Introduction
1. For an excellent initiation to this vast historical and theological subject, see Ozment, Age of Reform and Protestants; and Christian Spirituality, ed. Raitt.
2. For more on the Basoche, see Harvey’s signature TB; Bouhaïk-Gironès, Les Clercs de la Basoche; ROMD, chap. 3; FF, 4–13; and PF, chap. 1.
3. The procurator general of Paris, a rough equivalent of an attorney general, cited by Sainte-Beuve in Tableau historique, 193–95; and in DBD, 107–8, 221–22.
4. Cited by Lebègue, Mystère des actes des apôtres, 30–31.
5. François Vinchant, Annales de la province et comté du Hainaut, 5: 267, cited in DBD, 223.
6. Rousse devotes vol. 5 of TFFMA to these societies; also discussed at length by Reid in “Carnival in Rouen” and “Triumph of the Abbey,” both analyzed by Guynn in PF, e.g., 30–31.
7. As this book was going to press, Representations published a dazzling special issue in 2021, titled “Practices of Devotion” edited by Eleanor Craig, Amy Hollywood, and Chris Trujillo (https://online.ucpress.edu/representations/issue/153/1; accessed 15 March 2021).
8. On this rich topic—confession sans repentance in the Roman de la Rose (v. 6924)—see, e.g., Tentler, Sin and Confession, 3–30; and, more generally, PF, 111–125.
9. See Pouchelle on “secret places” as both the female reproductive organs and the latrine (Body and Surgery in the Middle Ages, 134), the latter the site of the messy denouement of The Shithouse (HD, #2).
10. The Constitutions of 1322, cited in Baverstock, Priest as Confessor, 63. You can see a lovely image of an outdoor confession here: https://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Medieval-priest-giving-confession.jpg (accessed 13 April 2021).
11. For my revision of Goffman’s “bracketing” in Frame Analysis, see MBA, 8–11. I coined the term “pseudoperformativity” in “History Trouble,” by which I mean the appearance or fantasy of a performative that is not one.
12. See Hardison’s seminal revisitation of E. K. Chambers and Karl Young in CRCD, Essay 1; ROMD, 54–68; and Dox, Idea of the Theater, 74–85.
13. I draw here on Cusa’s “coincidence of opposites”: a thing “either is or it is not. It is and it is not. It neither is nor is not.” See, e.g., Hopkins, Concise Introduction, 8–9; and Colie, Paradoxia Epidemica.
14. Rose, vv. 5537–38; quoted in Horgan’s translation, p. 85. From a massive bibliography, see, e.g., Kelly, Internal Difference and Meanings, 43–53; and Fleming, “Words and Things,” chap. 3 of Reason and the Lover.
15. Rose, vv. 6981–82; and Horgan, p. 106. N.B.: Heldris de Cournälle’s thirteenth-century Roman de Silence, the summa of language, gender, cross-dressing, and performance, features two characters named Eufémie and Eufème. Coincidence? I think not.
16. Montaiglon elides coilles or vit in #2, Blue Confessions, ATF, 1: 375; and in #11, Slick Brother Willy, ATF, 1: 321.
17. See also Hequembourg, “Literally: How to Speak like an Absolute Knave.” I’ve also blogged about this in “To Laugh or Not to Laugh,” https://pennpress.typepad.com/pennpresslog/2019/04/to-laugh-or-not-to-laugh.html (accessed 21 July 2019).
18. Théâtre et propagande, ed. Beck, vv. 220–21. Estelle Doudet is one of the few to have studied the politics of this fascinating play in “Les Clefs de l’Église.”
19. Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377–1421, ed. Given-Wilson, 120–21; below, #12, § “Plot.”
20. For Sébillet, who also treats the blason, see APF, 161, 169–74; AG, 9–12; for the selected legislation, see MES, 329–38.
21. On Baudrillard, “Simulacra,” 178; and Eco, “Interpreting Drama,” 105, see MBA, e.g., 11, 43–46, 128–29.
22. See HDTW, 14–24; Gould, “The Unhappy Performative,” esp. 28–31; and my discussion of the relevance of this terminology for medieval theater studies in MBA, 34–36, 109–20.
23. MacKinnon, Feminism Unmodified (201, 218, 144, 128), cited and discussed by Steiner, Scandal of Pleasure, 66, 69, 211.
24. See Penley on Ed Cray’s Erotic Muse (40) in “Crackers and Whackers,” 104.
About This Translation
1. The most complete records of medieval performance in France are RTC and Rousse’s amplification thereof in TFFMA, vol. 4 (his magisterial unpublished, five-volume thèse d’état).
2. For more details, see RF, 1: 15–19; Faivre, Répertoire, 9–28; RFlorence, 7–16; and Droz, RTLS, xi–xiv.
3. On 23 March 2016, I accessed the RLV here: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b90631556/f1.image.r=24341%20Valli%C3%A8re.
4. Martin’s editions are available only online at https://sottiesetfarces.wordpress.com/about/ (accessed 19 March 2019). The Table of Contents appears on the “Préface” page.
5. Cited in translation by Virginia Scott in her exceptional Women on the Stage, 59–72; see also Susannah Crowder’s resurrection of the lives of four women in the theater of Metz in Performing Women.
6. See it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwO4B_pxI7s (accessed 21 January 2017).
7. The present farces do not stage the Benedictine Monks (Black Monks), the Cistercians (White Monks), or the Carthusians (silent monks); so, I won’t take them up here. Too bad about the Benedictines: I was dying to work in the Trappist monks and their famous beer. For an initiation into medieval monasticism, I highly recommend volumes 16 and 17 of Christian Spirituality, i.e., Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. McGinn and High Middle Ages to Reformation, ed. Raitt; the engaging introductions by Geltner to Making of Medieval Antifraternalism (1–9) and Rayborn to Against the Friars (1–31); and the excellent entry on “Medieval Monasticism” in the Catholic Encyclopedia: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10472a.htm (accessed 17 February 2017).
8. See the still useful New Schaff-Herzog, 2: 418; or 1: 213 of the revised ed.
9. For further elaboration, see FF, 49–50, 374–75; HD, 29–30.
10. Between 1360 and 1641, the coins minted as 1 livre tournois were called francs and, per the Littré, were worth 20 sous; these were eventually replaced by the écu in 1577, the primary gold coin in circulation in France.
Actors’ Prologue
1. “Losing My Religion.” By Robert Baskaran, William Berry, Peter Buck, Michael Mills, John Michael Stipe, and Brian Wakefield. BMI Work #20325189.
Play 1. The Con-Man’s Confession
1. For more on the société joyeuse des conards, see Reid, “Carnival in Rouen” and “Triumph of the Abbey.”
2. Matilda’s vous could be for the audience or for an initially unseen Connor. Protection from vilenie (v. 4) also connoted venereal evil; plus, the purgative language is that of catharsis: purger il se convient / Par tres vraye confession (vv. 8–9).
3. Quaresme (v. 25) looks as much like “Lent” (caresme) as it does a variant of the number four.
4. With vous n’avés plus sens qu’une beste (v. 48), I hear an echo of Psalm 73:22: “So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee.”
5. Alternatively, one could break the scene here and have Connor deliver the rest as a soliloquy.
6. In the original (fols. 3–4), this whole long speech (vv. 74–100) is attributed unambiguously to Roger; but v. 80 is missing at the crucial juncture: Et s’on ne veult a moy entendre / … / Ainsi je me suis bien passé / Quatre ans sans estre confessé (vv. 79–82). This is farce, I know, but what are the odds that both men would have gone four years without confession? If you buy the coincidence, you could add this line to Roger’s previous speech: “And that’s how I’ve managed to go four years without confession.” Or Connor could interrupt with: “Right, but I haven’t been for four years and I’d kinda like to keep it that way.”
7. Another possible meta-allusion to the Conards with Je ne fais pas conart ni lourt (v. 85; my emphasis). Interestingly enough, Roger speaks of “mon curé” (v. 86), possibly implying that he confesses at a different church nearby. Note also the spelling of absolution, which looks suspiciously like assault: Je dy ouy, lors il m’assault (v. 91).
8. Given the Easter setting and the mention of a larre (v. 99), the term typically employed for the three thieves crucified with Jesus, I’ve added the Barabbas reference.
9. To account for a marked difference of language and tone, I’ve doubled Connor’s lyrical apostrophe: Mon povre cueur forment souspire / Quant je ne puis trouver sejour / Pour alleger ma grief douleur / Que jour et nuyt si ne me fine, / Je suis bien mis a discipline (104–8).
10. Vueillés abreger (v. 127): abreger often appears in the theological distillations of the quodlibet; see, e.g., my “Theater of Scholastic Erudition,” 345–56. And, yes, there are three terms of endearment within the space of five verses: mon amy doulx, beau filz, and mon amy (vv. 124–27).
11. Sire, je suis […] bien souvent, / Que j’ay ouvré huyt jours ou tant / Sur deux clochers merveilleurs hauts / Et n’ay eu pour jour que deux saulx (vv. 139–42). Deux saulx almost certainly means money—two sous—but it also looks like a “jump” or even a “fall.” Plus, when Connor says s’a esté par ma follie (v. 145), it sounds vaguely like how the French would begin confession: C’est ma faute, c’est ma très grande faute.
12. The official is a prevost (v. 158), a cross between a judge, a magistrate, an attorney general, and a chief of police (key players in my next volume). Martin thinks that the delict in question is working on a Sunday or a religious holiday (SFQS, note 86).
13. In this exchange, the joke is about sleeves and sackcloths: Dont il te fault aller en lange followed by Connor’s Tousjours je suis jusqu’a la manche (vv. 199–200). A lange is normally some kind of penitential shirt made of rough wool.
14. These charming allusions to a near personified “shirt”—a forerunner to Bridget Jones’s “skirt?”—are also reminiscent of Jenin, Filz de Rien (RBM, #20), scheduled for my next volume as Who’s Your Daddy?
15. Among Connor’s more theologically consonant statements: Or suis je de tous mes pechez, / De quoy j’estoye moult chargez / Asoubz et ay remission / Par ce prestrë et vray pardon (vv. 247–50). Meanwhile, a joyeuse chançon / Pour l’amour de Marion (vv. 253–54) sounds as Marianic as it does pastoral, as in Adam de la Halle’s popular Robin et Marion (in FCMF, 77–104).
16. The specific denomination is a poujoyse (RTLF, 62n); see above, “ABT,” § “Money, Money, Money.”
17. The Middle French envoi reads: Seigneurs, ne prenez en diffame / Nostre petit esbatement. / Nous prirons Dieu du firmament / Qu’il vueille vous et nous garder / Et mieulx que Rifflart confesser (vv. 274–78). Or, if you don’t mind switching to pentameter, you could try: “God bless us! God forgive us our transgressions! / He’ll do without the con jobs at confession.”
Play 2. Blue Confessions
1. For Liebman’s comedy, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60I_GK7E3FQ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hbH9j8Sz1Q (both accessed 28 February 2017).
2. On the musicality of processionals, see Collins, Production of Medieval Church Music-Drama, 143–49; Ogden’s comprehensive Staging of Drama in the Medieval Church, 39–121; and, for farce’s own sacrilegious spin on it, HD, 215–25.
3. See MTOC, 170–85; Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanor, 170–71; and Ashley on the obligation to participate in pardon parades, “Social Functions,” 43–47.
4. This is Penley’s reading of male characters in porn (“Crackers and Whackers,” 104). On the theory and practice of sodomy, see Jordan, Invention of Sodomy; Burgwinkle, Sodomy, Masculinity, and Law; and Goldberg’s groundbreaking Sodometries.
5. On “Estula,” see Bloch, Scandal of the Fabliaux, 35–36; and #3, Highway Robbery (§ “Plot”).
6. For music, and with thanks to S. C. Kaplan, “Goin’ Down”© by The Pretty Reckless covers it, as would Britten’s “Hodie,”© Lenka’s “Trouble,”© etc.
7. For empesché (1: 373; RF, 6: 392, v. 5), with heretical connotations in Con-Man’s Confession (RTLF, v. 166; #1, § “Characters and Character Development”), also meant “troubled,” “tormented,” “hot and bothered,” “horny,” or, for Martin, that the Priest didn’t know what to do with his erection (SFQS, note 5).
8. In RBM-a, this is the first mention of Margot’s husband (later than in ATF, 1: 373): Ha! sire, de ce suis honnye, / Car le curé de nostre ville / Angrossie m’a d’une fille, / Que j’ay donnée à mon mary (RF, 6: 396, vv. 25–28). Is Margot revealing her pregnancy to the bastard-child’s baby-daddy? Is she lactating under an ample cape? Is she hiding yet another baby bump?
9. It’s Romme in the ATF, the papal city of Rome (1: 373); but in RBM-a, it’s Rosne, i.e., the Rhône (RF, 6: 398, v. 41), associated with the contested papal site and cardinals’ debauchery at Avignon (RF, 6: 399n; SFQS, note 11).
10. In RBM-a, the legalistic agency is more “absolute”: Serez absolute pour certain (RF, 6: 400, v. 53). And could a plain (ATF, 1: 374) be a pun on pregnancy? She’s all filled up?
11. This is that moment about “lodging” vs. “having lodged” (RF, 6: 404, vv. 75–79; above, § “Language”). As Margot’s account becomes increasingly graphic, this could be the moment to hint at fiddling about.
12. Lequel tenoit entre ses doys, / A plain poing, une gente chose (ATF, 1: 375). Compare this to when Slick Brother Willy takes his genitals in hand (see #11, note 22).
13. At ATF, 1: 375, he might deliver this line à la Dana Carvey’s Church Lady from SNL. Here is where the original couille (RBM, iii) was suppressed (ATF, 1: 375).
14. With its capuchon (ATF, 1: 376)—a hood, cape, or cloak, usually for women—this sounds like a not-so-veiled pun on the Capuchin monks and their mini-Monks: members of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin. Founded in 1529, this austere order drew inspiration from the teachings and missionary work of Francis of Assisi.
15. If the latticed opening functions here as a glory hole, is a sausage passed through?
16. Here is fatrouillé (ATF, 1: 377; above, § “Language”).
17. This is the possible lapsus discussed above (§ “Language”), where the Priest may be implying a present “warming up” (ATF, 1: 377). A good moment to drop that Bible.
18. This graphic moment from RBM-a is much shorter than the corresponding description in ATF (1: 377) and almost too pornographic to conjure visually: Encore vous recite / En ce vert boys d’ung hermite, / Qui tenoit en son poing ung membre / Très dur; l’a boute à mon ventre / Plus q’ung petit à faire saulce. / Il parut bien que je fus faulse / Quant son membre tyra l’hermite: / Il estoit plus mol q’une mitte. / Je m’en confesse et repens (RF, 6: 406–8, vv. 80–88).
19. As penance or instead of penance? Two different readings from the two versions: “pour pénitence” (ATF, 1: 378) vs. “en lieu de penitance” (RF, 6: 414; v. 100). Meanwhile, there’s something deeply obscene about the Priest’s brothers of the belt and seigner (be it bleeding, signing, or belting): Qu’à tous les freres de nostre ordre / Et à tous ceulx qui seignent la corde (RF, 6: 414; vv. 102–04); see #6, Brother Fillerup, § “Plot.”
20. Compare this passage from RBM-a (RF, 6: 416–18, vv. 112–17) to the final scene of Blind Man’s Buff, when servant Thomasina—or the actress playing her—is offered up to the audience as a whore for sale (FF, 191–93).
21. This was as close as I could get to Martin’s ingenious recovery of the double entendre—in oral homonymy only—of in secula secolorum (1: 379 [sic]). While it means “forever and ever,” the Latin would have been pronounced “ces culs-là, ces culs l’auront,” yielding something like: “[The assholes have it!] In those assholes [out] there! Those assholes will win!” or “Those assholes will get it in the end!” (SFQS, note 45).
22. Possible closing music: “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”;© “Papa Don’t Preach”;© or “Amen”© from Lilies of the Field.
Play 3. Highway Robbery
1. See RFlorence, 178n. At one point, the Highwayman speaks a phrase that stumped Cohen: Sire Mors, mon amy (vv. 179)—or Morise (SFQS, note 74)—but I suspect wordplay that I’ve teased out below (note 21). Mors sounds an awful lot like a cross between “Sir Death” and “Bite me, good sir!, goddammit!” (mor bieu).
2. Saint Julian, recognizable to any reader of the Golden Legend, the Decameron, or Gustave Flaubert’s Trois Contes, was the patron saint of travelers along with such farce-leaning types as carnival workers, clowns, jugglers, and fiddlers. See, e.g., http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/julian.asp (accessed 10 June 2018); and the lovely image of Julian and his oar in SFQS.
3. Here is the Middle French of the Brigant’s musical opening (vv. 1–12):
Je suis desconfit de quinquaille,
Tout mon argent est despendu.
A malle hart soit-il pendu
Qui soustient ne denier ne maille!
Or n’est-il rien qui ne me faille
Et grant planté d’escuz vieulx.
Ma robe a le ventre creux
Depuis que je n’ay eu nul gaige.
Tout me fauldra en mon mesnaige,
Du pain, du lart et du fourmaige.
Je ne le tiendray pas à saige
Qui passera ains que je couche.
4. When the Priest says je ne crains rien (v. 25), I hear a spin on Psalm 23:4, which, like most of his “theology,” is garbled.
5. In the RC, A mort! A mort! (v. 37) is attributed to the Brigant; but it’s the usual cry of the victim, not the perp. Koopmans suggests addressing the anomaly via staging (RFlorence, 174n); but I suspect that the line has simply been misattributed. I’ve split the difference.
6. Je te mettray la dague au corps, / Par la chair Dieu, se tu dis mot (vv. 51–52): with this sacrilegious, sexual, noneuphemistic evocation of the wounding of Christ’s flesh, the Highwayman switches to the familiar tu.
7. While Koopmans stresses that ma tasse is a synonym for “purse” or “pocket” (vv. 55–56; RFlorence, 174n), the image of the collection plate or beggar’s cup works well.
8. At vv. 80–83, this is the mangled Sursum corda, the antiphonal exhortation that congregants “lift up their hearts” at Mass. It includes “The Lord be with you.—And also with you” (SFQS, note 29; above, § “Language”). It seems to have crossed here with the Benedicite Dominum of Lauds, “Praise the Lord and magnify Him forever.”
9. Je me confesse à Dieu (v. 85): we have seen this pun before on à Dieu (“to God”) and adieu (“bye-bye”) in Confession Lessons (FF, 133).
10. Dictes voz besongnettes (v. 91) sounds like an obligation to pray the rosary but the expression also refers to sex (SFQS, note 33).
11. And here come the espinettes: Quant je vois par my les santiers, / Une ronce ou une espinette / Me happe par my ma jambette, / Incontinent je maulgroye Dieu, / Et la coupe par le mellieu, / Voire tout bas, sans mot sonner (vv. 101–6).
12. Si fois-je quant n’y puis actaindre (v. 109): for Martin (SFQS, note 41) and Koopmans (RFlorence, 176n), this is when the thief gets the purse. I think he’s still struggling to lay hands on it.
13. Avez-vous point veu en la bource / A ces gallans et joué de force? (vv. 111–12): this is a double entendre on those purse-snatching scissors (RFlorence, 176n; SFQS, note 43) to “get in by force” or “cut it off.” Ouch either way.
14. Even for farce, the coincidence is far-fetched: earlier, the Highwayman mentioned that exact figure (v. 67) before even getting in (vv. 132–33); see also RFlorence, 176n.
15. A confession that is parfaicte (v. 135) is both “perfect” and legally “complete.”
16. Recall that a chappon or capon—as in coq au vin—is a castrated cock; compare with Chicken Pie and the Chocolate Cake.
17. The incomprehensible original reads: Dea, julfhange! (v. 147), clearly, an error (RC, 81n; RFlorence, 177n). I might be way off, but it could be something auditory like je le fange: something like getting it all hellaciously “muddy,” which fits the situation.
18. There is a triple entendre for vous avez grant somme (v. 153), which denotes a “heavy burden,” a “large sum,” and even “to be sleepy.” I’ve read the line slightly differently from Koopmans, who suggests that the thief is “tired,” so he sleeps late on Sundays instead of going to Mass (RFlorence, 177n).
19. Here is that fearsome double-edged knife of the trippière (above, § “Characters and Character Development”). It sounds almost like a song: Je mengay l’autre jour des trippes / A une tripière qui passoit / Et luy abbatis son bacquet, / Tant que la gresse cheut à terre / Et laissé là mon couteau (vv. 158–62; see also SFQS, note 62).
20. This is the alleged moment of absolution with the farcical, kitchen-Latin spin on the Gloria Patri: E[r]go asuote / De la crouste d’ung pasté / Sicut erat sempiternum / Spiritus sancti amen (vv. 176–79; above, § “Language”). The Latin should be: Gloria patri et Filio et Spiritu Sancto: Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper; et in saecula saeculorum, amen, i.e.: “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, and now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.” See also SFQS, notes 71 and 72.
21. Here is “Maurice”: Sire Mors, mon amy (vv. 179; above, note 1).
22. Vertu bieu, je eschape bien aucy, / Que je n’é pas laissé l’endosse. / Mor bieu, je le reviens par cy, / Je m’en vois à mon avanture / Confesser mes parroisiens / Prenés en gré l’esbatement, / Sire Dieu le vous pardonne. / Adieu vous dy pour maintenant (vv. 181–88; my emphasis). Se faire endosser is slang for sodomy (SFQS, note 76).
23. Maybe consider something like “Carry That Weight.”©
Play 4. Confessions of a Medieval Drama Queen
1. For musicological guidance on the complexities of rondeaux and motets, see Upton, “Unfolding the Rondeau”; Leach, “Genre(s) of Medieval Motets”; Boogaart, “A Prism of Its Time”; and Hartt, Critical Companion, “Introd.”
2. There is, e.g., in the RLV, a Morallité de Science et Anerie (#39); see TFR, 332–39; and a whole anthology of them in Martin en sa gloire, ed. Bideaux. For more on the Conards, see PF, 30–31.
3. See D. W. Robertson’s foundational, Augustine-inspired discussion of sapientia and scientia in Preface to Chaucer, 22–51. Johnny Slack-Jaw (#9) returns from Heaven with similar science.
4. Recall that Naples (v. 499) was ground zero for both the plague and syphilis. The Italians called the former “the French disease”; the French called the latter the Neapolitan one (le mal de Naples) (RFlorence, 658n).
5. You can see an edition of Ronsard’s signature carpe diem sonnet here: https://www.bacdefrancais.net/quand-vous-serez-bien-vieille-ronsard.php (accessed 3 August 2019).
6. On all these locales, see RC, xxiv–xv; and RFlorence, 654n, 661. On Sainct Marry (v. 345) and the Sainte Hostie, a French analogue of the Croxton Play of the Sacrament, see DBD, 118–30; and my “Theater Makes History,” 1010.
7. While “I’ll Get You” has no BMI Work #, the vast majority of Beatles songs appear in that registry.
8. “If I Only Had a Brain” is not listed in the ASCAP repertory, but other such titles from the Wizard of Oz are.
9. You might be more familiar with the copyrighted gospel arrangement by Edwin Hawkins, ASCAP Work ID: 150028565.
10. Personally, I hear something like “Seven Deadly Virtues”© from Camelot. Or one might hit each woman with a power spot and have her dance to her own theme song. Try, e.g., “Vogue”© for Dolly, “Sweet Painted Lady”© for Jezebel, “Rag Doll”© (Crewe and Gaudio) for Tartuffie.
11. I’ve restored, per Koopmans, verse 4, omitted by Cohen (RC, p. 369): D’amours les fais comme on peult ouÿr (RFlorence, 647n). At v. 15, Dolly sounds suspiciously like Machaut’s Lady Fortune in the Remède de Fortune, whence my intertext for A l’ung je ris, et l’autre je regarde. Here is some of the Middle French for Dolly’s decasyllables which, again, I’ve scripted in pentameter: Il est temps d’ung peu se resjouyr / Et deviser de ce qui est passé, / Dire motz tous plaisans à ouyr / D’amours les fais comme on peult ouÿr / Sans que jamais on se treuve lassé, / Les tours, les fais, le train entrelassé, / La façon, la ruse et le moyen / Parquoy la femme tout veu et compassé / Peult attraire de l’homme tout son bien.… (RC, vv. 1–8 only; RFlorence, 647–48).
12. Although she speaks many seven-foot lines (heptameter), I’ve rendered Jezebel’s whole speech—a single sentence, by the way—in the canonical octosyllables: Je me polis, je me farde, / Je suis dehet, frisque en point, / Je tiens mon cul sur la ba[r]de / Je l’emboure tousjours à point, / Je congnois la note et le point / De larder celuy qui larde, / Je tiens la gorre sur mon point.… (vv. 18–24; RFlorence, 648). Her use of embourer—attending to the bottom—recalls the principal activity of RC, #36, the Farce des femmes qui font rembourer le bas; see also RFlorence, 648n.
13. Here are Tartuffie’s octosyllables, which I’ve scripted in alexandrines: Doy-je estre mise arrière? / Je veuls triumpher honnestement, /Je sçay la façon et manière / De bien pomper secretement, / Je fais mon cas couvertement / Par ce point nully ne me note, / Je besongne ne occultement / En contrefaisant la bigotte (vv. 30–37).
14. A “hilli-ho” from Charles Dickens’s Mr. Fezziwig. For Koopmans, this speech evokes a proverb about leisure being the only treasure: Il n’est trésor que de vivre à son aise (RFlorence, 648n). For more on dance, see MFST, 93; 100; 156.
15. In addition to suggesting cleverness, trickery, subtlety, and malice, Dolly’s braguer en quignet ou en coing (vv. 54–57) is about corners. Could there also be a connection with le petit coin—the toilet of toiletries—and “quinny,” the archaic British term for the vagina?
16. Pour dire “le dyable m’enport!” (v. 107) sounds suspiciously like the curse that summoned the Devil in disguise in Cooch E. Whippet (RC, #41; FF, 355). The women’s debate also recalls that of Match/Point/Counterpoint (HD, 178–82).
17. J’ay humé maint oeuf mollet / Pour faire luyre mon visaige (vv. 109–10): to peel a soft-boiled egg is “to play a trick on someone” (RFlorence, 649n).
18. In lyrical heptameter, this is the first of two references to Bagnolet: J’ay esté à Baignollet / Ouyr le rossignollet, / Chanter son doulx chant ramage / En esté (vv. 111–14; later at v. 334).
19. For saint Cornille de Compiègne (v. 118), see Koopmans, ed. Pronostications, 71–72n; and DSI, 1002. This is an allusion to Pope Cornelius, a protector of many horned—horny?—critters and cuckolds.
20. Here’s Saint Julian again (as in #3, Highway Robbery, note 2).
21. With regard to her inductive, experiential, or “scientific” knowledge (toutes sciences), the agency of apprendre is difficult in tous les jours du nouveau aprent (v. 148). Is Theologina learning, teaching, or both?
22. A priceless meta-moment about translation: Elle a veu les translatés / De latin en françoys vulgaire (vv. 150–51).
23. Jezzie’s rhyme of sweating and emotion—j’en sue and esmeue (vv. 183–85—might have something to do with the later flush of VD (below, note 42).
24. Here is Theologina’s description of her perilous journey (above, § “Language”): Par le moyen de saincte Croix / En ce pays l’ay aportée / Sus ung [mulet] empaquetée, / Mais, quant vint passer le plus fort, / L’asne au pied d’une vallée / Cheut toute bride avallée / Et de ce pas demoura mort (vv. 197–203; my emphasis). Regarding the moyen de saincte Croix, I was tempted to go with an absurd Virgin Islands–style pun but, per Koopmans, it’s a synonym for the coin of the realm, likely connoting the ongoing sale of indulgences (RFlorence, 651). Could she be hinting that she received the bull in exchange for sexual favors?
25. Theologina’s crucial speech, reproduced below in its entirety, foreshadows a legal and theological denouement based on the strict interpretation of the bull.
Original Middle French (vv. 220–35; my emphasis):
LA THEOLOGIENNE
Je voys lire, faictes silence,
Vous la verrés bien solennelle,
Oncques n’en vistes une telle,
Elle est emple et generalle,
J’ay besongné par cautelle
Sur la clausulle principalle.
En lisant la bulle
A tous et toutes faisons sçavoir
De nostre auctorité moyenne
Nous donnons puissance, pouvoir
A madame la Théologienne
D’oÿr femmes de tous estatz
Interroguer d’ab oc et ab ac
Et les confesser de tous cas.
Ainsi signé: Teste de Fol.
Il n’y fault pas ung seul mot,
Elle est en planière forme.
Koopmans reads interroguer d’ab oc et ab ac (v. 231) as “willy-nilly” (RFlorence, 652n); but I deem that inconsistent with the play’s ongoing focus on legalese and illiteracy (v. 155).
26. Connotations of purgative enemas as well as catharsis here with Tresbien purgeray en effait / Vos consciences de tous cas (vv. 243–44).
27. Dire … ung seul motet (vv. 247–48): Dolly won’t leave out a single word nor leave off singing her motet.
28. Some charming double entendres with les sainctz corps des moynes (vv. 309–10). Also the pellerinage de Saint Mors (v. 308) refers to Saint-Maur-des-Fossés just east of Paris (RFlorence, 654n). And remember Sire Mors from Highway Robbery (above, #3, note 1)? “Saint Moritz” also offered protection from the plague (DSI, 740–45, 1090).
29. How could I resist? The Salvador Dali Museum is located in Montmartre.
30. Here’s how I’ve handled voulenté repute le fait (v. 332); above, § “Language.”
31. I’ve replaced the second reference to Bagnolet (v. 334) with a more familiar landmark: the nearby Père Lachaise cemetery.
32. In this exchange (vv. 359–67), pretending to pee (faisant semblant de pysser) and the herbed smell of sex (margolaine) could have sprung directly from the RC’s Blind Man’s Buff (FF, 181–82). Koopmans concurs (RFlorence, 655n).
33. I couldn’t resist a play on the word for scarlet: migraine (v. 369).
34. As in For the Birds (HD, 123–24), this likely song lyric puns on cuckoo and cuckold: En ces boys, qui sont si vers, / Soubz arbre de fueilles ramu, / En ces boys, qui sont si vers, / Pour ouyr chanter le coqu (vv. 374–77). I’ve conveyed some of the pastoral violence with an allusion to “Under the Linden Tree” from the Carmina Burana (e.g., Klinck, Anthology, 95–96).
35. At vv. 404–7, the overripe metaphor intimates less the “perfume of sex” and more the unsavory odor of menstruation: ce tresmauvais vent / De la chemise and the paillard vent de la chemise (v. 407; RFlorence, 656n). See also McCracken, Curse of Eve, 1–20.
36. For demy pié (v. 413), Koopmans came up with 16 centimeters (6.3 inches); but he is unsure as to whether it measures male or female body parts. I don’t understand the confusion.
37. This legalistically liturgical language implies absolution to come: S’autres pechés aves commis / Par oubliance ou obmis, / Que pour l’heure ne vous recorde, / A Dieu criez misericorde / Que du tout vous soyent remis! (vv. 423–27).
38. Metacommentary with two uses of contrefaire (vv. 460–66): once for remaking the body (mon corps tout contrefait), once for pretending to be virgin (en contrefaisant la pucelle). Actual “revirginization” appears later as a miracle of Saint Muffie in the opening monologue of #10, The Pardoners’ Tales.
39. Some amusing terminology for the game of sex: nicque-nocque (backgammon) and planter la broque / Au fin plus près de mon cu! (vv. 476–78), which sounds very much like the shit-kebabs of RC, #45, Blind Man’s Buff (FF, 182).
40. For Croque, / C’est bien joué à la boy tu (vv. 478–79), Cohen wasn’t sure (RC, 378n). Was it pronounced boite or bete? If the former, it could be part of the wordplay on illiteracy (ne a ne boys [v. 445]); or an intertext with the boite of the Dutch farce, Blow in the Box (Prins, Medieval Dutch Drama, 101–11). Per the Littré, I also find something like card playing or bowling.
41. Velà ung mauvais relatif (v. 484) is a fascinating term of art in logic, theology, or grammar, reinforced by Jezzie’s subsequent reference (v. 486) to her own fine mind (engin tressupelatif).
42. The allusion to Syria—en Surie (v. 501)—seems odd but it’s clearly wordplay on sweating (suer) as both a symptom (RC, 378n) and a cure for syphilis (RFlorence, 658n).
43. It’s partridge in the original, the subject of much proverbial wisdom (HD, 66); but quail works better. In this passage, la gorre (v. 510) straddles a meaning between fashion and syphilis.
44. A particularly legalistic query: Fistes-vous jamais nul fin tour / Prejudiciable au mestier? (vv. 518–19).
45. At vv. 522–27, the man in question sounds like the gout-ridden Fouquet of our next play, #5, Confession Follies. More unsavory wordplay on taste (qui qu’en gouste), “gout” (la goutte), or “droplets” and “drip” of gonorrhea. And if “dead as a doornail” was good enough for Piers Plowman, it’s good enough for me.
46. Je dis que moy etant en fleur / Grunant par gorre florissante, / J’ay porté pour plus grant honneur / Mainte pierre reluysante / Enchassée et sans châsse (vv. 541–45). For Koopmans, these “shiny stones” are pockmarked remains of buboes.
47. Vous en avés mainte place / A vostre front, on le voit bien (vv. 546–47): a particularly dense two lines in that front could be both that pockmarked forehead or a synonym for the vagina.
48. Tartuffie names a specific place—aux Brières—which is in the Essonne; dessus is a reference to the tenor’s part of a musical score (RFlorence, 659n), befitting that motet; and her partner is a gorrier (v. 574), a male version of Jezzie’s Gorrière.
49. This is the ambiguous moment invoked above (§ “Language”): “Si voz faitz ne sont amendables, / Tout droit yrés à damnation” (vv. 582–83), either “iffy” or “determinative.” When Theologina speaks of cas desraisonables, she might be indicting “unreasonable” or “unnatural” behavior (v. 579). And remplies d’obstination (v. 581; later, v. 603) implies a near heretical “ensconcement” in sin, all the more prosecutable. If one wishes to foreshadow the denouement, one could add this aside to the audience: “and I’m not saying one way or the other.” Is Theologina implying that Dolly, Jezzie, and Tartuffie have a way out if they make reparations? Or is she stating quite forcefully that, therefore, their misdeeds are irreparable, so they’re going straight to hell? You’ll see, and so will they.
50. Here, I am inspired by two bits: SNL’s Fred Armisen and Vanessa Bayer as the “friends of” such tyrants as Qaddafi or Saddam Hussein: e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsZGZe4LSH0; and Brooke’s confession to Elle Woods about liposuction in Legally Blonde: https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?v=APiRfhfH3KA (both accessed 19 January 2019). At vv. 584–90: parfaire is, again, a legal term; contricion, a theological one; and par fiction, another metacommentary. But the real kicker is: J’ay fait à Dieu barbe de feurre, which Koopmans deems a synonym for mockery or hypocrisy (RFlorence, 660n). The philology, however, links it to the notorious tithe owed to the Church.
51. With the singular pronoun for the three-person Trinity, Tartuffie’s language is more or less theologically correct: De tout le mal que oncques je fis / Duquel point ne me recorde. / Je prie le Père et le Filz / Et luy crye misericorde / A deulx genoulx devotement (vv. 597–601; RFlorence, 660n). Unless she means the Son only.
52. Dolly’s line is slightly ambiguous: Absolutions nous sont baillées / En nous donnant benediction (vv. 604–5). She could also mean: “Check it out girls: Nice blessing. I guess we’re absolved!”
53. Here now, the most important speech of the play, foreshadowed all along by ambiguous legalese: Soufit, puis qu’estes confessées, / Point n’aurés d’absolution, / Car je dis par conclusion / Que maintes femmes par compass / Sont oÿes de confession / Et après toutes audicions / Ne sont absoutes de leur cas, / Puis ma bulle ne s’estent pas / Donner absolution planière (vv. 606–14). The document signed by Jack Asse makes no explicit mention of absolution (above, note 25). Key, therefore, to production will be determining whether or not Theologina has been planning to get off on a technicality all along.
54. In a rather indeterminate ending—compare it to Guynn’s assessment of the Pathelin (PF, 69–108)—the audience is left hanging too when Theologina vows to seek another dispensation: A Romme iray sans cesser, / Courant la poste à diligence, / Pour veoir si pourray passer / Touchant ce cas une dispance, / G’y voys faire assistance / En pourchassant de obtenir / Le point d’absouldre en substance / Adieu jusques au revenir! (vv. 619–26). Absolution pervades the equivalent of the typical envoi asking the audience’s forgiveness for any offenses.
55. Se aucun se vient enquerir / Qui nous sommes, je ordonne / Qu’on nous trouvera sans faillir / Grans grammairiens de Narbone (vv. 629–32). The Parisian Collège de Narbonne was on the rue de la Harpe (RC, 378n; RFlorence, 660n).
Play 5. Confession Follies: Folie à Deux?
1. I considered providing “underdetermined” stage directions, so as not to constrain your vision of the events; but Confession Follies needs a script that makes sense, even if you wind up altering it. Believe it or not, my earlier but much too repetitive draft of this translation was comprised of two free-standing Follies: one in which the Fool was Fouquet, the other in which he was the Valet.
2. Compare, e.g., with the tragic lives of chambermaids in #7, Bro Job, § “Characters and Character Development”; and in my “Theater Makes History,” 993–1004.
3. A frequent prayer, the Te Deum [laudamus] was recited in thanksgiving (“praise the Lord”), as was the Tu autem Domine miserere nobis, in connection with death: “But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us.”
4. The only anomaly in this scenario—Mandy addressing the bedridden valet as vous—is easily explained if Mandy, who recognizes the valet, is addressing “Fouquet,” consistent with the ruse.
5. Douce mémoire en plaisir consommée / En plaisir consommée (1: 271; MFST, 83; 207), followed by eight more A-rhymes, is a song lyric. Given the unpalatability of staging Fouquet’s abuse of Gwynnie as pleasure, I’ve gone with Bozo as the singer.
6. Technically, this nine-verse line (1: 272) belongs to Mandy; but it makes more sense in Gwynnie’s mouth. Given a possible misattribution, I’ve doubled it.
7. For a different sensibility, try “Yessa, massa?” (1: 272).
8. Note that, as yet, Gwynnie has said not said exactly that. That wish comes later and often (1: 274, 278, 283).
9. Verte veine (1: 273) sounds sexual to me; but it might also refer to the proverb Qui voit ses veines voit ses peines, said of an elderly person whose veins are more visible through transparent skin.
10. This account could have come directly from the annals of domestic violence; see, e.g., Davis, Fiction in the Archives, 77–110; or Skoda, Medieval Violence, 193–231.
11. Il n’a ne confort ne amys (1: 274) recalls the Boethius-inspired Comfort d’Amy of the great fourteenth-century poet and musician Guillaume de Machaut.
12. Suddenly mindful of the need for an alibi, Gwynnie suggests a bouteille de sainct pot (1: 275), a small bottle of holy water (Di Stefano, “A Chaque Saint,” 137–38; DSI, 1111–12).
13. With a thrice-spoken refrain, this rondeau triolet might play as a comédie-ballet: Et puis, hay, où va Mannette? / Y a-il quelque anguille sus roche? (1: 276). It also channels the proverbial wisdom associated with bottom-feeding eels (DBD, 79–90).
14. Avoir mal à son amatrix (1: 276) is precisely where Gwynnie will say it hurts in MASQUERADE #1. It’s also a reference to the female pudendum. Compare with a similar expression in Bro Job, #7, sc. 1.
15. Since I hear a pregnancy pun in toute plaine (1: 277)—a meaning attested as early as the twelfth century—I’ve doubled the rapid-fire dialogue to bring it out.
16. And here are the most difficult lines of the play. They are mutilated, irregular, obscure, and potentially rife with omissions (albeit transcribed correctly from RBM, fol. 3). Since the rhyme scheme is off, I also recommend that the whole thing sound off: poorly syncopated, poorly “rapped,” accompanied by bad dance steps, emphásis on the wrong sylláble, etc. Among other things, the Fool seems to channel the title character of Cooch E. Whippet (Martin de Cambray) when advising that Mandy invoke the Devil as part of her role-play (FF, 355). His reference to Martin baton, the title of another farce about getting women to shut up (Rouen, ca. 1600; RTC, 165–67; Faivre, Répertoire, 278–79), not only resonates with the infamous “rule of thumb” of wife-beating (baton = “stick”): Martin is Cooch’s Middle French name. Among the difficulties: two puzzling uses of a slash as punctuation—could the curious diacritical be a musical call to repeat the line?: Si elle te triche, voicy / Martin baton qui en fera / La raison. Tourne vers elle, / Et pleure et lui fait grand / Serment, donne-toy au dyable / Hardiment; il n’y a point / De dangier, non, ne jeu. / Tous mes sacrements / Et j[é] ma cautelle et / Malaise je feray du messire / Morice et luy dis que // Je t’ay fait veu et promesse, / Mais que j’aye confessé / Fouquet que je seray plus; // C’est que un chouquet vist // Où elle fait son domicille (1: 278; my emphasis). And the rest depends on what the Fool means by si elle te triche. If correct as written, the clause means: “if she harms you, [Mandy].” If it’s an erroneous transcription of si elle me triche, it could mean: “if she, [Gwynnie] is cheating on me.” Meanwhile, Godefroy was stumped by the two last lines. A chouquet—rhymes with Fouquet—might be a chopping block.
17. In the salutations of the rondeau triolet, “Father Maurice” says: Bonjour, ravice, bonjour ma soeur (1: 279–80), with ravice stumping Godefroy again. I do find a Latin ravice denoting “virgin,” with connotations of “rape” or “ravishment” (ravir). One wonders too about a connection with rabice for “rabies.” Also, it’s not clear whether the Fool is addressing one and the same woman as both ravice and soeur. Or is Mandy one and Gwynnie the other? If you prefer Fouquet as the Maurice-Impersonator, you could still have Bozo trailing him the whole time, imitating him.
18. The magic touch of la main legiere (1: 280) picks up on the earlier magician metaphors; but it also applies to horses, as in “giving free rein.” If you believe that Gwynnie falls for the Maurice-impersonation, she could play the scene resentful of the ersatz Father’s interest in Mandy, or she could try to guide his hands with “Easy does it. Just like last time.”
19. This is the Fool’s odd complaint that he’s not in the woods with Mandy (above, § “Characters and Character Development”): Pleust à Dieu que moy et la chambrière / Fussions emmy ses bois, / Et elle m’eust presté son harnoys / Affin que je luy esclarcice (1: 280). Harnoys is militaristic, equine, and vaginal; and the past tense suggests multiple previous visits to the woods.
20. Je fains quand je suis entour vous / Les membres me redissent tous, / Je suis plus hardy qu’un suisse (1: 281). Vous signals that Gwynnie is the addressee; and the remark is ironic. The Swiss were as stereotypically cowardly as they will be in #9, Johnny Slack-Jaw.
21. At 1: 282, I’ve added the stage direction to tease out the homonymy of the next line’s Paix! Paix!, a homonym for “fart.”
22. The aphorism is Commère, si vous estes mauvaise / Mesnagère, je vous feray bonne nourrisse (1: 282, with a triple “r” in “nourrrise”). Granted: this is probably funnier if it’s Fouquet learning about his wife’s adultery (as in Confession Lessons and as Faivre thought). But it can still work for Bozo, who might be horrified that his own sexual advances on the mistress are now being revealed to Mandy.
23. Faulse trahison, Dieu te mauldie / Quant par toy me fault mourir (1: 284): this is the odd tutoiement discussed above, § “Plot.”
24. While difficult to grasp, this could well be another song lyric in dialect: Va debinelle, ouystaignelle à l’i grégois, / Va debinelle, etc. (1: 284). Grégois would normally be related to Greeks; and débiner is badmouthing (faire la mauvaise langue).
25. Vasselle (1: 285), the ungrammatical “female vassal,” also looks like “doing the dishes.” It sounds almost like the later Classicist je suis votre serviteur: i.e., the sarcastic opposite of “at your service” (FF, 255), which is perfect for Mandy.
26. C’est cest enfant, c’est cet enfant / Qui fut fait en ses gachères, / C’est cest enfant, c’est cet enfant / Qui fut fait emmy ces boys (2: 285): this is clearly another song, conveniently about the birth of a child … conceived in the woods? Or you could go another way with “What child is this got laid to rest on mama’s lap was creeping?”©
27. To maximize the allusion to Saint Veronica, who wiped Jesus’s face (1: 287), I’ve added a stage direction akin to the dirty, nasty face-painting of The Kettle-Maker (HD, 101–4, 115).
28. What can the Fool mean by Et à la femme à messire Maurice (1: 287)? Father Maurice’s wife? His concubine? Priests did have concubines, and one makes a tragic historical appearance as a rape victim in 1395 (see my “Spectacle of the Scaffolding”).
29. If, like many others, this farce were played at Lent, the fasting makes sense (1: 288). Compare with similar language in Confession Lessons (FF, 120).
30. Even the aphoristic envoi is in poetic disorder: Adieu, de par tous les diables; / Adieu, seigneurs; contemplez en effect / Qu’il n’est finesse que d’une femme; / Fin contre fin autre deçoy (1: 288).
31. “And When I Die”© would both hint at Gwynnie’s pregnancy and authorize the audience to “carry on.”
Play 6. Brother Fillerup
1. My translation of Jehan de Lagny (RLV, #31) is projected for my next volume. For the two extant versions of the song, see SFQS, “Préf”; and Martin’s edition of Jehan de Lagny, note 5: https://sottiesetfarces.wordpress.com/2019/07/25/jehan-de-lagny/ (accessed 14 January 2021); and MFST, 268. Oddly, he reads a stage direction about Perrete, povre garce (4: 7) as an indication that she is not, in fact, Perrete Venés Tost.
2. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRhi8Tk9nNE (accessed 17 December 2018).
3. The advice of “Treat Her Right”© is eerily similar to Brother Filbert’s; and its “hey, hey, hey, hey” refrain would be in keeping with the standard medieval plea for silence. Or you could try “How Do You Solve a Problem like Perrette?”© Or give Perrette a theme song on the order of “Daddy, I’m No Virgin,”© “Not a Virgin Anymore,”© “What a Girl Wants,”© “A Girl Who Cain’t Say No,”© etc.
4. What’s in a whole list of names? Here, it’s Mais il n’est Trubert ne Herbert, / Guillebert, Robert, ne Lambert … (4: 6). “Guillebert” is the star of #11, Slick Brother Willy.
5. The original stage direction reads: Perrete tousse et sa metresse tient son front (4: 9). Since le front could also denote the vagina or, for that matter, the virile member, could he really “grab her by the pussy” (or by something else)?
6. Da, usque me he (4: 10) sounds vaguely Latinate, almost an echo of Psalm 72:8 about dominion from sea to sea: Et dominabitur a mari usque ad mare, et a flumine usque ad terminos terrae. I’ve worked that into his next line.
7. C’est de la teste, / Dont je ne puis prendre liqueur; / Puys il me vient descendre au coeur, / Et cela me respont à l’ayne (4: 11). This is the first reference to ayne (above, § “Plot”).
8. Ouvrés n’en ainsy que de cyre (4: 12): in addition to “to perfection” (SFQS, note 44), the practice of writing on wax is a classic memory image that we have seen before in Monk-ey Business (FF, 447n).
9. After prent ses lunettes, puys escript une recepte, here is a sample of Filbert’s closing set-piece, where frequent use of the subjunctive renders agency ambiguous. For example, until the rest of the syntax makes things clear, the oft-repeated prengne or prenne le galant could mean “may she take the stud” or “may the stud take her.” And “hokey-pokey” fits the garrison metaphors nicely. See also SFQS, notes 61–81.
Original Middle French (4: 12–14; my emphasis):
FRERE FILLEBERT
(En luysant.)
Recepte pour le cotillon
Que la povre garce a perdu.
Sy l’un d’eulx se trouve esperdu,
L’un sera pour l’autre enseigner;
Que bientost la connvyent [convient] saigner.
Puys apres fera gargarin
D’un bon clistere barbarin,
Et pour luy remplir bien ses vaines,
La fault seigner entre deux aynes
Tant qu’elle en puisse estre assouvye.
We’ve met the barbarin enema before in Playing Doctor (FF, 433n); and gargarin might well be evocative of swallowing—gargling?—a little something.
10. The women utter their refrain four times (4: 13–14). Twice, it’s Sainct Jehan! Dieu vous doinct bonne vye, literally, “In the name of Saint John, God give you a good life”; and twice, it’s Dieu vous doinct bonne vye et longue, “May God give you a long and happy life.” One is tempted to think that the wish applies to a bon vit too, “a good dick”; but the masculine adjective doesn’t have enough poetic feet.
11. While motet often means “a few words” (SFQSS, note 85), one wonders, in such a musical play, whether Filbert might be calling for all or part of a motet—un petit motet de chanson (4: 14). Modern musical analogues might include: a reprise of “Treat Her Right”© or “Hand in My Pocket”;© but, again, I’d go with a parody of Petticoat Junction.
Play 7. Bro Job
1. The original order in the RBM is Domine Johannes, Troussetaqueue, La Nourrice, and Saupicquet (1: 435).
2. King also translates several excerpts in this unpublished, unpaginated conference paper.
3. See RTC, 118; SFQS, note 7; and compare with ATF, 2: 435–38 and RPF, 5: 78–80.
4. It is unknown whether Montaiglon also consulted a Lyon edition apparently published by Barnabé Chaussard in 1549.
5. The publication history is complex and occasionally confusing. The Costé edition can be consulted at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k83475b?rk=21459 (accessed 17 December 2018).
6. Montaiglon gives the date of 1831; but the title page of the Crapelet/Silvestre edition reads 1830. As for the coda, the Gothic lettering makes it difficult to distinguish chauffer (“heat up”) from chausser (“slip on,” as in shoes); but either works. See also RTC, 9–10.
7. Perrette answers and says to her mistress (Respond Perrette et dict à sa maistresse [RPF, 5: 77]); see below, note 12.
8. The protonotary is present at slightly different moments in the Caquet (RPF, 5: 80) vs. the RBM (2: 439). Pope Clement I appointed the first twelve protonotaries to write the lives of the martyrs, a lofty mission with such benefits as assigned seats in the papal chapel. See the entry in Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/L’Encyclopédie/1re_édition/PROTONOTAIRE (accessed 8 February 2018).
9. I also considered “Hot-to-Trottie,” “SmokinHot,” “Juicy Lucy,” “Salty,” “Spicy,” and “Sassy.” In “Caught in the (One-)Act,” King liked “Sassy” (and “Tuck-up-your-Tail” for Troussetaqueue); but I’ve reserved “Sassy” for Soeur Safrete of #12, Immaculate Deception.
10. From multiple songs registered to Fleetwood Mac, “Go Your Own Way”© is listed in neither the ASCAP nor the BMI repertories. The best place to start might well be https://globalmusicrights.com/artist/1412025.
11. I’ve condensed his greatest hits (RPF, 5: 74–77), but here is a sense of the original: Chamberières, vueillez moy pardonner / Si je pretendz descouvrir voz finesses; / Je n’entendz point les bonnes blazonner; / Chamberières, vueillez moy pardonner. / Aux maulvaises je vueil le tort donner, / Que chascun sçait plus communes qu’asnesses; / Chamberières, vueillez moy pardonner / Si je pretendz descouvrir voz finesses (RPF, 5: 71).
12. Here is a taste of the Caquet’s reported speech: “Madame vient, il se fault retirer; / Tost, mon amy, tost sortez par derrière; / Ma maistresse se pourroit fort irer; / Pour tant, amy, retirez-vous arrière; /—Dieu vous gard, dame!”—“Et puis, ma chamberière, / Avez-vous bien nostre logis gardez?” / O! qu’elle est saoulle! O! que la première / Est encore pleine, et vous n’y regardez! (RPF, 5: 77). Some clarity on the maid’s (in)delicate condition emerges in the Costé edition, where the text reads not premiere but pannetière (p. 6). Instead of glasses of spirits, we seem to be talking about buns in the oven.
13. Who exactly is in the mood? In the RBM, it’s a question of the Master’s desires: Il sembloit donc, à ses dictz, / Qu’il fut tendre du petit ventre (ATF, 436; RBM, xii–xiii). In the Caquet, it’s the wife’s desire to garrison: Et sembloit, à oyr ses dictz, / Qu’elle eust mal en son petit ventre (RFP, 5: 79).
14. Martin thinks that a femme de pied “has her feet on the ground” (SFQS, note 10); but, given all the militarism of the Mistress’s logis—a synonym for “vagina” (SFQS, note 12)—I also see “boots on the ground.” She’s a real “foot soldier” or “infantryman” (2: 436). The line is even explicit in the Caquet: Elle se mect à l’advant-garde / Pour repcevoir les premiés coups (RFP, 5: 80).
15. As in the Caquet (RPF, 5: 80), this account is peppered with reported speech (2: 436–47).
16. Martin understands the opposite: i.e., that Pricker-Upper would have been “proud to have refused him” (2: 437; SFQS, note 14).
17. Exceptionally, I amplify the narrative with this account from the DNC (ATF, 2: 426), which demonstrates what is needed to please her and her thingy (complaire).
18. Elle sent trop souvent le masle; / Je croy qu’elle encharge d’un filz (2: 438): some marvelously ambiguous wordplay here in that a wet nurse would surely have a kid “hanging on her breast,” but a promiscuous one might be pregnant with a kid of her own.
19. Some wonderful metacommentary on tresteaulx, the legal or theatrical “stage” (2: 438). Martin sees an allusion to a medieval dining table, typically a board atop two-by-fours (SFQS, note 23).
20. More on the sheets with Tu n’es point orde à tes drappeaulx, / Car tu es souvent remuée (2: 438). Martin understands it to mean that there is too much action for the sheets to collect dust (SFQS, note 24). If you don’t mind the anachronism, you could add: “She’s a one-woman spin-cycle!”
21. Elle veult faire bonne buée; / Elle manie souvent le pissot: the pissot is both a washtub spigot and the male member that plugs holes (rescourre) (2: 438–39; SFQS, notes 26, 28). The washtub also makes for an intertext with the beloved Washtub (La Farce du Cuvier) of my next volume.
22. A contradiction: Florence has just said that she feels sick if she doesn’t drink something in the morning (2: 438–39).
23. I’ve made my best guess at what sounds like a proverb straddling ankles, plugs, and sex acts: Tu semble aux sainctz de la paroisse, / Tousjours as la cheville au trou (2: 439).
24. With uncharacteristic pudeur, Martin reads baiser (2: 439) as “kissing” (SFQS, note 34).
25. Ce n’est pas jeu. / J’entends que les bastons à feu / Y ont cest an sonné si ferme, / Qu’ils ont estonné tout le germe / De toutes mes dames de Carmes, / Qui n’a peu proffiter ne croistre / En sorte que ayent peu engrossir (2: 441–42 and RBM, iii; my emphasis). In this curious speech with two orphaned rhymes for Carmes and cloistre, it seems that the nuns are pregnant … but, then, they’re not. Perhaps Saint Muffie has worked the revirginizing magic invoked in #10, The Pardoners’ Tales (sc. 1); or perhaps, as in #12, Immaculate Deception, the nuns know how to manipulate the firestick (the portable hand-cannon known as a baton à feu) in such a way as to avoid pregnancy. I’ve added some extra dialogue—Matthew 3:12 seemed appropriate—consistent with possible rhymes with the orphans: armes/Carmes and croistre/cloistre (“cloister”). For Martin, at stake here is the spear-tipped arquebuse, which he reads as a penis headed to the anus; and the firearms are so noisy that they cause spontaneous abortions in pregnant nuns (SFQS, note 51).
26. En lieu de verjus, / J’ay entendu qu’on mist du jus / D’un clistère au moine (se) dit-on / Pour l’eaue béniste d’un chappon (2: 442). In the RBM, this is still part of Florence’s speech (fol. 3, col. 2); but it’s likely meant for Pricker-Upper. And notice the capon, as castrated a critter as the gelding (hongre) of Brother Fillerup’s prescription (#6, RFMSJ, 4: 14).
27. This is not quite the traditional envoi, which I’ve doubled here: Veoir se l’endouille est rostie. / Je m’en vais d’une autre partie. / Prou vous face la compaignie (2: 447). Martin deems it a later addition (SFQS, notes 79 and 80).
28. “Don’t Leave Me This Way”© easily does double duty here and might be preferable to “Sisters, Go Your Own Way!”©
Play 8. The Resurrection of Johnny Palmer
1. See, e.g., Young, Drama of the Medieval Church, 1: 149–77.
2. See Knight, “Medieval Theater of the Absurd”; AG, 78–91; and Arden, Fools’ Plays, 160–68. The sotie is relatively neglected, but not by Dull in Folie et Rhétorique dans la sottie.
3. On the importance of the monde à l’envers and its association with popular culture, see Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World; Gurevich on “the medieval grotesque” (Medieval Popular Culture, 176–210); and, for an iconographic approach, Robert-Nicoud, World Upside Down, esp. 52–101.
4. For a pictorial account, see Boureau, Myth of Pope Joan, 50. Pope Joan is also the subject of Dietrich Schernberg’s Play of Lady Jutta of 1565 (Medieval German Drama, ed. Wright, 159–219).
5. On the Pinecone sculpture, see Gruber, “Thirteen Things”; and, for a picture, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cortile_della_Pigna_(Vatican_Museums)_September_2015-2.jpg (accessed 19 December 2018).
6. The Alka-Seltzer jingle is listed in the ASCAP registry along with many other Dawes titles; but there is a request to contact them for more information (accessed 3 July 2019).
7. Chimney sweeping (ramonner) is a favorite metaphor for the sex act, as in the Farce nouvelle du Ramonneur de cheminees (RC, #30 and RBM, #36).
8. Las onc depuis mon cueur n’eut joye (v. 26) is clearly the verse of a song that also appears in RC, #6, the Queues troussées (SFQS, note 9), and in the sotie of Deulx Gallans et Sancté (RLV, #12).
9. It is challenging to translate the slang of Si n’es-tu point sur le suc / Comme estoit mon frère Jenyn (vv. 32–33). Suc is related to “blood,” “head,” or “neck,” but for Koopmans, this might well be another instance of verlan: suc = cu[l]s (RFlorence, 710n). For Martin, it could also be the head of a tonsured fool like Brother Johnny (SFQS, note 18).
10. The beau père of v. 38 might technically be her father-in-law; but he could also be a good-looking Father Confessor to confess ’er.
11. There is something otherworldly about ababou, tanfarara, tanfarara (v. 91; above, § “Language”): a devilish tone reminiscent of conjuring the Devil in the Miracle of Theophile (MFP, 174–75). See also MFST, 190.
12. Martin has identified Jamais mon cueur joye n’aura as another song lyric, #326 in the Jardin de Plaisance (SFQS, note 44); see also MFST, 93; 232.
13. Deleted from the RC, this line—Au plus parfond?—was restored by Koopmans (RFlorence, 713). That’s why I had him “beyond the moon” and “under the rainbow” above; plus, there are more “moons” to come, as in the music of happe la lune (vv. 203–4; MFST, 222).
14. The boat-related imagery above was for the music of Ils sont en gallée gallée (vv. 153–54; MFST, 230). With mais est-il venu mon cousin (v. 157), the same confusion about identity ensues for Caillette as for Toni’s brother (Répertoire, 382). Here, a comma determines whether Toni is referring to Johnny as “my cousin” or calling Birdie “Cousin.” Inbred cousinage might help to explain the characters’ overall stupidity.
15. At vv. 188–92, the larons could also be evocative of the two thieves crucified with Jesus; so you could substitute “Bar-bar-bar, bar-bar-a-bas!”© As for the pirates, could they be connected to Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale or Shipman’s Tale or, better yet, to pirated editions of our play?
16. Toni says only one word: maire (v. 194), which sounds like “uterus,” “Mayor,” or “shit”—until, Ubu-Roy-like, you hit the “d” (above, § “Language”). Koopmans thinks it means “calm down” (RFlorence, 715n).
17. If you’re unfamiliar with the Southern California spectacle of The Pageant of the Masters, check it out here: https://www.foapom.com/pageant-of-the-masters/ (accessed 21 December 2018). It goes well with Joanie’s later advice about their house: Il fault qu(e) au vif elle soit pourtraicte (v. 277).
18. This set-piece is in pentameter: Nous sommes de l’ordre de saint Baboyn. / Ilz chantent tous: / L’ordre ne dit mye de lever matin, / Dormir jusqu’à prime et boire bon vin / Et chanter matines sur ung pot de vin (vv. 231–34). See also MFST, 263–64.
19. Perhaps this moment led to the misperception that Birdie and Toni are brothers (above, § “Characters and Character Development”): Mon frère, or allez, / Vous nous avez bien ravallez / Au ressuscitement de Jenin! (vv. 255–57).
20. Sans faire longue station, / J(e) y feray bientost besongner (vv. 281–82): besogner might mean many things, including business on the toilet; plus, these stations reminded me of pageant wagons and the stations they might depict.
21. Mais la chaire est-elle persée? / J(e) y vueil faire mon aisement (vv. 297–98). With the aisement of relieving oneself (SFQS, note 130), this seat is sounding more and more like Pope Joan’s Seat of Shit.
22. Faire chière lye au nys (v. 324) clearly denotes feasting and festivities (RFlorence, 719n); but I also hear that Ubu-Roy-like wordplay mentioned above (§ “Language”) with faire chier, as in “to make someone shit” or, even now, “to bug someone.”
23. Vive les enfans Beauvais! / Si concluons par motz exprès / La Resurrection Jenyn / A Paulme, nostre amy très, / Adieu vous dy jusqu’à demain! (vv. 326–30).
24. Appropriate choices might be: “One Child,”© a reprise of “My Cousin’s Back,”© or such drinking songs as “Bottle o’ wine, fruit o’ the vine”© or “Show me the way to go home.”©
Play 9. The Resurrection of Johnny Slack-Jaw
1. On sapientia vs. scientia, see Robertson, Preface to Chaucer, 22–51; cited in #4, Drama Queens, note 3. For Renaissance Platonism, see esp. Colie, Paradoxia epidemica and Kristeller, Renaissance Thought. Maistre Pierre Doribus also boasts about the invisibility trick in a Sottie nouvelle of RT, #9, v. 36.
2. In Trois Galants et un Badin (RLV, #40), e.g., a certain Naudin dreams that, as God, he is married to the Virgin Mary. See RF, 11: 26n; RTC, #108, 141–42; Faivre, Répertoire, #66, 181–83.
3. See RTC, 228; CM, 148–51; and Tissier’s extensive gloss of Johnny’s entire account (RF, 11: 40n–48n). Saint Jacques en Galisce (2: 24) is the Sainct Jacques of Compostela, as in the Camino de Santiago, the famous pilgrimage (RF, 11: 41n) and also mentioned in #2, Blue Confessions.
4. Et sainct Paul atout son espée, / Qui avoit la teste coupée / A sainct Denys, se luy sembloit, / Et sainct Françoys les combatoit, / Frappant sur eulx, patic, patac (2: 24; my emphasis). Like Tissier, I suspect that this should read les Françoys, “the French,” by analogy to the other nationalistic fighters (RF, 11: 40n). The typography of ATF even looks like King Francis I (Francois Ies combatoit). And the perspective is confusing too: Did it “seem to” Saint Dennis or to Johnny that “he” had beheaded Saint Paul? I suspect that se luy sembloit should have been se me sembloit.
5. This joke appears in multiple versions online but try this one: http://www.jamesfuqua.com/lawyers/jokes/afterlife.shtml (accessed 14 May 2018).
6. On the Harrowing of Hell, see, e.g., Young, Drama of the Medieval Church, 1: 149–77; cited in note 1 of #8, Johnny Palmer.
7. We’ve seen verlan in #8, Johnny Palmer (§ “Sets and Staging”) and in Monk-ey Business (FF, #9), where the lead character is nicknamed “Verjus,” jus-vert in verlan (FF, 432n). And Furetière gives that example of verjus in the Dictionnaire Universel (1690), even without terming it verlan: “On dit aussi, C’est verjus ou jus verd, pour dire, C’est la même chose”; cited in Lefkowitz, Talking Backwards, 51.
8. Nenin par le jez et mandore par le lenton doesn’t quite match phonetically but it does come close: nennin is an emphatic Middle French “no”; a jai is a jaybird; a mandeur is a bailiff; a mont d’or is a cheese, which sounds suspiciously like a golden mount or a vagina; and lenton sounds a bit like longtemps (“for a long time”)—plus landon is a synonym for “muzzle,” the most pronounced part of Johnny’s anatomy. For more on the meaning of landore, see RF, 11: 30–31. My thanks to Chadi Ben Youssef for suggesting that this could be a metalinguistic pun on the shape of the articulatory apparatus when the drunken character speaks. Other possibilities for his name: Johnny Johnson, Johnny Jawbone, Johnny Lazy-Bones, Johnny Wino, Johan Johan (as in John Heywood’s Johan Johan of 1533), Johnny Jabber-Wocky (because he’s fearsome, jabbers, and wocks funny), and so on.
9. Other farces dependent on an overarching joke include The Student Who Failed His Priest Exam (FF, 144–45) and Cooch E. Whippet (FF, 334–35).
10. In “ ‘Je viens … / d’estrange contrée,’ ” King favors an absurdity-enhancing, red-and-white-checkered tablecloth for Johnny’s shroud (351n). For the master trope of the tavern, see Cowell, At Play in the Tavern.
11. You can see and hear the Heaven Sent perfume jingle, produced in the 1960s for Helena Rubinstein, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gym7LD47k98 (accessed 3 July 2019). As of this writing, it was not listed in any copyright registry that I could locate.
12. Try “Magic to Do,”© or the Heaven Sent jingle about a scent that was “a little naughty but heavenly”© or, for a completely different sensibility: “How Long?”© or “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep.”©
13. I hear a song in Or est-il mort, helas! helas! / Jenin Landore, mon mary, / Mon espoir, mon bien, mon soulas. / Or est-il mort, helas! helas! / Quand m’en souvient, je pers esbas, / Et ay le cueur triste et marry. / Or est-il mort, helas! helas! / Jenin Landore, mon mary (2: 21). After the Priest adds Quand il estoit ensepvely, rhyming couplets return.
14. Il estoit assez bon folastre / Et se marchoit de bon biés (2: 22) is a mouthful. While Godefroy had a big question mark for biez, perhaps it’s a precursor to today’s bonne descente: the spirits “go down easy.”
15. Benedicite, / Nostre-Dame de Reconfort! (2: 22): Tissier reminds us that that church was in close proximity to one of the most famous publishers of farce: Barnabé Chaussard of Lyon (RF, 11: 38n).
16. Atout sa chappe bien doublée (2: 24): while this could be a hat or a cape, I also hear echoes of an instrument of torture (chape de plomb): a different “full metal jacket” for a different “Iron Man.” I doubt it’s the chappe as “oyster opener” but, in this fishy context, you never know.
17. I couldn’t resist the parallel to the famous “Anne Elk” bit from Monty Python’s Previous Record.
18. Clerice, tu es tout gentil. / Maquereau c’est poisson d’apvril; / Ainsi es-tu, je te le jure; / La fin de ta bonne adventure, / C’est que tu aymes ton repos (2: 31): I’ve interpolated quite a bit to tease out the complex meaning of one of the best moments of the play. With more thanks to Noah Guynn: in Eloy D’Amerval’s fifteenth-century Livre de la Deablerie, we also find Lucifer insulting Satan as a macquereau infame and a poisson d’apvril (vv. 321–23).
19. There was a terrific ghost costume in At Cross Purposes (FF, 224–25; RF, 11: 25, 56n–58n); so, I couldn’t resist channeling Eddie Izzard’s Holy Ghost bit from Dress to Kill.
20. Sans faulte (2: 34) is an interesting turn of phrase that means “certainly” but also “without sin.”
21. I’ve doubled the particularly short envoi: Adieu vous dis, je prens congé (2: 34), which rhymes with the preceding Si j’estoys un peu reposé.
22. You might try “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”© or “Losing My Religion.”©
Play 10. The Pardoners’ Tales
1. For more on pardonneurs vs. triacleurs, see RF, 5: 232–26; DLU, 48; and esp. chap. 8 of Katritzky, Women, Medicine, e.g., 126–27. Farcically enough, the term theriaque was gendered both masculine and feminine.
2. If you don’t know the SNL bit, try: https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/theodoric-of-york/n8661 (accessed 26 May 2019).
3. Soon to pop up in #11, Slick Brother Willy, Saint Woody also appears in Pots and Scams (HD, 115). See DSI, 52–55, 135–37, 192–94, 198–99, 214, 316–17; and Di Stefano, “À Chaque Saint,” 130–31.
4. For Claude Duneton, the expression “seems to date from the seventeenth century” (La Puce, 174). See Patrick Brault’s fascinating blog on untranslatable expressions: https://blog.ted.com/40-idioms-that-cant-be-translated-literally/comment-page-10/.
5. Try any of these: a medieval lyric tenson, a gender-bent “I’m Called Little Buttercup,”© “Respect,”© “The Old Dope Peddler,”© Mary Magdalene’s “Everything’s Alright”© from Jesus Christ Superstar, or a zany update of Steve Martin’s King Tut bit, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYbavuReVF4 (accessed 20 January 2021).
6. Here is a taste of the lyrical opening, the first five verses of which I’ve doubled: Sainctes parolles pacificques / Soient entre vous residens / Par vertu de sainctes relicques / Qui reposent icy dedans. / Messieurs, il y a long-temps / Que ne visitay ce pays; / Mais, s’il plaist à Dieu, je pretens / De vous faire tous esjouys. / J’aporte icy de[s] ouyes / De sainct Couillebault confesseur / Et de saincte Velue, sa soeur, / Dont il appert de grans miracles. / Je vous vueil compter les obstacles / Et les miracles qu’ilz ont fait (2: 50).
7. Here are the somewhat inscrutable miracles of Saints Woody and Muffie: Cestuy monsieur sainct Couillebault, / Delivra, je le vous afferme, / Une juifve estant à l’assault / D’enfant et n’estoit à terme (2: 51).
8. Those were my rough translations of both the meter and the absurdity of the Middle French onomastics: Maintenant fault que labeure / A nommer les confrères anciens / Qui furent de leur confrarie. / Jehan Pigault, Bietrix Barbarie, / Colin Mulet et Jehan Bigace, / Jenin Gringecte, Jehan La Gace [sounds like “John, the slut”], / Tassin Pigard, Perrin Bicorne, / Jehan Sousseron, Jehanne La Sorne, / Martin Marteaulx, Regnault Frasie, / Pierre Sourys et sa maignie (2: 51). Later names to follow are: Jehan Beaufort, Tassin Lebrun, / Jehan Fort-en-guelle (2: 52) and Jehan Huart, Colin forte here, / Pierre boit bien, Guillot tout neant (2: 53). Do add some local dignitaries too, especially given Tissier’s speculation that the second list, in metric disarray, was originally longer (RF, 5: 250n).
9. For raisiner, Tissier gives a legalistic reading of “to yield” (se résigner) (RF, 5: 248n); but I incline more toward Rabelais’s hint about writing Gargantua while drunk (CFRW, 5). Raisiner also denotes “drinking wine” (Clark, Vulgar Rabelais, 98).
10. A lanternier (2: 54) is someone fixated on foolish, useless things (RF, 5: 253n) and a possible shout-out to the Farce des femmes qui font accroire à leurs maris de vecies que ce sont lanternes (RC, #25).
11. The fascinating use of de commune juré is consistent with the historical emergence of bourgeois towns (2: 54; later 2: 55–56).
12. The Pardoner’s above referenced piggy-wiggy foretells yet more animal imagery: recall that Saint Anthony was often depicted in the company of a porker, as here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tentation_de_Saint_Antoine.jpg (accessed 12 September 2021). While most challenging to translate, the Snake-Oil Salesman’s curious line about bird eggs appears to reference the same reset of pregnancy that was earlier attributed to Saint Muffie: Messeigneurs, vecy l’oeuf d’un moyne / Qui fut ponnu en Barbarie, / Qui est plain quand la lune est plaine / Et tary quand elle est tarye (2: 54). I agree with Tissier that l’oeuf d’un moyne is a sparrow’s egg (RF, 5: 254–55n); but it’s also the word for “monk.” To my ear, the whole thing is evocative of the fabliau of the thief on the rooftop who tries to kiss the moon: “Le Larron qui embrassa un rayon de lune” (Fabliaux et contes, 45–47).
13. It was before Caiaphas, not Pilate, that Peter denied Jesus three times; see also MFST, 202. The reference to Noah’s ark (la grand arche de Noë) is likely related to the upcoming allusion to Mount Ararat in Turkey (2: 55; RF, 5: 255n–256n). I also like Matt Sergi’s idea that this is a sight gag: try having the Pardoner produce a large plank along the lines of the proverbial ramrod up somebody’s ass.
14. An error in RBM, fol. 2v, col. 2 attributes three speeches in a row to the Triacleur (RF, 5: 258n).
15. More wordplay on de commune juré with esse juré cela? (2: 56; above, note 11). For Tissier, Pâques could have been Parques, i.e., the three Fates, who were seated near Hades, the aforementioned Cerberus, and the upcoming Persephone (RF, 5: 258n)—also the name of the harridan of Wife Swap (HD, #9).
16. The specific plant is la barbe de Proserpine or “Persephone’s Beard” (2: 57; RF, 5: 259n; FFMA, 2: 169). But its hellacious origins require a different pun in English.
17. At 2: 58, the basket (une hotte) recalls Virgil hanging in his corbillon in #4, Drama Queens (Figure 2) and Basket Case (of my next volume): La Farce de la Femme qui fut desrobée à son mari en sa hotte et mise une pierre en son lieu (RC, #23).
18. At 2: 58: Machiavelli’s famous Mandragola is contemporaneous with our farce (RF, 5: 263n). Also, recall that there was only one phoenix in the entire world (RF, 5: 263n); that Mount Athos was a sacred site of orthodox Christianity where no women were allowed; and that the pelican nourishing its young with its own blood was a preferred New Testament symbol, as in Thibaut de Champagne’s thirteenth-century Deus est ensi com li pelicans (for the Folger Consort’s rendition, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b6r02ZmTU4 [accessed 25 December 2018]).
19. Another nod to the Melusine legend with Geoffrey Big-Tooth (2: 58–59), probably Geoffrey II of Lusignan (ca. 1198–1248), who owed that moniker to a protruding canine tooth (RF, 5: 264n–65n).
20. Some complex wordplay here on baulx and bau (2: 59), the latter, another rafter-like chevron mentioned above (2: 59), whence my truss/trust pun above.
21. Deux coquins ne vallent rien / a un huys (2: 60) seems as concrete a reference as any to the Chicken Pie and the Chocolate Cake (FCMF, 151–58; above, § “Plot”), the moral of which is likewise that you can’t knock twice at the same door for both dinner and dessert.
22. To my ear, this is a delightful setup. You’ll see why later: je me tiens seur, / Se mon mary estoit icy, / Certes, il seroit bien marry / Se très bien ne vous festoioit / Car aussi certes il souloit / Se mesler du mesme mestier (2: 61).
23. Vous ne demourrez pas derrière / Par ma foy jusques à un escu (2: 61): my reading diverges from Tissier’s (RF, 5: 270n); but, to make room for both, you could add this sotto voce to the audience: “I’ll be into these boys for a least a hundred bucks a head!”
24. Actually, it was the Snake-Oil Salesman who handed her the coffret (2: 60–61); but the Pardoner would be happy to invent anything about what’s in it.
25. On adieu, pou fille, Tissier puzzled out a synonym for povre garce (like Perrette of #6, Brother Fillerup [RF, 5: 271–72n]). But there is a character called Puoc fille or Peu-File in the Farce des Trois Commères, projected for a future volume of mine. For a summary, see RTC, 213–14; and Répertoire, 106–7.
26. For the big payoff, I draw on this fantastic cold open from “The Boys in the Bar” (Cheers, 1983): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km8n48oAJmo (accessed 1 June 2018).
27. What a pair! Stained or unstained “britches” or brayes (2: 63) will reappear in #11, Slick Brother Willy, and #12, Immaculate Deception (haut de chausse). Compare with a report by Philippe de Vigneulles in his Chronique (4: 99) that, in 1511, an unscrupulous German salesgirl had filled her pots of butter with “old breeches full of shit” (dez vielle braye toutte brenoize); see my “Theater Makes History,” 1006.
28. And, to me, this is the final payoff (2: 63): despite the Alewife’s earlier proto-Clintonesque language, her husband isn’t dead at all!
29. This is one of the shorter envois: Je m’y en vois; adieu, vous dy, / Et prenez en gré, je vous prie / Adieu, toute la compagnie (2: 63).
Play 11. Slick Brother Willy
1. Excellent initiations to the ars praedicandi include Wenzel, Art of Preaching; and Murphy, Three Medieval Rhetorical Arts.
2. The fabliau of “The Franciscan’s Breeches” (“Les Braies au Cordelier”) relates similar events. On the tale’s legacy from ancient Greek comedy to Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), see Tissier’s extensive comparison (RF, 6: 191–201). To get a sense of what braies looked like, see this fourteenth-century pair from the Catalonia Love Breviary: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Braies_14th_century.jpg; or this whole collection here: http://postej-stew.dk/2016/11/medieval-mens-underwear/ (both accessed 12 September 2021).
3. We’ve met, e.g., William-the-Geek (Guillaume) in At Cross Purposes (FF, #7); Willy-the-Valet (Guillot) in The Shithouse (HD, #2); Will (Guillemin) in Pots and Scams (HD, #3); and the Wilhelminas of the Farce of the Fart (FF, #1), Cooch E. Whippet (FF, #11), and, of course, the Pathelin.
4. Here is some of the sermon (1: 305–7; my emphasis), which I’ve translated into both prose and verse. The added length is in keeping with Willy’s lopsided dominance of the play; but feel free to delete one or the other.
Original Middle French
Foullando in calibistris,
Intravit per boucham ventris
Bidauldus, purgando renés.
Noble assistence, retenez
Ces mots pleins de devotion;
C’est touchant l’incarnation
De l’ymage de la brayette,
Qui entre, corps, aureille et teste,
Au precieulx ventre des dames.
Si demandez entre vos, femmes:
“Or ça, beau père, quo modo?”
Le texte dict que, foullando,
En foullant, et faisant zic zac,
Le gallant se trouve au bissac.
Entendez-vous bien, mes fillettes?
S’on s’encroue sur vos mamelettes,
Et qu’on vous chatouille le bas,
N’en sonnez mot, ce sont esbas,
Et n’en dictes rien à vos mères.
De quoy serviroient vos aumoyres,
Se ne vouliez bouter dedans?
Se vous couchez tousjours à dens,
Jamais n’aurez les culz meurtris,
Foullando in calibistris.…
Mes dames, je vous recommande
Le pauvre frère Guillebert.
Se l’une de vous me demande
De fourbir un poy son haubert,
Approchez, car g’y suis expert.
Plusieurs harnois ay estrenés,
Bidauldus purgando renes.
5. Here is Willy’s next set-piece (1: 309): Ma dame, ayez de moy mercy, / Ou mourir me fault avant aage, / Mon las cueur vous baille en ostage; / Plaise vous le mettre à son aise. / Je vous dis en foy de langaige / Ce qui me tient en grant mesaise. See also SFQS, note 57.
6. S’une foys je suis sur mes oeufz, / Je bausmeray sur le tetin (1: 310): “walking on eggshells” takes on new meaning in that “protecting one’s eggs” is “protecting one’s balls”; plus the precious balm released on the tits is sperm (SFQS, notes 7, 60–62). I guess that’s one way of following the advice about avoiding pregnancy. Philipot preferred the militaristic haumer (RF, 6: 223–24n), which is by no means incompatible, e.g., with the later combatu (1: 312): “banging the cunt”? (SFQS, notes 76 and 77).
7. Here’s that rhyme of purgatoire and suppositoire (1: 311; above, § “Language”). Also present: the infamous enema, the clystère barbarin, from Playing Doctor (FF, 443n), so called because it’s “barbaric” and “made with rhubarb” (RF, 6: 226n).
8. The spelling of “starvation” or “keeping someone waiting” (from affamer) is clearly gendered for the eye as affemmement (1: 311); see also RF, 6: 227n; and SFQS, note 72.
9. Mourir de soif emprès le puis (1: 312) channels one of Villon’s most celebrated verses. See, e.g., Galway Kinnell’s translation of the “Ballade du Concours de Blois,” http://www.tau.ac.il/~tsurxx/Blois/Blois.html (accessed 14 November 2014).
10. Or Willy could sing himself to sleep instead. For Martin, this soliloquy takes place in the street; but, either way, it’s a skillful way of marking the chronological transition from one day to the next (SFQS, note 86).
11. Hé, gentil tétin, [or matin] / Que tant tu me tiens en l’oreille. / Pour une qui s’appareille, / Ung vray chef-d’oeuvre de nature, / Mon corps veulx mettre à l’aventure; / A les sangler pour la pareille / Mon corps et membres j’appareille, / N’escondire pas créature. / Pour une, et ce. [qui s’appareille,] / Si son mary dort ou veille, / Mais que accès j’aye à la figure, / Je veulx que l’on me defigure / Se point un grain je m’esmerveille / Pour une. [qui s’appareille] (1: 313; my emphasis). At fourteen lines, this could almost be a sonnet but, in RBM, it’s a rondeau (fol. 2; 1: 313). My reading diverges from those of Martin and Tissier. The former thinks that Willy is hinting at continued flirtations with other women (SFQS, notes 86–94); the latter, that Willy is fixing himself up for Blanche (RF, 6: 231n–32n). I find the primping more reciprocal. One might also add, as a transition: “Get ready ’cause here I come!”©
12. Tissier thinks that Marvin slept in his clothes (FFMA, 2: 246).
13. This is where Tissier stunningly suggests that Willy is caressing his willy (1: 316; FFMA, 2: 249; above, § “Sets and Staging”). Physically, Willy is à bazac or basac—“laid out” or “destroyed”; so, it makes sense to call on Saint Fermin, the first archbishop of Amiens (RF, 6: 239n). He was also known as Saint Frémin l’accroupi, “the squatter,” i.e., Willy’s current position. And a Frenchman scrunched up like a frog? Quelle coincidence!
14. Technically, it’s Saint Valéry, to whom the Church of Meullers is consecrated. Is that a wink at the play’s signature (SFQS, note 126)? I’ve gone with a more recognizable saint associated with coupling.
15. A tip of the hat, of course, to Villon’s “Ballade des Pendus”; see, e.g., Kinnell’s translation (Poems, 25–156) and Craig Bertelot’s at http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/20C/Villon2.html (accessed 16 December 2018).
16. Some excerpts now from Willy’s Villonesque Will (ATF, 1: 318–19; my emphasis):
Original Middle French
Je suis mort si je me remue.
J’ay desjà le cul descouvert.
Et pour ce, frère Guillebert,
Mourras-tu si piteusement?
Deux motz feray de testament.
Devant que laisser m’accueillir
Et qu’on m’ait couppé le couiller,
A Cupido, dieu d’amourettes,
Je laisse mon ame à pourveoir,
Pour la mettre avec des fillettes;
(Car) j’ay esté bien aise à les veoir.
La dame aura mon coeur, pour veoir,
Pour qui me fault icy perir:
Frère Guillebert, te fault-il mourir?
… Je prye à tous les bons yvrongnes,
Se frère Guillebert est trespassé,
Qu’ilz disent en lavant leurs trongnes,
J’ay bien gardé le temps passé
Mon gentil gosier de sotir:
Frère Guillebert, te fault-il mourir?
17. Fourbir les custodi nos (1: 318): this rub-a-dub-dub of lady parts against precious relics—a fertility ritual for women struggling to conceive (SFQS, note 149)—foreshadows the play’s closing gestures.
18. Here’s part of Brother Willy’s parody of last rites—kitchen Latin and all—which would doubtless have been instantly recognizable (see also SFQS, note 159; RF, 5: 245–46n). In manus tuas, Domine, / Nisi quia domine ne / Tedet spiritus et pelli / Confiteor deo celi / Ut queant quod chorus vatum … / Hé, te perday-je, beau baston? / … Hé, Dieu, comme tu me gravonnes; / Adieu, gentilz tesniers pelus (1: 319–20).
19. At 1: 320, the Latinate c’est ille (“here it is”) and, a bit later, ce sont ille (“here they are”) are consistent with a pair of two, which goes for the bissac, the britches, the drawers, the underwear, etc.
20. In light of Marvin’s inadequacy, baiser is likely “to kiss” (1: 320).
21. Par Dieu, (si) ne m’y rairez-vous plus, / Ronge cul ravoir sainct Françoys (1: 321): we are invited sacrilegiously to envision cold, naked butt cheeks and a nasty castration that bloodies Willy’s behind (see SFQS, note 178). Ouch. For Tissier, Willy means “you’re really not gonna let me get back to the monastery” (RF, 6: 248n–49n).
22. For Je croy qu’il ne m’y trouvera point (1: 321), Martin understands Willy to be muttering that nearsighted Marvin won’t recognize him (SFQS, notes 181 and 182). This is where Tissier makes his decorous suggestion that Willy should hide his member with his hands (FFMA, 2: 252).
23. Believe it or not, the Middle French terms for “cuckold” and “hoo-hoo” (huihot or wihot) are homonyms: Vous faictes fourbir le huihot / Et on m’appellera huihot (1: 323); see also SFQS, notes 201 and 202; RF, 6: 255n. And, yes: Marvin really does invoke the Devil four times but, in contradistinction to Cooch E. Whippet (FF, #11), the Evil One does not show up.
24. The RBM calls for Blanche to deliver this line (fol. 5), which is probably an error. But it would work if you had her watch and eavesdrop from a distance.
25. Encor, s’on ne nous eust congneues, / Jamais nous ne les eussions eues (1: 325; SFQS, note 215). There is some ambiguity in that the final “e” of congneues would not have been heard when spoken. I’m not sure that Agnes would say that to Marvin, but it could be an aside.
26. Agnes is talking about the britches—les chausses—but the text reads les choses (1: 326), a different thingy!
27. Sans plus de plaict has a juridical ring (1: 326–27). Martin further believes that, while kissing the drawers would affect one’s breath (l’aleine), the text should read la laine, i.e., “pubic hair” (SFQS, notes 230 and 231).
28. At 1: 327, Martin understands that, à la Bro Job (#7), Blanche is asking for a nice big shot (SFQS, note 232), a metonymic confusion, to be sure.
29. Que chascun voyse à son degré. / Adieu, Messieurs, prenez en gré (1: 327): for Martin, the envoi calls for both a procession and an acceptance of a wife’s adultery (SFQS, notes 233 and 234). I hear an invitation that spectators kiss the relic and that they literally watch their “steps” (degrés) upon exiting; see also Getting Off on the Wrong Foot (FF, 453–54n).
30. For oh-so obvious reasons, one could go with “Let’s Hear It for the Boy[s]”© or “The Mess-Around.”©
Play 12. Immaculate Deception
1. Sister Goody, Soeur de bon Coeur, is “The Second Nun”; but in the original cast list (RLV, 204v) her name appears before that of “The First Nun,” Sister Crybaby (Soeur Esplouree). I’ve put the cast in the proper order.
2. There is an error in the digitized RFMSJ, vol. 2 at https://books.google.com/books?id=g1hXAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_book_other_versions_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 26 January 2021). It breaks up our play on p. 17, with pp. 18–30 appearing at the end of the volume.
3. For Streisand’s rendition of “His Love Makes Me Beautiful,”© see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIaHWp5DlFY (accessed 27 January 2021).
5. On chanter vs. dire and cantare vs. dicere, see Treitler’s groundbreaking “Oral, Written, and Literate Process”; and Jonsson and Treitler, “Medieval Music and Language.”
6. See also FFMA, 4: 315n; SFQS, note 46; Brown, MFST, 281; and, on the song’s antisemitic and anti-Protestant connotations, Draughon and Knapp, “Gustav Mahler.” In SFQS, Martin gives us a peek at the Godard score of “Dormez-vous, fillettes?” here: https://sottiesetfarces.files.wordpress.com/2017/08/robert-godard.png (accessed 13 April 2021).
7. For more on these convent sites, see RF, 11: 266n–67n, 279n; SFQS, notes 21 and 68; plus this helpful resource: http://www.monasticwales.org/glossary.php (accessed 27 January 2021).
8. I refer to “Maria”© or “Concrete and Clay”:© https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGhSGp0cyZ0 (accessed 27 January 2021).
9. See, e.g., SFQS, note 45; RF, 11: 249–50, 268–69n; and Rey-Flaud, La Farce, 134.
10. See, e.g., this Polish nun’s coif (1939), courtesy of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornette (accessed 13 April 2021).
11. While “Pickin’ Up the Pieces”© is not listed in the BMI repertory, multiple other titles by Furay are.
12. In addition to “Concrete and Clay”© and “Maria,”© one could try, for either the opening or closing numbers, “Gimme That Old Time Religion,”© “Papa, Don’t Preach,”© “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,”© “That’s the Way I Like It,” or “Fat-Bottomed Girls”!©
13. At 2: 8, the scholastic a quia, “to be reduced to silence,” is nothing if not tongue in cheek given Bunny’s upcoming take on the sisterly vow of silence.
14. Martin thinks that by par envye (2: 13), Sister Crybaby means “jealousy,” “envy,” or “spite” (SFQS, note 26); but, to my eye, it could also read par enuye (RLV, 207r), as in the ennui (“distress” or “anger”) befitting her emotional state.
15. Nostre bon pere confesseur / En aura le miserere (2: 14): instead of the miserere, I’ve offered biblical language consistent with prayer (RF, 11: 268n) and the “misericord,” the chamber where discipline is administered (above, § “Sets and Staging”). Martin understands the line to mean that Brother Hard-On will have heard their prayer (SFQS, note 27).
16. Alternatively, Sisters Goody and Frisky could accompany her but remain on their knees, eyes averted, and in silence throughout Scene 2.
17. Tissier posits that devers nous (2: 14) is the royal “we,” as befits Mother Superior’s station (RF, 11: 269n). For Martin, it’s a Freudian slip in that she is not alone (SFQS, note 30).
18. For Tissier, faire la resserée (2: 16) denotes Sister Bunny’s refusal to engage in sex (RF, 11: 271n); but Martin sees an allusion to a special astringent for deflowered women. Its tightening effects re-create the impression of virginity on the wedding night (SFQS, note 35). The pharmaceutical miracle of Saint Muffie (above, #10, The Pardoners’ Tales, note 7)?
19. As in #4, Drama Queens (note 50), I imagine the inaudibility routines of SNL or Legally Blonde.
20. Her response is limited to one word—ficatores (2: 16)—which requires much teasing out in English. For Martin, it’s the rub-a-dub-dub fricatores of lesbian sex (SFQS, note 36); whereas Tissier sees Latinate “fashioning” and an almost foie-gras-like goose-stuffing (RF, 11: 271n). “Goosing,” though, doesn’t seem to be Bunny’s anti-anal specialty.
21. Voz huys sont ils tous fermés? / Filletes, vous dormés, / Quant pour vous sont consommés, / [Ouvrez-les moi si m’aimez] / Dormés vous filletes? / Filletes, vous dormés. / [Dormez-vous seulettes?] Mes sens d’amours enflamméz [Mais, sans amour enflamés], / Dormés-vous, filletes? / Filletes vous dormés / [Dormez-vous seulettes?] (2: 18; my emphasis). I’ve included additional lyrics from Godard’s contemporaneous score (above, § “Language”); and adapted Tissier’s take that the gentlemen callers are on fire for the sleeping nuns (RF, 11: 274n).
22. Venite et aprochantes, Madamus, agenouillare / Quia voz fecit mouillare / Le boudin? il est bon à voir (2: 18). Tissier prefers bedaine to boudin—the “belly” to the “sausage” (RF, 11: 275n)—but the one doesn’t rule out the other: all the more so in that Martin recalls that Saint Boudin is often paired with Sainte Fente or Saint Muffie (SFQS, note 51).
23. The number five hundred—cinq cens (2: 20)—is a homonym for the five senses, les cinq sens, also the subject of Les Cinq sens de l’homme (RBM, #61; ATF, 3: 300–324).
24. In the Tiers Livre, the tale turns toward violent rape and incest: “it had not been by her consent: it had been by violence and by the strength of Friar Stickitinstiff” (CWFR, 312–13; RF, 11: 239–47).
25. Per Tissier, this is a parody (2: 26) of the ne respicas prayer preceding communion (RF, 11: 284n); and, per Martin, it’s an invocation of Paul to Romans 2: 3 (SFQS, note 83).
26. Mother Superior switches to tu and also calls Sister Bunny rusée (2: 26), which recalls one of the title characters of Coquillart’s mock trial, the Plaidoyé d’entre La Simple et la Rusée (see, e.g., ROMD, 233–43).
27. Ne jugés poinct! / Les jugemens sont odieulx / Au seigneur, qui est Dieu des Dyeulx. / Vous le sçavés de poinct en poinct. / Paul, glorieulx apostre sainct, / Dict que celuy n’aura refuge / D’excuse qui sera tasché / Et que luy mesme il se juge / S’il est subject à tel pesché (2: 26–27). This speech—Martin’s suspected interpolation (SFQS, note 88)—reprises Matthew 7:1 and Romans 2:1; see also RF, 11: 285n.
28. This macaronic statement is almost incomprehensible: Tu fessisti sicut et nos, / Par quoy absolvo te gratis, / In pecata nunc dimitis / In corbennem, comme au passé; / Plus oultre, vade in passé (2: 29–30). Fessisti seems to be a conjugation of faire; but it’s clearly a pun on Fessue too. As a literal translation, Tissier proposes (and Martin largely agrees): “You have done as we all have done. I absolve you without [requiring you to perform] penance for your sins. And now, fill your baskets! Continue to enjoy [sex or orgasms] (joir) as in the past. Now go in peace. Thank you” (RF, 11: 288–89n; SFQS, notes 97–101). At issue: the meaning of gratis, seemingly “dispensed from penance,” and incorbennem, which seems to invoke both a “basket” and a “good heart.” For Martin, the latter would mean dans un cœur bon, from in cor bonum et devotum.
29. Most of the envoi is in pentameter: Conclusion: Je trouve erreur caché, / Que cestuy la veult un pesché reprendre / Du quel il est taché & empesché, / Et par lequel enfin on le peult prendre, / Vous le pouvez en ce lieu cy comprendre. / La faulte en est à voz deulx apperceue, / Tesmoing l’abeesse aveques seur Fesue. / En prenant congé de ce lieu, / Une chanson pour dire adieu (2: 30). I know, I know: the drafting of Romeo and Juliet might not have begun until 1591.
30. And what could be more fitting than a parodic finale à la Full Monty? “You can leave your hat on!”© Unless you prefer “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves.”©
Appendix
1. From multiple songs registered to Fleetwood Mac, “Go Your Own Way” is listed in neither the ASCAP nor the BMI repertories. The best place to start might well be https://globalmusicrights.com/artist/1412025.
2. You can see and hear the Heaven Sent perfume jingle, produced in the 1960s for Helena Rubinstein, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gym7LD47k98 (accessed 3 July 2019). As of this writing, it was not listed in any copyright registry that I could locate.
3. While “If I Only Had a Brain” is not listed in the ASCAP repertory, multiple other titles are (such as “Over the Rainbow”).
4. While “I’ll Get You” has no BMI Work #, the vast majority of Beatles songs appear in the BMI registry.
5. You might be more familiar with the copyrighted gospel arrangement by Edwin Hawkins, ASCAP Work ID: 150028565.
6. While “Pickin’ Up the Pieces” is not listed in the BMI repertory, multiple other titles by Furay are.
7. The Alka-Seltzer jingle is listed in the ASCAP registry along with many other Dawes titles, in this instance, with a request to contact them for more information (accessed 3 July 2019).