composition of the script, the organization of the performance, and the acting out of the roles.  That is why we have to attempt to read the text against the grain of its own stated messages.

Immediately following the three first shepherds’ song, the stranger appears; Tunc intrat Mak in clamide se super togam estitus (Then enters Mak with a cloak drawn over his tunic).

Now, Lord, for thy naymes sevyn/ that made both moyn and starnes

Well mo than I can neuen, / thi will, Lorde, of me tharnys.

I am all vneuen ;/ that moves oft my harnys.

Now wold God I were in heuven,/ for the[re] wep[e no barnes

So styll

He praises God’s seven names, suggesting as other similar charms and formulae in his specific speech a kabbalistic knowledge and allusionary aura about himself, and praises this Lord as the creator of the universe, again using epithets sounding more like those in Jewish prayer than in Christian liturgy.  In all, then, while he seems to continue the basic themes started by the thrree other shepherds, Mak pushes his own presence in a different direction, including the wish, drawn it would seem from Job’s opening speeches, that he were already in heaven—or never born—and seeking to find both a place of silence and rest from the noise of all his babies crying at home and moreover a refuge from the instability of mind that threatens his emotional well-being or sanity.

Asked who it is who is making this noise by the first shepherd, Mak replies :

Wold God ye wyst how I foore !

Lo, a man that walkys on the moore.

And has not all his wyll !

He wishes that God knew and understood how he fares, what his plight is, and therefore would act to provide some relief for his troubles.  Though this is similar to the other complaints in the first section of the play, here the intensity and range of personal hurts extends beyond the same range of political and social ills the three shepherds spoke of : for Mak the world is out of joint and he more than anyone suffers an awareness of this madness at a higher speculative level.  If the Yorkshire moors can stand for the world or at least for the wilderness of the world, then Mak is a wanderer, more than a pilgrim through history hoping to arrive at a sacred place, alluding to the journey of Exodus of the Children of Israel from the slavery and darkness of Eretz Mitzraim, Egypt, making their way towards the Promised Land of Israel.  Again, if he complains that he lacks his « will », his conscious desire to find harmony and hope in the swirling pains of this life, then he comes to saying—in a different gamut of rhymes than that of styll/wyll—« he has not all his wyt. » 

Though Mak has been hiding his face under his cloak and spoken as though he were one of the great men of the south, or at least an agent of these absentee land lords, the other shepherds have no difficulty in recognizing him under the mask, and indeed pull it off : Et acciput clamidem ab ipses (And he takes the cloak from him).  Mak nevertheless tries to bluff it out by speaking in a southern accent :

What ! ich be a yeoman/ I[ch] tell you, of the king ;

The self and the same,/ sond from a greatt lordyng,

And sich.

Fy on you ! Geyth hence !

Out of my presence !

I[ch] must haue reuerence.

Why, who be ich ?

Claiming thus to be be more and other than he is, in the way of a classical alazon (comic boaster), Mak also pretends to be an angel-messenger, and thus to be acting out in a comical prefiguration of the angels who will sing to the three shepherds when they announce the arrival of the incarnate Christ on the eve of Christmas.  In traditional anti-Jewish satires, the Hebrew is a shabby boaster who asks to be recognzizd as a member of the Chosen People, God’s bringer of enlightenment on earth, and a silly parody of what Christ himself is—God’s only begotten son. 

For the other men on the moor, Mak is a familiar intruder, and they tell him to stop this fooling around, being so « quaint » (or peculiar and pretentious) in his speech, action and claims.  His attempts at deception are typical of what he is : a shrew and a dewill, that is, a Jew.  After some knock-about farce, wherein the shepherds box his ears and pinch him, they call Mak a sheep-stealer.  He confesses that he has such a reputation but says it is untrue and undeserved, and furthermore, he is too sick at heart, in his belly and in mind to be engaged in such dangerous activities :

And I am trew as steyll;/ all men waytt !

Bot a sekeness, I feyll/ that haldys me full haytt ;

My belly farys not weyll ;/ it is out of astate.

This might be taken as typical Jewish kvetching, the complaint puts his condition at a level of cosmic alienation.  Everyone knows, says Mak, that he is too honest a man to steal goods from other men ; he is sick of and in the world, stuck in his exile (galut) and always out of sorts.

The more the shepherds talk with Mak, the more it is evident that he is a well-known character.  They ask about his wife and children, their health, and his general conditions at home.  They are genuinely concerned, as all of the folk who live in the moors are subject to the same weather and poverty ; all are exploited by the landlords and all live in desperate hope of some change that will better their lives.  Moreover, the three shepherds claim they are worn out and tired, and hope to lie down to sleep.  However, despite these shared complaints, the three remain suspicious of the stranger in their midst and decide to have Mak lie between them so that he will not take advantage of the situation to go and steal from their flocks.