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The Towneley Harrowing of Hell

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Mendal G. Frampton*
Affiliation:
Pomona College

Extract

The Towneley play on the Harrowing of Hell, play xxv, derives throughout most of its length from the York play on the same subject, York xxxvii. Towneley, however, varies from York constantly in wording, omits some Y lines, and transmits others in varied degrees of confusion. It also contains considerable writing in septenar quatrains and trimeter double quatrains which, in form and content, have no relation whatever to Y xxxvii as it has come down to us. As the York play is composed of thirty-four perfectly regular stanzas of twelve lines each, the variations of T have given rise to many suggestions in an effort to account for them. It is the purpose of this paper to study these suggestions and the play itself in the hope that from such a study a solution of the complex problem offered by the composite nature of T may emerge with sufficient clarity to warrant belief.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , March 1941 , pp. 105 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1941

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References

Note 1 in page 107 It is true that T lines 128–129 now carry four accents but that they were originally trimeter is shown by the inclusion of them in the metrical scheme of the stanza and by the ease with which they can be restored to trimeter form by the excision of the word “Nay” and the words “king and” respectively.

Note 2 in page 108 If T stanza 59 were derived from Y it would, if restored to that play, follow stanza 25. In that stanza Jesus tells Satan that he is going to take his (Jesus's) “folke” to “þe place of pees” but that Satan “schall fulfille þber wooe with-outen ende.” Satan's reply in the opening lines of the following stanza in Y, stanza 26, are as follows:

Owe! þanne se I howe þou mouys emang, 301
Some mesure with malice to melle,
Sen þou sais all schall noзt gang,
But some schalle alway with vs dwelle. 304

These words are a pure non-sequitur as Jesus has said nothing to show he was going to “mell” (mingle) “some mesure” (moderation) with his “malice” nor has he even suggested that some may remain with Satan. T stanza 59, however, maintains continuity with the ideas of Y stanza 25 perfectly. It is true that it, like Y lacks continuity with what follows, but T, as it proceeds, after stumbling with the first two lines quoted above, alters the last two in order to restore continuity with what follows in both T and Y. If T stanza 59 were once in Y and if its lost Cauda contained the assertion by Jesus that he would leave the sinners with Satan, the continuity of Y as we have it would be restored completely and the changes in T would become unnecessary. The evidence seems to me convincing.

Note 3 in page 108 The expansion of trimeter lines in T is not uncommon even when the lines are cauda lines and thus marked in nature. Such expansions occur in lines 63, 64, 85, 88, 99, 100, 244, 277, 332a, and 351 certain and probably in others where the scansion is uncertain. Some irregularity in the lines of the septenar quatrains is not, therefore, exceptional. It should not be allowed to obscure their original form.

Note 4 in page 109 Alfred W. Pollard, “The Towneley Plays,” Early English Text Society, Extra Series, lxxi, xviii.

Note 5 in page 109 Charles Davidson, Studies in the English Mystery Plays, 151–152.

Note 6 in page 109 Chester B. Curtiss, “The York and Towneley Plays on the Harrowing of Hell,” SP, xxx, 31–32.

Note 7 in page 109 Op. cit., 150.

Note 8 in page 109 Op. cit., xviii.

Note 9 in page 111 Op. cit., 150–152.

Note 10 in page 111 Ibid., 152.

Note 11 in page 111 Op. cit., 152.

Note 12 in page 111 Op. cit., 31.

Note 13 in page 111 Op. cit., 25.—This position underlies his whole case.

Note 14 in page 112 It cannot be argued that the Gospel was not known to T. The poem was widely known and the trimeter editor reflects it in his original lines 132–133 which reflect the Gospel lines 1194, 1219 and 1407.

Note 15 in page 112 Op. cit., 26.

Note 16 in page 112 Op. cit., 28, n. 8.

Note 17 in page 113 Davidson apparently thought thus as he has written the word Moses into his copy of the York plays opposite line 369. I have this copy, with its many valuable emendations, by his bequest.

Note 18 in page 113 See Curtiss, op. cit., 26–28.

Note 19 in page 114 Op. cit., xviii.

Note 20 in page 114 Marie C. Lyle, “The Original Identity of the York and Townley Cycles,” Research Publications of the University of Minnesota, viii, No. 3 (1919), 53–54.

Note 21 in page 114 There are in T as in Y many variations due to corruption from one cause or another, of course. As I talk of the variations I do not mean all variations, as some must have entered T after its derivation by any theory.

Note 22 in page 115 Hohlfeld lists 336. His added four must be T stanza 35 looked upon as a transmission, however poor, of Y lines 181–184. Alexander Hohlfeld, “Altenglischen Kollektivmisterium, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Verhältnisses der York und Towneley-Spiele,” Anglia, xi, 301.

Note 23 in page 115 T lines 28, 188, 225, 245b, 262, 355, 374, 394 and 396; Y lines 99, 160, and 269.

Note 24 in page 115 T lines 118, 120 and 214.

Note 25 in page 115 lines 262, 394 and 396; Y line 160.

Note 26 in page 115 Op. cit., 25–26.

Note 27 in page 115 I have no intention to suggest that Y is not also better than T in many readings. Two notable examples are “gilery” in Une 160 for “glory” in T line 163 and “obitte” in line 269 for “ilke” in T line 283.

Note 28 in page 117 Only the beginning of the Latin is given in the second passage but its familiarity is vouched for by the word “etc” as substitute for the omitted words.

Note 29 in page 118 Miss Smith, in her analysis of the meters of the Y cycle, lists no septenars. Lucy T. Smith, “The York Mystery Plays,” li–lii.

Note 30 in page 118 The scansion of T xx is often difficult, but stanzas 55–79 seem all to be septenar and many single septenar quatrains are easy to single out. Probably many not now septenar were once in septenar form.

Note 31 in page 118 Op. cit., 153.

Note 32 in page 118 Op. cit., 28.

Note 33 in page 119 In his attempted recovery of Y stanzas 16–17 the editor also ascribes speeches of Satan and Beelzebub to Rybald, a fact which further supports Pollard's theory as to the way the Y lines were acquired.