Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/403

 MIRACLE CYCLES. 389 a play on the Purification. It is a quite regular play, and is entirely composed in the ten-line stanza already noticed in the 'Joseph.' Its non- appearance in the Prologue proves that the re- vision of the 'Joseph' must have been subsequent to the introduction of the ' Purgation ' and the c Midwives.' The c Massacre of the Innocents ' occupies two plays in the Prologue (xvi, xvii), but only one in the text (20). Distinctive points in the description of the former are that the Knights bring in dead children to show to Herod, and that Death appears and kills him and his knights, the Devil taking their souls. Both points appear in the text, the former, however, in a romance, the latter in a thirteener passage. In general, indeed, the earlier portion of the play is in the one, the latter in the other stanza. What seems to have happened is that an original play in thirteeners was expanded into two plays by the addition of romance matter, that the present stanzas of the Prologue were written for this expanded play, and that it was subsequently cut down again to its present dimen- sions. It should be noticed that the initial stage direction, belonging to the romance portion : 4 Tune respiciens senescallus vadyt ad Herodem,' connects with the end of the Magi play, a fact of interest alike as proving the insertion of the ' Purification ' to be later than the work of the romance reviser, and also as illustrating the tendency of that writer to contemplate continuous repre- sentation. c Christ and the Doctors,' Prologue xviii, text