Such are the stories of the two best known Moralities. From them we can judge how great a change had come over the drama. Nowhere is there any incident approaching the nature of 'The Sacrifice of Isaac', nowhere is there any character worthy to stand beside the Mary of the Miracle Play. Those are the losses. On the other hand, we perceive a new compactness—still loose, but much in advance of what existed before—whereby the central figure is always before us, urged along from one act and one set of surroundings to another, towards a goal which is never lost sight of. Also there is the invention which provides for these two plays different plots, as well as some diversity of characters. The superiority of the shorter play—Everyman contains just over nine hundred lines—to the older one is less readily detected in a comparison of bare plots, though it becomes obvious as soon as one reads the plays. It lies in a more detailed characterization, in a deliberate attempt to humanize the abstractions, in the substitution of something like real conversation for the orderly succession of debating society speeches. The following extracts will illustrate this difference.
(1) From The Castell of Perseverance.
[Good Angel and Bad Angel, in rivalry, are trying to secure the adherence of the juvenile Humankind: Good Angel has already spoken.]
Bad Angel. Pes aungel, thi wordes are not wyse,
Thou counselyst hym not a-ryth[35].
He schal hym drawyn to the werdes[36] servyse,
To dwelle with caysere, kynge and knyth,
That in londe be hym non lyche.
Cum on with me, stylle as ston:
Thou and I to the werd schul goon,
And thanne thou schalt sen a-non
Whow sone thou schalt be ryche.
Good Angel. A! pes aungel, thou spekyst folye!
Why schuld he coveyt werldes goode,
Syn Criste in erthe and hys meynye[37]
All in povert here thei stode?
Werldes wele[38], be strete and stye,
Faylyth and fadyth as fysch in flode,
But hevene ryche is good and trye,
Ther Criste syttyth, bryth as blode,
Withoutyn any dystresse.
To the world wolde he not flyt,
But forsok it every whytt;
Example I fynde in holy wryt,
He wyl bere me wytnesse.
[Bad Angel replies, and then Humankind speaks.]
Humankind. Whom to folwe wetyn[39] I ne may,
I stonde in stodye and gynne to rave:
I wolde be ryche in gret aray,
And fayn I wolde my sowle save.
As wynde in watyr I wave.
Thou woldyst to the werld I me toke,
And he wolde that I it forsoke,
Now so God me helpe, and the holy boke,
I not[40] wyche I may have.
[Everyman has just met Fellowship.]
Felawshyp. My true frende, shewe to me your mynde,
I wyll not forsake the to thy lyves ende,
In the way of good company.