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Reading Pointers for Sharper Insights

The Second Shepherds’ Play is, not surprisingly, the second play about shepherds in the Towneley/Wakefield Cycle. The first came immediately before this one, and many scholars believe the second play is actually a revision of the first. The Wakefield/Towneley Cycle is a series of thirty-two pageants based on the Bible, that was performed in the town of Wakefield, England, during the late Middle Ages and into the early Renaissance. It is also called the Towneley Cycle because the one existing manuscript that contains all thirty-two plays was once owned by the Towneley family.

It is entirely likely that, as a young boy, William Shakespeare was entertained by pageants such as The Second Shepherds’ Play.

To better appreciate the impact of the play on its medieval audience, the reader should be aware of how and why these “cycle” or “mystery” plays were performed. In an era when there was virtually no local, daily entertainment—no organized sports, no local theater for live performances, no music except perhaps in church—the common person eagerly anticipated the springtime when, in the weeks following the festival of Easter, most towns and cities would host their pageant cycle. Caravans of colorful double-deckered wagons paraded the streets, and short plays dramatizing key stories from the Old and New Testaments would be performed on these wagons. The juxtaposition of past and present, contemporary and biblical, common and holy would surely move the medieval spectators in ways no formal sermon ever could. The excitement of the festival, the riotous colors of the wagons and costumes, and the noise of performers and crowd all combined to create an unforgettable experience for people whose lives were hard and for whom fun was scarce.

The thirty-two plays in the cycle were clearly written by several authors over the course of approximately two hundred years. However, several plays, including The Second Shepherds’ Play, are so superior to the others that they are believed to have been authored by one playwright, today known simply as the Wakefield Master. Other plays in the cycle presumed to be by the Master include Noah, The First Shepherds’ Play, Herod the Great, and The Buffeting of Christ. The common authorship of these specific plays is assumed based on their comedy, social satire, and sympathetic and realistic portrayal of humanity.

By watching the performances in this parade of plays, even a Middle Ages peasant could sample the full scope of biblical history, from Creation to Judgment. The Second Shepherds’ Play is the Cycle’s Nativity play, but the anonymous “Wakefield Master” tells this familiar tale with a comic twist that has made this one of the most famous medieval cycle plays still in existence.

Several of the plays are written in a unique pattern sometimes called the “Wakefield Stanza.” When reading, The Second Shepherds’ Play, you might notice that the rhyme is both unusual and remains the same throughout the play. It is a nine-line stanza with the rhyme scheme AAAAB CCCB. In addition, each of the first four lines contains a caesura. The last word before the caesura in every line rhymes. For example, The Second Shepherds’ Play begins:

Lord, but this weather is cold, // and I am ill wrapped!
Night dazed, were the truth told, // so long have I napped;
My legs under me fold; // my fingers are chapped—
With such like I don’t hold, // for I am all lapt

In sorrow.

s

In storms and tempest,
Now in the east, now in the west,
Woe is him has never rest

Midday nor morrow!

Other plays in the Wakefield/Towneley Cycle include:
The Creation
The Slaying of Abel
The stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
The Exodus
The First Shepherds’ Play
The Flight into Egypt
The Raising of Lazarus
The Crucifixion
The Parable of the Talents
The Resurrection
The Ascension
The Last Judgment