Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/394

 380 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH appearance of the Angel to Noah the metre changes to octaves of long lines, which continue to the end of the pageant. In the latter portion occurs a very remarkable passage. The author namely avails himself of the interval of a hundred years that elapse while Noah is absent building the ark, to introduce the apocryphal story of the death of Cain at the hands of blind Lamech, an incident not elsewhere treated in the English drama. Of this there is no hint in the Prologue, a fact which points to the play there described being the original thirteener play, the opening of which is alone extant in the text, though it cannot be held to afford actual proof that this is so. It should be observed that the stage directions in the octave portion < Hie recedat Lameth et statim intrat Noe cum navi cantantes,' ' Et sic recedant cum navi ' seem to imply a fixed open stage on to which large properties could be brought, not a movable pageant. The fifth play is the c Sacrifice of Isaac.' It is a quite regular play in oftaves, the lines of which are, however, very much shorter than in the pre- ceding piece. Like all the plays in short octaves, this of Isaac is perfectly independent, and it is marked off from its neighbours by the heading ' Introitus Abrahe ' and an c Explicit ' at the end. The description in the Prologue is couched in far too general terms to enable us to say whether it was written for the extant play or not. The sixth play contains the Giving of the Law to Moses. It is again an independent play in short octaves. The Prologue is in general agree-