Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/401

 MIRACLE CYCLES. 387 The next play, Prologue xiii, text 15, is again in short odlaves with an insertion in confused metre, and deals with the Nativity. It includes the journey to Bethlehem, the seeking of the mid- wives, the birth, and the miracle of Salome's hand. The Prologue mentions nothing but the fetching of the midwives. As regards both this and the preceding piece, there can be no question that the plays in the text and the quatrains in the Prologue are alike insertions. The proof of this statement is to be found in the following Shepherd's play, Prologue xiv, text 1 6. For the Prologue expressly says that c In the fourteenth pageant Cryst shal be born,' while no such thing happens in the text. Indeed, it is obvious that as soon as a Midwives' play was introduced into the cycle it had to include the Nativity. In the play itself we find that the first stanza, ' Gloria in Excelsis,' and one subsequent one are thirteeners, while all the rest, except for one short passage misplaced, are romance stanzas. pages blank for the 'conclusyon' by Con templatio which he knew he had to expedl. When he was then handed the prologue to play 14 he made use of the last of these blank pages for the inser- tion. Next he received, not only Contemplatio's 'conclusyon,' but 'three and a half additional octaves to the text of play 13. All this had to be crowded into something less than a page and a half, and a very tight fit it was. I may point out that the three lines printed by Halliwell on p. 128: ' Come and (should be I) pray yow specialy ; Iwys ye are welcome, Mary ; For this comfortabelest comynge, good God, gramercy !' have no business where they are. The manuscript adds them in the margin as an alternative ending in place of the 28 lines that follow.