FIRST SHEPHERD.
Serving thee we'll live and die,
For without thee life is naught.
The second act being finished, a new interlude was introduced to make the spectators merry. The jesters reappeared and recited several rondeaux, always containing some piquant and unexpected joke, which called forth the laughter of the audience. The burden of the virelais (poems composed of very short lines, and with two rhymes) usually turned on some monk, which greatly diverted the spectators. The cardinals and the catholics who took pleasure in the drama were annoyed by the satires.[85]
The third act began. Satan, who was making the tour of the world, arrived over the fields of Bethlehem, whither the shepherds had returned, and absorbed in his own thoughts, said to himself:
I have reigned until this hour
And subdued earth to my power;
With God above have warred unceasing,
And my triumphs are increasing.
The shepherdesses, to whom he was invisible, expressed their joy in hymns: