The Humour of King Herod

 If I say that I have just been very much amused with a Nativity play of the fourteenth century it is still possible that I may be misunderstood. What is more important, some thousand years of very heroic history will be misunderstood too. It was one of the Coventry cycle of medi?val plays, loosely called the Coventry Mysteries, similar to the Chester Mysteries and the Towneley Mysteries.

And I was not amused at the blasphemy¹ of something badly done, but at a buffoonery uncommonly² well done. But, as I said at the time, the educated seem to be very ignorant of this fine medi?val fun. When I mentioned the Coventry Mystery many ladies and gentlemen thought it was a murder in the police news. At the best, they supposed it to be the title of a detective story. Even upon a hint of history they could only recall the story of Godiva; which might be called rather a revelation than a mystery.

Now I always read police news and I sometimes write detective stories; nor am I at all ashamed of doing either. But I think the popular art of the past was perhaps a little more cheerful than that of the present. And in seeing this Bethlehem drama I felt that good news might perhaps be as dramatic as bad news; and that it was possibly as thrilling to hear that a child is born as to hear that a man is murdered.

Doubtless there are some sentimental³ people who like these old plays merely because they are old. My own sentiment could be more truly stated by saying that I like them because they are new. They are new in the imaginative sense, making us feel as if the first star were leading us to the first child.

But they are also new in the historical sense, to most people, owing to that break in our history which makes the Elizabethans seem not merely to have discovered the new world but invented the old one. Nobody could see this medi?val play without realizing that the Elizabethan was rather the end than the beginning of a tradition; the crown and not the cradle of the drama.

Many things that modern critics call peculiarly Elizabethan are in fact peculiarly medi?val. For instance, that the same stage could be the place where meet the extremes of tragedy and comedy, or rather farce⁴. That daring mixture is always made a point of contrast between the Shakespearean play and the Greek play or the French classical play. But it is a point of similarity, or rather identity, between the Shakespearean play and the miracle play.

Nothing could be more bitterly tragic⁵ than the scene in this Nativity drama, in which the mothers sing a lullaby to the children they think they have brought into safety the moment before the soldiers of Herod rush in and butcher them screaming on the stage. Nothing could be more broadly farcical than the scene in which King Herod himself pretends that he has manufactured the thunderstorm.

In one sense, indeed, the old religious play was far bolder in its burlesque⁶ than the more modern play. Shakespeare did not express the unrest of King Claudius by making him fall over his own cloak. He did not convey his disdain⁷ for tyranny by letting Macbeth appear with his crown on one side. This was partly no doubt an improvement in dramatic art; but it was partly also, I think, a weakening of democratic satire⁸.

Shakespeare’s clowns are philosophers, geniuses, demigods; but Shakespeare’s clowns are clowns. Shakespeare’s kings may be usurpers, murderers, monsters; but Shakespeare’s kings are kings. But in this old devotional drama the king is the clown. He is treated not so much with disdain as with derision; not so much with a bitter smile as with a broad grin. A cat may not only look at a king but laugh at a king; like the mythical⁹ Cheshire cat, an ancient cat as terrible as a tiger and grinning like a gargoyle¹⁰. But that Cheshire cat has presumably vanished with the Chester Mysteries, the counterpart of these Coventry Mysteries; it has vanished with the age and art of gargoyles¹¹.

In other words, that popular simplicity¹² that could see wrongful power as something pantomimically absurd, a thing for practical jokes, has since been sophisticated by a process none the less sad because it is slow and subtle. It begins in the Elizabethans in an innocent and indefinable form. It is merely the sense that, though Macbeth may get his crown crookedly¹⁴, he must not actually wear it crooked¹³. It is the sense that, though Claudius may fall from his throne, he must not actually fall over his footstool.

It ended in the nineteenth century in many refined and ingenuous¹⁵ forms; in a tendency to find all fun in the ignorant or criminal classes; in dialect or the dropping of aitches. It was a sort of satirical slumming. There was a new shade in the comparison of the coster with the cat; a coster could look at a king and might conceivably laugh at a king; but most contemporary art and literature was occupied in laughing at the coster.

Even in the long lifetime of a good comic paper like Punch we can trace the change from jokes against the palace to jokes against the public-house. The difference is perhaps more delicate; it is rather that the refined classes are a subject for refined comedy; and only the common people a subject for common farce. It is correct to call this refinement¹⁶ modern; yet it is not quite correct to call it contemporary. All through the Victorian time the joke was pointed¹⁷ more against the poor and less against the powerful; but the revolution which ended the long Victorian peace has shaken this Victorian patronage¹⁸. The great war which has brought so many ancient realities to the surface has re-enacted before our eyes the Miracle Play of Coventry.

We have seen a real King Herod claiming the thunders of the throne of God, and answered by the thunder not merely of human wrath¹⁹ but of primitive²⁰ human laughter. He has done murder by proclamations, and he has been answered by caricatures. He has made a massacre²¹ of children, and been made a figure of fun in a Christmas pantomime for the pleasure of other children. Precisely²² because his crime is tragic, his punishment is comic; the old popular paradox²³ has returned.

1 blasphemy   

n.亵渎，渎神

参考例句：

• His writings were branded as obscene and a blasphemy against God.他的著作被定为淫秽作品，是对上帝的亵渎。
• You have just heard his blasphemy!你刚刚听到他那番亵渎上帝的话了！

2 uncommonly   

adv. 稀罕(极，非常)

参考例句：

• an uncommonly gifted child 一个天赋异禀的儿童
• My little Mary was feeling uncommonly empty. 我肚子当时正饿得厉害。

3 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

4 farce   

n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹

参考例句：

• They played a shameful role in this farce.他们在这场闹剧中扮演了可耻的角色。
• The audience roared at the farce.闹剧使观众哄堂大笑。

5 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

6 burlesque   

v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿

参考例句：

• Our comic play was a burlesque of a Shakespearean tragedy.我们的喜剧是对莎士比亚一出悲剧的讽刺性模仿。
• He shouldn't burlesque the elder.他不应模仿那长者。

7 disdain   

n.鄙视，轻视；v.轻视，鄙视，不屑

参考例句：

• Some people disdain labour.有些人轻视劳动。
• A great man should disdain flatterers.伟大的人物应鄙视献媚者。

8 satire   

n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品

参考例句：

• The movie is a clever satire on the advertising industry.那部影片是关于广告业的一部巧妙的讽刺作品。
• Satire is often a form of protest against injustice.讽刺往往是一种对不公正的抗议形式。

9 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

10 gargoyle   

n.笕嘴

参考例句：

• His face was the gargoyle of the devil,it was not human,it was not sane.他的脸简直就像魔鬼模样的屋檐滴水嘴。
• The little gargoyle is just a stuffed toy,but it looks so strange.小小的滴水嘴兽只是一个填充毛绒玩具，但它看起来这么奇怪的事。

11 gargoyles   

n.怪兽状滴水嘴( gargoyle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Week of Gargoyle: Double growth for Gargoyle and O idia Gargoyles. 石像鬼周：石像鬼产量加倍。 来自互联网
• Fixed a problem that caused Gargoyles to become stuck in Stone Form. 修正了石像鬼在石像形态卡住的问题。 来自互联网

12 simplicity   

n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯

参考例句：

• She dressed with elegant simplicity.她穿着朴素高雅。
• The beauty of this plan is its simplicity.简明扼要是这个计划的一大特点。

13 crooked   

adj.弯曲的；不诚实的，狡猾的，不正当的

参考例句：

• He crooked a finger to tell us to go over to him.他弯了弯手指，示意我们到他那儿去。
• You have to drive slowly on these crooked country roads.在这些弯弯曲曲的乡间小路上你得慢慢开车。

14 crookedly   

adv. 弯曲地，不诚实地

参考例句：

• A crow flew crookedly like a shadow over the end of the salt lake. 一只乌鸦像个影子般地在盐湖的另一边鬼鬼祟祟地飞来飞去的。

15 ingenuous   

adj.纯朴的，单纯的；天真的；坦率的

参考例句：

• Only the most ingenuous person would believe such a weak excuse!只有最天真的人才会相信这么一个站不住脚的借口！
• With ingenuous sincerity,he captivated his audience.他以自己的率真迷住了观众。

16 refinement   

n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼

参考例句：

• Sally is a woman of great refinement and beauty. 莎莉是个温文尔雅又很漂亮的女士。
• Good manners and correct speech are marks of refinement.彬彬有礼和谈吐得体是文雅的标志。

17 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

18 patronage   

n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场

参考例句：

• Though it was not yet noon,there was considerable patronage.虽然时间未到中午，店中已有许多顾客惠顾。
• I am sorry to say that my patronage ends with this.很抱歉，我的赞助只能到此为止。

19 wrath   

n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒

参考例句：

• His silence marked his wrath. 他的沉默表明了他的愤怒。
• The wrath of the people is now aroused. 人们被激怒了。

20 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

21 massacre   

n.残杀，大屠杀；v.残杀，集体屠杀

参考例句：

• There was a terrible massacre of villagers here during the war.在战争中，这里的村民惨遭屠杀。
• If we forget the massacre,the massacre will happen again!忘记了大屠杀，大屠杀就有可能再次发生！

22 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

23 paradox   

n.似乎矛盾却正确的说法；自相矛盾的人(物)

参考例句：

• The story contains many levels of paradox.这个故事存在多重悖论。
• The paradox is that Japan does need serious education reform.矛盾的地方是日本确实需要教育改革。