Ludus Coventriæ : $b A collection of mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the feast of Corpus Christi
General
Ludus Coventriæ : $b A collection of mysteries, formerly represented at Coventry on the feast of Corpus Christi
English drama -- To 1500; English language -- Middle English, 1100-1500 -- Glossaries, vocabularies, etc.; Mysteries and miracle-plays, English
“_By Her Majestie’s permission._ At Heatly’s booth, over against
the Cross Daggers, next to Mr. Miller’s booth, during the time of
Bartholomew-Fair, will be presented a little opera, called _The old
creation of the world_, newly reviv’d, with the addition of the glorious
battle obtained over the French and Spaniards by his Grace the Duke of
Marlborough. The contents are these:—
1. The creation of Adam and Eve.
2. The intreagues of Lucifer in the garden of Eden.
3. Adam and Eve driven out of paradice.
4. Cain going to plow, Abel driving sheep.
5. Cain killeth his brother Abel.
6. Abraham offering his son Isaac.
7. Three wise men of the East guided by a star, who worship him.
8. Joseph and Mary flew away by night upon an ass.
9. King Herod’s cruelty; his men’s spears laden with children.
10. Rich Dives invites his friends, and orders his porter to keep the
beggars from his gate.
11. Poor Lazarus comes a begging at rich Dives’s gate, and the dogs lick
his sores.
12. The good angel and death contend for Lazarus’s life.
13. Rich Dives is taken sick and dieth. He is buried in great solemnity.
14. Rich Dives in hell, and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, seen in a most
glorious object, all in machines descending in a throne, guarded with
multitudes of angels, with the breaking of the clouds, discovering the
palace of the sun, in double and treble prospects, to the admiration of
all spectators. Likewise several rich and large figures, with dances,
jiggs, sarabrands, anticks, and country dances between every act:
compleated with the merry humours of Sir John Spendall and Punchanello,
with several other things never yet exposed. Perform’d by Mat. Heatly.
Vivat Regina!”
In Braithwayte’s “Strapado for the Devil,” 8vo. Lond. 1615, p. 161, there
is an allusion to the performance of Mysteries in London in ancient
times:—
“Saint Bartlemews, where all the pagents showne,
And all those acts from Adam unto Noe
Us’d to be represent.”
P. 19, l. 1. Ω.] In MS., _oo_.
P. 22, l. 8. And make the man Adam.] A marginal note on the verso of fol.
74 informs us that Adam was created on the tenth of the calends of April.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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