Brother Copas - Arthur Quiller-Couch

So for an hour Saxon followed Roman, Dane followed Saxon, Norman followed both. Alfred, Canute, William—all controlled (as Brother Copas cynically remarked to Brother Warboise, watching through the palings from the allotted patch of sward which served them for green-room) by one small Jew, perspiring on the roof and bawling orders here, there, everywhere, through a gigantic megaphone; bawling them in a lingua franca to which these mighty puppets moved obediently, weaving English history as upon a tapestry swiftly, continuously unrolled. "Which things," quoted Copas mischievously, "are an allegory, Philip."

To the waiting performers it seemed incredible that to the audience, packed by thousands in the Grand Stand, this scolding strident voice immediately above their heads should be inaudible. Yet it was. All those eyes beheld, all those ears heard, was the puppets as they postured and declaimed. The loud little man on the roof they saw not nor heard.

"Which things again are an allegory," said Brother Copas.

The Brethren of St. Hospital had no Episode of their own. But from the time of the Conquest downward they had constantly to take part in the moving scenes as members of the crowd, and the spectators constantly hailed their entry.

"Our coat of poverty is the wear to last, after all," said Copas, regaining the green-room and mopping his brow. "We have just seen out the Plantagenets."

In this humble way, when the time came, he looked on at the Episode of Henry the Eighth's visit to Merchester, and listened to the blank verse which he himself had written. The Pageant Committee had ruled out the Reformation, but he had slyly introduced a hint of it. The scene consisted mainly of revels, dances, tournays, amid which a singing man had chanted, in a beautiful tenor, Henry's own song of Pastime with good Companye.—

"Pastime with good Companye,
I love and shall until I die:
Grudge who lust, but none deny,
So God be pleased, thus live will I.
For my pastance,
Hunt, sing and dance,
My heart is set.
All goodly sport
For my comfòrt
Who shall me let?"

With its chorus—

"For Idleness
Is chief mistress
Of vices all.
Then who can say
But mirth and play
Is best of all?"