historia teatro

« Late Medieval Drama   'I am sent from God: Deth is my name', the figure of Mors announces as he ominously intrudes into King Herod's feast and prepares to strike the over-confident king: 'To hym wyl I go and geve hym such an hete | That all the lechis [doctors] of the londe his lyf xul [shall] nevyr restore'.

Mors's unwelcome intrusion probably delighted certain members of the original audiences of the cycle of English mystery plays in which the incident occurs (Herod had been portrayed as a ranting villain and his sudden demise may have stimulated a certain sense of satisfaction).

To other observers, the entry of the figure of death may have provoked an acute and chilling unease.

At the end of the cycle of plays, God proclaims the Day of Judgement.

A virtuous soul welcomes the event and the opening prospect of heaven; the sinful souls, by contrast, dread the 'hydous horne' that summons them to judgement: 'Allas! for drede sore may we quake, | Oure dedis (deeds] beis oure dampnacioune'.

The texts of the four surviving cycles of religious dramas are none of them earlier than the mid-fifteenth century, though all four would seem to have originated in the late fourteenth century when vivid memories of the Black Death must have rendered the idea of the four last things  -. »