The goodly ballat lamenting in its refrain that “through folly falls poesy to decay” seems itself to bear the marks of folly’s blight. It was a concession to the taste of the day, which held the accumulation of rhymes, the use of grandiloquent gallicisms, and the elaborate structure of stanzas—all skilfully reproduced in Mr. Ayres’ rendering—to be the elements of poetry. That was the kind of versification admired and cultivated in the so-called Chambers of Rhetoric, a kind of mediaeval theatre guilds where the local poets and poetasters imbibed the love of poetry with their beer. But our author, who believed in “Poeta nascitur, non fit”, proved by his own achievement that neither can the born poet be unmade by the temporary vagaries of poetic fashion. Where he wrote the language that his mother had taught him, instead of the bombast admired among the brethren of his craft, it yielded true poetry, vibrant with emotion in the lyrical parts, and full of plastic force in its realistic passages. Intricate rhyme schemes are employed to emphasize the lyrical note, but the verse runs on so smoothly through the reverberation of sounds, and the language remains so simple and direct, that the artificial effort does not obtrude itself upon our notice. Sometimes the dialogue assumes the form of a rondeau, and in the scene between uncle and aunt this device is applied with consummate skill, the uncle’s sad lament “Alas, my sister, ye deceive me”, which is its “leitmotif”, becoming intensified at its second and third repetition by its contrast with the aunt’s replies, which proceed from mockery at her clodpate brother John to heartless slander of the lost girl. The poet’s device of varying the rhyme scheme of the dialogue according to the mood of the speakers has been carefully reproduced by the translator, so that the reader can form his own opinion of its effectiveness.
Apart from its poetical qualities the play of “Mary of Nimmegen” deserves to be read—and enacted, to be sure—because it is a fine specimen of mediaeval drama. Recent productions in Holland have shown that the play does not miss its effect upon a twentieth-century audience. The author selected a plot which yielded to modern literature two of its noblest dramatic compositions. For the heroine of the Dutch poet is a female prototype of Faust and of Tannhäuser. To have been the first to discover its fitness for the stage is a title of distinction for our playwright, and we regret our ignorance that can not link his name, as it deserves, with those greater names of Marlowe, Goethe and Wagner. His drama also affords an early instance of the effective introduction of the play within the play. It served a double purpose in this case. For not only did the show of “Maskeroon” cause Mary to repent her sinful life, but it was, at the same time, an “oratio pro domo” of the poet, as it fitly impressed the audience with the ethical value of his art. “Better than many a preaching,” was the village priest’s verdict. And we, of the twentieth century, can agree with him, though we do not share the poet’s Mariolatry. For Heaven’s joy over a repentant sinner must ever find its echo in the poetry of this world which is a gift of Heaven to its chosen. And of those chosen was our nameless author. The play of “Maskeroon” has long ceased to impress repentant Maries, but “Mary of Nimmegen” herself has attained immortality, thanks to her maker’s gift, which was of the Holy Ghost’s bestowing.
PROLOGUE
In the days that Duke Arent of Guelders was done in prison at Grave by his son Duke Adolf and his knavish fellows there dwelt three mile from Nimmegen a devout priest hight Sir Gysbrecht, and with him dwelt a fair young maid hight Mary, his sister’s daughter, whose mother was dead. And this aforesaid maid kept her uncle’s house serving him in all needful with honesty and diligence.
¶ How Sir Gysbrecht hath sent his niece Mary to Nimmegen.
It chanced that this Sir Gysbrecht would send his niece Mary to Nimmegen there to buy what so they needed, saying to her thus:
Mary!