"It out-herods Herod," says Shakespeare, the professional player, in scorn of the amateur of the old régime. But the rant Herod utters is gorgeous rant.
How the children shuddered when he wielded his "bright brond" or terrible sword, and how his great voice rang out through the streets when he cried:—
"For I am evyn he thatt made bothe hevin and hell,
And of my myghte power holdith up this world rownd.
Magog and Madroke, bothe them did I confounde."
What megalomania! "Magog and Madroke," are undeniably fearsome names and suit well with Herod's vizor, his falchion and towering crest.
"I am the cawse," he cries out,—
"I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder;
Ytt ys throgh my fure that the[694] soche noyse dothe make.
My feyrefull contenance the clowdis so doth incumbur
That oftymis for drede ther-of the verre yerth doth quake.
Loke, when I with males this bryght brond doth schake,
All the whole world from the north to the sowthe
I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mowthe!
Behold my contenance and my colur,
Bryghtur then the sun in the meddis of the dey.
Where can you haue a more grettur succur
Then to behold my person that ys soo gaye?
My fawcun and my fassion, with my gorgis araye,—
He thatt had the grace all-wey ther-on to thynke,
Lyve the[694] myght all-wey with-owt othur meyte or drynke."[695]
There was another Herod in the smiths' play of the Passion, which has not survived, but he was outshone by Pilate, who received 4s. for his hire from the same company, whereas his fellow, the personator of Herod, received but 3s. 8d.; the former, too, drank wine in the intervals between the proformances, while the minor players were refreshed with mere ale for the nonce. Both these above named were rampant characters, Pilate always possessing the organ of Stentor. He appears again in the cappers' play of the Resurrection, and evidently became very terrific, laying about him with his club or mall when the soldiers brought news that Christ had risen from the dead. Years after in 1790 when even the tradition of the pageants was almost forgotten, Sharp, the antiquary, found Pilate's mall in an old chest in the cappers' chapel in S. Michael's church.[696] It was made of leather and stuffed with wool, and had evidently served as the head of a staff. Pilate's "balls," also made of leather, and possibly the forerunners of the fool's bauble, also ministered occasion for noise and laughter. Both Herod, Pilate, and the demons had vizors or masks, hence the smiths' entry, "paid to Wattis for dressyng of the devells hede viiid."[697] The devil—sometimes in the plural—appears in at least three Coventry plays, the Trial, where no doubt he whispered the dream to "Dame Procula," Pilate's wife, as he did at York,[698] the Harrowing of Hell, and Doomsday. In the last two pageants there would be much by-play with Hell-mouth and the souls in the infernal place. I cannot tell in which particular piece the devil, whom John Heywood, interlude-writer, claimed as an "old acquaintance," was an actor, but it undoubtedly was in one of them, since in his Foure P.P. Heywood says:—