The Second Shepherds' Play

Bring a Bob of Cherries, a Bird, or a Ball, for Christ is Born!

[“Adoration of the Shepherds” by an unknown artist a part of the Google Art Project. Wikimedia Commons]

The Second Shepherds’ Play is a difficult work to read, particularly in its original late Middle English vernacular. But even a modernized version doesn’t alter the fact that it’s an odd little work! Moreover, reading drama entails a different kind of reading approach than is typical for most of us—one more attuned to hearing the language and picturing for oneself what is happening (a tip to keep in mind when we tackle Romeo and Juliet).

So let’s take a moment to be sure we have the basic plot down before we dive in.

The play opens with three shepherds, entering the field one by one, complaining bitterly about their current lot: high taxes and the heavy oppression of their lords (Coll, the First Shepherd), cold weather and the travails of wedded life (Gib, the Second Shepherd), and the recent floods, such as the world has never seen since the days of Noah (!) and the hard lives of men like these who must labor so hard while their masters sleep and don’t even pay on time (Daw, the Third Shepherd).¹ The men cheer themselves by singing until the appearance of Mak, whom the shepherds know to be a scoundrel (despite his ridiculous attempt to disguise himself as a messenger of the king). Mak complains of a wife who drinks too much and gives birth to too many children, and then they all settle in to sleep—keeping Mak in the middle where they wrongly think they can keep him out of trouble. But Mak casts a spell to make the three shepherds sleep deeply while he makes off with a fat wether (a castrated ram), takes it home, and agrees to his wife Gill’s plan to disguise the sheep as a newborn baby when the shepherds inevitably come looking for their property. The trick works—at first. But when the shepherds turn back to bring the new “baby” a gift, they discover that the swaddled creature in the cradle has a snout and is, in fact, their missing sheep. The shepherds punish Mak by tossing him in a blanket (more on that in a moment) and leave again. Back in the field, an angel appears, singing, “Gloria in excelsis” and beckons them to come see the Christ child in the stable at Bethlehem. The shepherds go (yes, they quickly move from England to Bethlehem, but never mind that), they worship the child and give him their humble gifts: a bob of cherries, a bird, and a ball. Mary urges them to go forth and tell what they have seen and heard.

Before we dig into the story a bit more, let’s consider some background.

The Second Shepherds’ Play is a mystery play. Mystery plays appear in groups or cycles depicting the major stories from the Bible, from Creation to the Last Judgment, and were produced in pageants in medieval towns. (The plays and cycles usually bear the name of the town that produced the plays.) Each play was set up on a wagon. The audience would remain in one place and a succession of wagons would stop before the gathered crowd for its performance before moving on to the next group gathered. The manuscript containing The Second Shepherds’ Play contains several others believed to be by the same author, including another about shepherds set at the nativity. The one we are reading is the second one in the manuscript—hence the title (sometimes rendered as The Second Shepherds’ Pageant). The plays are called mystery plays not because they portray the mysteries of the biblical stories, it is believed, but because each play was put on by one or more of the various craft guilds or masters in the town. Often the guild that would be responsible for a particular play was one that had the materials needed to depict that drama—water drawers could supply water for the flood story, for example, and butchers and pinners could provide the blood and nails needed for the crucifixion. Modern reenactments of these plays continue to be produced, and you can find many of them, of varying quality, on YouTube. Here’s a 2018 production of The York Crucifixion Play

Another interesting aspect of the background of these plays is that they developed centuries earlier out of far simpler church liturgies—short, scripted calls and responses that were part of the service and followed events in the church calendar. Even non-liturgical traditions like my own Baptist one retain a very slight remnant of these ancient liturgies when during Easter the pastor says, “He is risen,” and the congregants respond, “He is risen, indeed!” And of course most churches have some version of a Christmas pageant, whether a high-tech professional production with lights, choirs, and dancing—or a simpler children’s version involving bathrobes and a baby doll.

The mystery plays obviously take great liberty with the biblical narratives they dramatize. A number of things can be said about this. First, most of the people in the audience would have been illiterate or even if they were able to read wouldn’t have owned a Bible. So these plays were one way in which the masses could learn these stories. These stories were also conveyed through sermons and stained glass windows in churches, so the people knew these productions were entertaining dramatizations, filled (as this play is) with obvious anachronisms and the transportation of faraway events and people into their own time, language, and location. The plays didn’t so much try to portray the biblical narrative as they are recorded in Scripture, but rather as these stories continue to “happen” and have meaning in our own lives. Not surprisingly, the Protestant Reformation would have a lot to say about these sorts of things. Indeed, the plays eventually were banned (again) by the church (they were banned several times across the centuries).² Interestingly enough, this prohibition inadvertently helped make way for Shakespeare.

The Second Shepherds’ Play also features qualities that would be developed in Elizabethan drama, including the transportation of histories and stories from one geographical location to another, the easy juxtaposition of the serious and the comical, and the use of the comic subplot to illuminate the main plot.

The Second Shepherds’ Play is considered to be the first English comedy (“comedy” here refers to drama specifically). It is certainly the culmination of English drama to this point (the 15^th century). Its versification is quite complex, consisting of nine-line stanzas with lines of differing but regularly repeating length, an intricate rhyme scheme, and alliterative half lines that hark back to Old English poetry, It’s not only the Middle English poetry that makes the play hard to read and understand, but it’s the Middle English of a rural, northern dialect of England to boot.

One of my favorite passages is from the first scene (lines 368-69, if you have an edition with numbers), in which the shepherds are discussing Mak before they discover the missing sheep:

Third Shepherd: Methought he was lapped in a wolf-skin.

First Shepherd: So many happed now—mainly within.

Daw is saying he thought Mak was a wolf, up to something sinister. And Coll says that so many today can’t be trusted—they wear their wolf skins on the inside.

The Second Shepherds’ Play reads for the most part, at first anyway, as a kind of lowbrow, slapstick farce—which it is. (Chaucer prepared us, though, right?) It might be tempting to see the play as just this, or mainly this, with a bit of the nativity story clumsily tacked on at the end. But that is not how to read it at all.

The long prelude to the nativity develops all the central themes of that event. The shepherds are, like the Israelites, the most downtrodden people of their time and place (medieval England), oppressed by the weather, their labor, their lords and ladies, and even one another. They are awakened twice: once after being put under a spell by Mak, and later, sleeping under the spell of human sin and oppression, they are awakened by the angel announcing the birth of their Savior.

The point on which the entire first plot twists is a gesture of unmerited grace and charity when—out of no obligation at all—Coll, the First Shepherd, suggests they return to Mak’s cottage to give the “child” a gift, a foreshadowing of their visit to the real child that will come. Because they do this—make this return visit to offer a gift of grace and charity—they discover Mak’s crime, and therefore are able to pursue justice. Yet, even in this, they give grace. Sheep stealing was a capital offense. But the shepherds instead subject Mak to a blanket toss (which, by the way, was no easy punishment and was a lot like being beat up—but still better than death).

Thus, the entire lesser story leading up to the greater story prepares us for the meaning of that greater story. The greater story removes the shepherds from their local time, place, and concerns and places them in the presence of the Messiah, whose birth was for all people in all times and all places. That story is the story of pure gift—the gift of Christ given for us, and because he has given himself, we are able to bring to him our bobs of cherries, our birds, and our balls. We are even able to return mercy for offense, as he did. The stolen lamb in Mak and Gill’s cottage both parodies and points us to the true Lamb, given for us.

Speaking of gifts, I’ve been meaning to mention for some time that if you are a regular reader of this newsletter and would like to participate in the conversation we have here but cannot afford a paid subscription, I’d like to give you one. Simply email me at karenswallowprior@gmail.com and let me know. It would be my pleasure.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May the year bring you newness in all the most important ways.

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Up next:

• Everyman (It’s in the Dover edition linked above and also here.)

• Romeo and Juliet: our guest writer, Jack Heller, recommends the Folger edition (whether print or online).

• We’ll enjoy a few of Shakespeare’s sonnets after that.

P. S. Here’s a reading plan created by our friend Matt Franck for reading through Shakespeare in a year if you want to give that a try: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2023/12/92118/.

1. I recently came across a person raising the question of when it would be the right time for Christians to rise up in rebellion against the U. S. government because of … high taxes. This was a stay-at-home mom who wished her husband didn’t have to work so much. Now, I don’t like taxes any more than the next person, but honestly, all I could think, is Lady, have you ever read any history? We are a spoiled people. Just ask Coll, Gib, Daw, and Mak. And Gill. Especially Gill.

2. Here’s more on all this history: https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Chester-Mystery-Plays/