Mankind (play)

Mankind
Written by	Unknown
Characters	Mercy Mischief Newguise Nowadays Nought Mankind Titivillus
Date premiered	c.1470
Place premiered	East Anglia
Original language	English
Genre	Morality play

Mankind is an English medieval morality play, written c.1470. The play is a moral allegory about Mankind, a representative of the human race, and follows his fall into sin and his repentance. Its author is unknown; the manuscript is signed by a monk named Hyngham, but he was probably only the scribe since some of the textual oddities are believed to derive from his miscopying of parts of the text because he was not familiar with it.

Date

In his critical edition of the play published by the Early English Text Society in 1969, Eccles argues for a date between 1465 and 1470. Wickham, in his Dent edition of 1976, agrees, finally settling on 1470.^[1] Similarly, Lester, in his New Mermaids edition of 1981, offers between 1464 and 1471.^[2] Baker and, following his suggestion, Southern agree on a date of 1466.^[3]

Synopsis

The play is a moral allegory about Mankind, a representative of the human race, and follows his fall into sin and his repentance. The audience is instructed in the proper Christian life by watching Mankind's fall and redemption, but also by being taken through the same process themselves.

The play begins with Mercy, who instructs the audience in how they should behave but is soon interrupted by Mischief (whose name indicates, in fifteenth-century English, something much more serious than the 'prank' it means now). Mischief mocks Mercy's preaching. A page is then missing in the manuscript. When the play resumes, Mischief has departed and the three Worldlings have arrived: New Guise (i.e, 'Fashion), Nowadays (i.e. 'living for today') and Nought (i.e. 'nothingness'). They continue the mockery of Mercy, and included among their scornful remarks is one of the raunchiest jokes in all medieval drama (it involves both oral sex and the Pope--lines 145-46). Mischief and the Worldlings seem funny and interesting; their evil is downplayed here--they like to drink and dance. After their exit, Mercy again addresses the audience, explaining why the Worldlings are evil and urging the audience to not follow their example.

Mankind enters, and addresses the audience, introducing himself. He is a farmer, and is resolved to live a virtuous life. Mercy instructs Mankind about how to continue in this goal, warning him specifically about Mischief and the three Worldlings. But Mankind has to stand against temptation on his own, and so Mercy leaves.

The Worldlings promptly return to tempt Mankind. But first, they tempt the audience, inviting them to join them in singing a 'Christmas song'. The song begins all right, but quickly turns scatological, but the damage is done; the audience, if they have sung along, have fallen into sin even before Mankind does. Indeed, when the Worldlings turn their attention to Mankind, he successfully resists their enticements and beats them off with his spade, which symbolizes that he avoids sin by doing his work diligently.

Evil does not give up so easily, however. Mischief returns, and conspires with the Worldlings to bring in a greater devil, Titivillus. But first, they need money, and they turn to the audience for it; they say they will not bring on Titivillus until they have collected enough. And here, the audience is put into an unwinnable quandary. In the context of the play's story, giving money at this point would be paying to see the devil--a clear sin. But in real life, of course, the money goes to pay the players, and being a freeloader at the play is also a sin. The audience, then, is put into a position in which they, even before Mankind does, inescapably becomes sinful.

When the audience has finally, apparently, scraped together enough cash, Titivillus enters, and begins immediately making Mankind's life difficult. He hardens the ground, making it hard to farm. He steals Mankind's seed and spade. He makes him have to go to the bathroom. He distracts him from his prayers. Finally Mankind becomes so frustrated that he gives up and goes to sleep, and Titivillus whispers to him that Mercy is dead. Through his scene, Titivillus implores the audience to keep silent and watch him, which makes the audience complicit in his actions. The audience can see him, but he is invisible to Mankind. Again, the audience is in an unwinnable situation--if they were good fellow Christians, they would warn Mankind about this danger. But if they are good audience members, they must stay silent. Either choice is fraught, and the audience is again made sinful.

Thus deluded, Mankind rejects Mercy and goes to join the Worldlings. But now their full evil is revealed. Mischief has been in jail, and has escaped, robbed the jailer, and raped his wife. New Guise has narrowly escaped hanging. Nowadays has robbed a church. The Worldlings have Mankind swear vows to join their gang, vows which also show their depravity--to be a highway robber, to seduce women, to 'rob, steal, and kill as fast as you may go' (708).

When they leave, Mercy returns to plead with the audience about the unreliability of Mankind, and to pray for his redemption.

The Worldlings reveal to Mankind that Mercy is not really dead, and tempt him to kill himself rather than face Mercy. But Mercy chases them away.

The final struggle for Mankind's redemption is with himself. Mercy tells him all that he must do to be forgiven is to ask, but Mankind finds this difficult and raises a series of objections. The theology of the ending of the play is very careful. The focus is on perseverance, on living as a Christian even while continuing to sin, even while trying not to, and having to repeatedly ask for mercy for those offenses. Mankind finally accepts Mercy, and then promptly tries to blame the devils for his problems, but Mercy reminds him that he warned Mankind about them (and the audience, too, we should remember). For the play ends with Mercy addressing the audience again, exhorting them to repentance. Just as they fell into sin, like Mankind, like him they can be redeemed from it.

References

1. ^ Wickham (1976, 1, 7).
2. ^ Lester (1981, xiv).
3. ^ Southern (1973, 23).

Sources

• Baker, Donald C. 1963. "The Date of Mankind." Philological Quarterly 42 (1 Jan): 90-91.
• Lester, G. A., ed. 1981. Three Late Medieval Morality Plays. The New Mermaids ser. London: A&C Black. ISBN 0713632720.
• Southern, Richard. 1973. The Staging of Plays Before Shakespeare. London: Faber. ISBN 0571101321.
• Wickham, Glynne, ed. 1976. English Moral Interludes. London: Dent. ISBN 0460113038.

External links

• [1] Full Middle English text with a modern translation of the play.