In 2017 I revived a production of The Summoning of Everyman and added to it a second half where we produced a show based on Dux Moraud. In a moment of genius bad taste, for which I regret mostly nothing, we reframed the fragmentary text as though it were being performed by the since convicted criminal Donald Trump. As with all such concepts it is both perfect and terrible. Perfect in the choice of a central figure to play an immoral sex pest who thinks they are the hero in their own story, and terrible in that… it’s clearly terrible. That said, the show kinda worked and highlighted the failure of the morality play format when the idea of redemption isn’t fully costed or stress tested. The three blog posts below, the last unpublished till now, cover some of these issues. Up to a point. Recordings of the production, and less inflamatory versions, are available on the podcast. Live recording, original text, discussion. Robert Crighton, 2026

Sunday, 23 July 2017 – Duke Moraud

There comes a time in every producers life when they end up using a cliche.  Sometimes it seems desperate, sometimes it is – but in this case it was just the only way to go.  We have put a ‘modern twist’ to our production of Duke Moraud, and we feel just a little bit dirty.  In a good way.
Let me explain – we’ve been working on a version of the lost play Duke Moraud on and off for a while now.  The script for the play is lost, except for the dialogue for the Duke – all we have is his dialogue.  From inferences in the text we know it is similar to a story that survives in another format, so we know what is going on.  The challenge for us is – how to stage it?
We could have written alternative dialogue for the other parts – but we seriously didn’t know where to begin.  Writing cod medieval verse always feels wrong.  Additionally, the plot of the play is somewhat problematic to the modern ear (more on that another time) and, whilst it seems reasonable to give the original the benefit of the doubt and history, it feels wrong to contribute to a slightly questionable moral stand point – especially as this is a morality play.
Also the play is presented as the second half following my revival of The Summoning of Everyman, and full dialogue would make it a very long evening – it would be a bit bread on bread.  So I decided we would have one actor be Duke Moraud and have a second to act as general narrator and commentator on the play itself – this allowed us to a. keep the original text pretty much as writ and b. change the tone of the show by making it a bit more playful.
Then we started rehearsing.  As per my usual practice I’d created a basic edit of the text, modernising the basic spelling but leaving obscure words and phrasing as writ, as well as a rough script for the commentary in between speeches.  We then threw ourselves at the words, looking for an in.
The first try was fairly shit – but it was supposed to be.  We were too loud, too over the top and, even with the commentary, we weren’t communicating what was going on with any clarity.  It also took twice as long as planned.  We regrouped and began again.  And again.  Tea was drunk, clarity of meaning improved, but it wasn’t working as well as we’d hoped.  We planned our next rehearsal and went about our lives.
We met again and then… the idea happened.  We felt unclean.  It felt good.
The beginning of the play runs thusly – the Duke Moraud enters, greets the various people of the audience, and tells everyone to shut up on pain of pain.  So far, so standard.  He then tells the audience who he is and says what a great guy he is.  He’s got lots of stuff, he’s got great clothes, horses, he is just great.
Now, we knew that this is boastful hyperbole by a character who shows himself later to be thoroughly horrid, but we just couldn’t get that across.  It read as a character being genuine about how great a person they were.  In an outdoor space, where it probably would have been performed originally, we could out Herod Herod with grandstanding – but we’re performing in a nice fringe venue, so it needed to be smaller and subtler.  How do we show how prideful, nay delusional, how obsessed about how he is perceived, how small this Duke is.  And then we thought…
He enters, announces himself, says what a great guy he is.
He’s got lots of great stuff.
He’s got lots of great clothes.
He is just lots of great.
He’s Donald Trump.
At that moment we realised – we have to do the play with a ‘modern twist’ – because, obvious though it is, it worked perfectly.  The more text we threw at it, the more resonance there was.  Though the play Duke certainly goes much further than Trump has ever done – we are not suggesting for a second that the Duke of the play is actually him – the tone of how he speaks about people and women is perfect.
Now we have a way in, we can really tighten the linking script, make the story speak – because we no longer have to worry about getting the audience up to speed with who the Duke is.  They will see it straight away.  The Duke becomes less Trump like as we go along – as those parallels drift.  And we’re not Saturday Night Live, we don’t have an axe to grind beyond making an old text speak today.

Milk Bottle Productions Presents…

The Summoning of Everyman

Adapted and performed by Robert Crighton 
With Simon Nader in bonus play – Duke Moraud

Everyman has been summoned by Death to meet his maker – and he doesn’t want to go.  This interactive performance brings his struggle directly to the audience, asking them to become part of the story, to stand in the footsteps of Fellowship, Good Deeds and even Death himself.  Will you help Everyman make his peace?

Previous audiences have said of the show:  “A one man tour de force… gripped from start to finish… a mix of pathos and humour all done with a light touch… a real privilege and honour being there… having volunteered, with no acting experience whatsoever, was guided expertly throughout by Robert… an hour very well spent…  I’ve come to see it again!  What more do I need to say?  In awe of the intensity!”

The Bread and Roses Theatre, Clapham, Tuesday 8th to Saturday 12th August at 7.30pm [2017]

Monday, 24 July 2017 – Bigly Bliss

As mentioned in the last blog post, we’re creating a Trump like characterisation for the eponymous character of the Duke Moraud in the lost play.  So, as we’ve brought the Donald up, it’s a good opportunity to talk about the word bigly.
Trump came under a lot of flack for possibly saying bigly during his campaigning to be President.  “I’m going to cut taxes bigly…” etc.  Lots of people pointed out that the word did exist and has many meanings accrued over time – but this is a blog about early drama, so let’s have a little look at bigly.
I’ve come across it a fair number of times whilst working on mystery plays, so I did a quick look through my files and quickly came up with these examples.  I suspect it was used more times than this – variant spellings will throw searching for words in a database and I don’t have a complete collection of work on my computer – but here are a few random examples of the use of the word bigly in early drama.  It’s almost always used when referencing heaven, specifically the bliss of living in heaven.  God talks about building a heaven of bigly bliss in Chester…

God: A biglie bliss here will I build, a heaven without ending… (Chester 1)

And in the York cycle, a bad angel who falls in with Lucifer mentions that he’s in bigly bliss…

Angel Deficiens: So bygly to bliss am I brought… (York 1)

And Adam and Eve refer to the bliss of heaven after being cast out…

Adam: Alas, wretches, what have we wrought?

To byggly bliss we both were brought…

And later…

Eve: We are full well worthy iwis

To have this mischief for our mys,

For brought we were to byggely bliss,

Ever in to be.  (York 6)

And at the other end of time, the Angel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary that God will bring her to heaven soon…

Gabriel: And therefore he bids thee look that thou blithe be,

For to that bigly bliss that berde will thee bring… (York 44)

So, bigly – something that is more than just big, but is biglier than big – is a perfectly legitimate word for a President of the United States of America to use. Except that he didn’t use it in the context of heaven or used as a prefix to bliss, so we can probably safely assume that Trump wasn’t quoting the word in reference to it’s late medieval usage.  Oh well.

Wednesday, 23rd August 2017* – Commentary and Audio

*This date is for the composition of the below text, however the text wasn’t actually published at the time. It reads like the script for what became !Spoilers! episodes of plays on the podcast. I have struggled to make the formatting completely work for the website, and that might be the reason it wasn’t finally posted. Robert Crighton, 2026

At the bottom of this commentary there are three podcasts of Duke Moraud (or Dux Moraud if you prefer) in different versions.  Maybe you’d like to listen to the plain text version as you review the text below?  Enjoy.

We don’t know of any performance history for Duke Moraud.  As a fragmentary play there are good reasons why it would not be staged, and we have not come across any references to productions either in my researches or online.  We suspect that various student bodies have done something with it over the years, but we doubt there have been any professional or fringe productions – though please get in touch if we are wrong.
On that basis this was possibly the first performance of the remains of this play in over 500+ years, and almost certainly the best documented.  We have produced multiple audio recordings of the text, live and in rehearsal, and have some basis for practical commentary.  We hope they will be of use for future practitioners.
The plot, in brief, is a morality tale of the journey from sin to repentance – though it is sensational in the sins involved.  The Duke has an incestuous affair with his daughter who he talks into murdering first her mother, for discovering them, and then their love child.  He finds God, repents and his finally murdered by the daughter.
As with other plays of the period Duke Moraud appears simplistic at first glance for the modern performer – rough meaning thrown about in archaic verse with barely any depth to its meaning.  But contrary to this impression, the more you delve the more complex it becomes.  As we found with Pride of Life, another reconstruction, after the initial battle for meaning with difficult language, the actors started to find meanings which were not immediately apparent.  Sometimes, to be fair, these meanings may have been modern and artificial, but it does show that these texts have room for ambiguity and play.  Duke Moraud is particularly challenging because the moral message of the play – a journey from sin to repentance – is presented using such extreme examples of sin.  We got the feeling that the playwright was enjoying portraying murder and incest a bit too much – the moral lesson feels swamped in the action.  A further challenge comes with the ideology underpinning the morality – one which undermines female agency and is rooted in misogyny.  In trying to present a play where the male character basically gets away with murder, whilst the female characters by and large are victims or worse, a modern audience (rightly) will not respond well.  While this is projecting modern standards on the morality of the time, any play has to be performed in the now.  We couldn’t ignore the implicit (im)morality of the play especially as the explicit message becomes not just a bit trite, but positively insulting.  The play is perhaps a curates egg, but almost all of the egg tastes pretty bad.
Our solution to this was to distance ourselves from the play, present the surviving dialogue in isolation with a thoroughly modern commentary – thereby allowing the play to be viewed in two modes at once.  It allowed us, the audience, to enjoy the more grotesque elements of the story, while understanding how the dramaturgy functioned at a remove.  Broadly speaking, we turned a serious morality play into a dark comedy.  This distortion is perhaps unfair to the play, but it worked, so we don’t care.
The preparation of the text for performance followed now established methods used with other plays.  We produced a light modernisation and standardisation of spelling throughout, with basic side notes to meanings of obscure words for difficult phrasings.  Most of this work was easy enough to achieve, but there were still plenty of lines left in a distinctly unsatisfactory way – difficult rhyme choices, words that couldn’t be modernised and would have to be left or changed, and many sections which were neither fish nor fowl.  We made a few changes to dialogue where it felt absolutely necessary, but marked the text so that we knew as we rehearsed what was original or not.  In the below text translation notes are in square brackets to the right of the line, unless the line contains an altered passage – then the alteration is italicised and note references the original word – plus additional commentary.
This work done, we handed the text to our Duke, Simon Nader, and we started to rehearse, which marked the second phase of textual editing.  As we rehearsed we started to craft the play text into a performance text.  We made a few more changes; a couple of lines were cut, decisions on meaning tried out.  The rehearsal schedule was tight, so many decisions were made in a hurry, some to be dropped later.  In the end the final script remained very close to the original, primarily because we wanted to give what was left of the play a chance to stand or fall on its own.  We only cut two lines, a decision, in retrospect, was unnecessary.
There was another issue in the preparation of a text like this – one we’ve encountered before – and that’s the level of invention by earlier editors – missing or unclear lines, though marked as such, are often written out with best guesses.  The difficulty for us is two fold – 1. we don’t know, not having the original document to hand, how much these guesses are based on actual visual evidence and 2. having once seen the substitution it is difficult to unsee.  In the end we let words stand or fall on a whim – as no systematic approach seemed apparent.
The final layer of distortion of the play came in performance – after our first pass at modernisation, after the decisions of actor and director in rehearsals, after the performance style – so different to the original – had been set, after the rest of the linking script was written, then there were the errors and ad libs that creep into performance – the fluffed lines, lines learnt wrong, changes in the moment.  However much we wanted to do this lost play, to do it as ‘accurately’ as possible, the show cannot even come close – how distant that first glance at a manuscript is from the ‘final’ performance.  And that’s before we take into account the fact we decided that our version was being performed by Donald Trump.  That said, the text is recognisable as the artifact known as Dux Moraud, so we shouldn’t get too hung up on questions of authenticity.
Simon, being a modern actor, wanted motivation and meaning to follow the text.  He wanted there to be a journey to the character, which is perfectly reasonable.  The director resisted this approach in places, because he saw the play as centring on a road to Damascus style repentance, a sudden moment, not a slow realisation of guilt.  However, the actors viewpoint is important, and just because the original performance may not have been as psychologically rigorous, that isn’t to say it wasn’t there.  The text allows for this reading in a number of ways, as we will get to below.
The opening of the play has many parallels with other plays of the period – from the introduction to Pride of Life, to the cries of Herod in his many incarnations over the years.  My working assumption was that the play would have been performed outside on a fixed scaffold staging, the audience on the ground standing around it – though I’m willing to concede other set ups.  It could as easily have been performed indoors, or in a more fluid stage set up – though I would resist the idea that the play was longer than an hour and staged in the more flamboyant style a la Castle of Perseverance – the text feels small and domestic in scope.  However the audience is arranged, the priority for the player of the Duke is to get the audience to be quiet and look at him.

DUKE:  Emperors and kings be kend, [known, directed]
Earls and barons bold,
Bachelors and knights to mend, [mind me – look at me – though I wonder whether it could mean, mend your ways, mend your manners]

Squires and yemen to hold, [yeomen – in retrospect we should have just changed it to yeomen]
Knaves and pages to send, [attend – similarly, attend would have been a good alternative, it rhymes]
So perfect that aryn to be sold, [I like aryn, but are would have been acceptable]
I pray you, lordings so hend, [near – I wouldn’t have changed hend, it’s a great word]
No yangelings ye make in this fold
Today.

[We are great fans of yangeling, more people should say it]
As ye are lovely in face,
Set you all seemly in place,
And I shall without fallacy [we substituted the word falas – falseness/deception – with fallacy because we could make it rhyme with pay. It changes the rhyme scheme, but the audience didn’t notice and it made the meaning clear]
Show reasons here to your pay. [pleasure]
The primary thrust of this first stanza is to get the audience to stop and listen, no information has been added, no plot, just a hint of character.  Can we assume that there wasn’t a formal introductory speech prior to this?  There is no obvious need for another opening, but I’ll look into that below.  Of note is that the play uses the character of the Duke to start the play.  He is both character in the play and speaker for it – not that he is self aware that he is in a play as such.  The whole opening speech functions as a unit of action and makes the Duke central to the play – which is helpful, as he’s all that we’ve got.  It is possible that he isn’t as central as he at first appears, but I’ll go through the options later.  The opening speech continues in stanza two:

Wealth I wield at my will,
In word I am known full wide,       
I have hart and hind upon hill,
I am gay on ground for to glide.
Seemly there I sit upon sill,
My wife and my men by my side. [my men – possibly should be ‘my many’]

I command you attend my till, [command was possibly invented by an editor] [till – speech]
Or else I shall bate your pride
With dint – [to explain that dint is some violent act seems to state the obvious when performed, it’s clear what it means when you say it]

And therefore I warn you together [infere]
That ye make neither crying ne bere. [We toyed with embracing the homophone beer, as performing this to a fringe audience there was beer about. In the end Simon was happy to try and communicate the original meaning – noise.]
If ye do, withoutyn dwere, [doubt – there is no way we were changing dwere, it’s used too often.]
Strokes at you shall I mint.

This second stanza expands from his general cries of silence to elaborate on the character of the Duke – he is wealthy, well known, has lots of land for hunting – he’s got it made.  He has a family, servants, and soldiers possibly, and he will make the audience listen to him, through violence if necessary.  He is, as must be clear by now, a tyrant.  We can infer from the above that there is a small company of people on stage – his wife and possibly daughter are all there, there are probably a couple of soldiers with him, possibly threatening the audience as he speaks.  The family might be presented in tableaux, a throne for the Duke is suggested.

It is dangerous to speculate too far beyond this point – whether there actually was a presentation of a household, or even the possibility of servants as minor speaking parts, is unknowable.  The Duke concludes his opening address with this tricky third stanza:

Duke Moraud I hote by name, [hote – am called]
Courteous-er lord may be none, [Originally Korteyser, I invented a word between the original and the modern equivalent – looking back I’m surprised that I made this distortion. It worked, but it is a fiction, a non word created for this production.]
Will far than reigns my fame, [rengnyt – extends – I was never very happy with this line, getting the meaning across was tricky – there are several ways to parse the line, depending on what possible alternative to each word you choose.  Well/will, than/then etc.  We don’t suggest any answer, this is just what we ended up using]

To be comely crowned from one.
I give good gifts with game
And save each lording fro fone, [enemies]
Me bow-yn both wild and tame, [submit]
Whether so they ridden, or gone                         
Or ship.
I am doughty in deed,
I am worthy in weed, [worly]
I am seemly in steed,
No villainy to me will I keep.

This stanza introduces the name of the Duke, the only reference to his name, and where the title of the play comes from.  Duk (sometimes Dux) Morawd is probably not the original title, it’s just what it was named when the text acquired as it was worked on in the late 19th century.  The Duke extends the theme of his own importance, this time talking of his own munificence.  He tells us he is the very model of a modern major benefactor, a courteous lord, his fame known far and wide, who gives away his wealth, and has power over his enemies to protect his followers – wheresoever they be, on land or sea.

All of which is, unfortunately, told to us in language which doesn’t translate well for a modern ear.  The text is untidy, word choices unclear, meaning difficult to get across.  The word for enemies, fone, is unfortunately placed as a rhyme, so changing it is difficult – which means we go into an exposition of protecting people from enemies without communicating clearly that we’re talking about his enemies.  It isn’t, therefore, clear whether these enemies are real or part of a paranoia – whether he is talking about his duty as a good Duke to protect the people below him in society from harm, or whether he just silences critics at a whim.

The importance of this part of the speech in the scheme is therefore slightly lost – the Duke started by asking, with threats, for silence, (stanza 1), he then talks of his great importance in terms of what he has (stanza 2), then he talks about what he does with his power (stanza 3), and it’s here we see how he wants to present himself to the world – he wants people to believe he is a great and important person.  We will return again and again to how he wants to be seen in public, as opposed to who he is and how he acts in private.  The brilliance of this opening, marred by the misfortune of time and language, is that he shows us he is a tyrant as he tries to tell us how great he is.  There, in a nutshell, is the entire reason we chose to portray him on stage as Donald Trump – a man who can’t see the disconnect of his image from the reality of his actions.  FAKE NEWS!
It should also be noted that the character of the Duke is an enormous egotist – the words he uses most is I or me – like a child who only understands the word mine.  I alone accounts for nearly six percent of his total dialogue during the play.

The second speech is in response to the first identifiable other character – his wife, who has told him that she is going away for a while.  Why is never stated.  I like the idea that she’s going on pilgrimage – would add irony to the situation – but it might be for some other worthy reason.  We can assume that she is an entirely virtuous person.  The Dukes reply to her announced journey is formal – there are words of love, but no heat.

DUKE:  Dame, do now thy will
Thy voyage to fulfil,
To thee will I be beyne. [bound]
For love I thee pray –
Rap thee fast in thy way, [Rap-idly return]
And come home soon again.

There are no explicit clues here as to what is to come, except in the contrast of how the Duke speaks to his wife and how he will speak to his daughter.  There is a question of setting as well – is this in private, or are there guests or servants as witnesses?  Perhaps there are servants who speak of protecting her as they travel, witnesses who make this parting a performance.  The wife’s next lost speech must be different to the last.  The Duke now makes an, almost formal, promise of fidelity in their parting.  Does she ask him for this?  Is this speech in response to her suspicions that she can’t trust him out of her sight?  I don’t know that it is usual to make a promise to God to be faithful to your wife, unless there is reason to.

DUKE:  Through the grace of that same King [ich]
That formed us all with win, [wene – happiness – for the sake of the rhyme I changed the spelling]
I shall me keep from fonding [temptation]

And also from blame and sin
With grace.
Jhesu, as thou me wrought
And with wounds sore me bought,
Save me from wicked thoughts,

Jhesu, fair in face! 

He promises to keep himself from fonding, and asks Jesus to save him from wicked thoughts.  In our eyes, as we rehearsed, we decided that she didn’t trust him an inch.  We actually had him swear this oath on a Bible, to underline the promise he was about to break.  She presumably accepts this promise, and we have this brief goodbye.  Again, in our eyes, we saw this moment as that he really wanted her out the door so he could get on with being bad.

DUKE:  Farewell, my worlych wife, [beautiful – we do love the word worlych]
Farewell, love in land,
Fare thou seemliest life,
Fare thou happy in hand!

‘Bye bye dear’ and off she goes.  The next unit of action is the Duke in conversation with his daughter.  How was this transition achieved?  I suggest she was on stage throughout this opening, possibly even speaking at some point, and then, when they’re alone, the Duke speaks to her.  It is possible that some break occurred, so other action, to change the location – but I do not believe so.  I don’t think it would have been a tidy transition – though they could have had music to cover or there might be some lost dialogue from the Duke.  Regardless as to how, he now makes love to his daughter.  Which brings us back to the question of an introduction prior to the Dukes first speech.  The Duke’s opening address could have followed a formal expositor, who explained the plot and prepared the audience for what was coming.  We found that half the fun of the play is in the turn arounds and surprises it throws at the audience.  How much of a rollercoaster ride would this play have been for the original audience?  Would there have been Banns with the plot of the play prior to performance?  I would like to think they were not pre-warned, because that would have been truly dramatic – but we can’t know.  Here’s how the Duke woos his daughter.

DUKE:  Maiden so lovely and comely of sight,

I prey thee, for love, thou will listen to me.

To hear my reason I prey thee well tight [tythe – quickly – we couldn’t find a modern substitution]
Love so dearyn me must show to thee.

My love to thy body is castyn so bright,
My will me must have of thee.

Thou art lovely to lickyn and brightest with right, [leykyn – liken – we changed the meaning to be something more graphic and sexual, we didn’t care]
I love thee in thought, thou seemly of ble, [colour – we didn’t try to explain ble beyond through actions]
By name.
Thou maiden that more-ist thy mirths with might, [increases]
Derne deeds we must do by day and by night [Derne – dark – and we also changed me to we]
By thee worthiest woundyn, with-ist wit – [encompass]
This sooth tale I tell withoutyn any blame. [sooth – true, we changed The to This]

The Duke doesn’t hang around – he jumps straight in with admiration of his daughters beauty and his love for her.  Our changes to the text made this more graphic, but he doesn’t hold back even in the original.  He is obsessed with her beauty, how she looks.  Comely of sight… seemly of colour – he will come back to her appearance later.  He is explicit about what he wants – me must have of thee… derne deeds me must do.  Dark deeds which he must do – in his view his desires cannot be denied.  Now, after this speech, with those musts, the audience might be thinking the scene will become violent, but the next speech from the daughter is an acceptance to his advances.  I would give a lot of money to see that speech find the light of day.  An unprimed audience is shocked and horrified and – perhaps to their shame – secretly delighted at this turn of events.  It’s so unexpected, especially following the last surprise of his secret desires.  Where is this play going? the audience wonder.  Well, the Duke wastes only one speech before getting on with the action:

DUKE:  My fere so gracious in grace, [love]
Think thou shalt haven of me,
For thou art lovely in face
And thereto bright baring of ble. [berende]
Now will I makyn solace,
For my dearyn love shalt thou be.
Kiss me now paramour in place,
Also thou art worly to see
In sight.
Damsel, fairest to fand, [fond]
Also thou art seemly to stand,
Rap we us to windyn in hand
To thy chamber that is so lovely of light.

A speech of delight at what he is about to enjoy – think thou shalt haven of me – but he can’t help but break off from making love to her with talk about her appearance – thou art lovely in face, thou art worly to see / In sight.  He is held back from the act, literally, by his male gaze.  Only after bouncing back and forth from saying what they will do and how wonderful she looks, do they exit to her bedchamber.  

This is quite extreme for a moral play – live offstage incest!  Strong meat indeed.

Whilst this is happening I posit that the wife returns and makes a long speech explaining her early return, or maybe even telling the audience about how long she’s been away, to create some sense of time passing.  Other events may have happened, but I believe the action is largely continuous.  We know the next action is after the Duke and daughter have been discovered by the wife, who is out of earshot for his next speech.  She is perhaps preparing to leave to tell the world what she has seen, while they plot what to do with her.  The Duke is quite upset at their discovery.

DUKE:  Ah! I am woundyn in great dolour, [wondyn – wounded]
With danger and tene I am bound.
To me thou give tent paramour,
And listen what I say this stound!
Yon traitor shall betray us this hour,
I tell thee, seemly on ground –

Then shall we have no succour,
But cares to us shall be found,
Iwys. [certainly]
I ne may never be fawe
Till yon traitor be slaw.
That is so rebel in saw –

Sorrows mot ay to her kiss.

The audience is now realising how evil the events of this play can be – from incest to murder.  The Duke has shown himself to be a coward – not willing to do the killing of his wife, he gets his daughter to do the murder for him.  He creates a sense of urgency, yon traitor shall betray us.  He returns to flattery – seemly on ground – beautiful before me – putting her on the pedestal again.  Mother must die or we’ll never be happy.
There is an uncomfortable sense that the author might be enjoying the power trip this section of the play allows the audience and himself to enjoy.  In our production, because he were using volunteers to play the other characters, we never used a young woman for the part of the daughter – we usually picked a middle aged man.  It defused the action nicely.

There are lots of questions about how the next unit of action plays out.  Maybe the daughter and the Duke plot to murder his wife with her onstage, out of earshot, as she packs or similar.  Maybe she had exited into another room and now passes the waiting daughter.  Did the original have a speech from the daughter in preparation for her task?  Is there a lengthy dialogue exchange between the two before the daughter kills her?  We don’t know.  If the play is structured as I suggest, then there would be some dialogue, but it wouldn’t be lengthy.  There are no clues as to how the murder happens.  The deed done, she returns to or calls out the Duke from his hiding place.  He asks.

DUKE:  Haves you now slain, by thy fay,
The fool that did us that tene? [pain/trouble/strife]

And she responds with a yes.  The Duke appears very happy about this turn of events.

DUKE:  A! Now am I merry this stound,
That she is brought to that deed,
For she should a wreyd us on ground,
That ilke old shrewed queed, [qued – evil person]
To sorrow she should us a found –

That had been to us an evil rede – [action – she would have harmed us with her actions]

In care forsooth is she wound,
And therefore I am merry to lead
And gay.
Damsel, lovely of cheer,
Make we merry here,
For care, withoutyn dwere,
Is went away for ay.

We struggled with the rhyming of the above speech – settling on deed/queed/rede/lead, which is correct in terms of meaning, but as writ it suggested ded/qued/red/led to be a shorter vowel sound.  This speech led us to speculate that the daughter may not be as happy about the killing as the Duke.  His initial cry of delight turns into a justification, as though she has shown distress and he’s still justifying the act to her.  He’s trying to bring her up to his level of cheer.  But then, is he as happy as he appears, or is his making merry a front to cover feelings of guilt?  I appreciate that we speculate on little evidence, but as theatre makers we felt that there was room for that interpretation. 

Now we hit the first tricky step change in the text – the first point where a clear idea of how the action of the play could have been staged becomes impossible.  Whilst I speculated earlier about how some of the action could have flowed together, it’s only really a case of dancing between possible variables – who is on stage? How do we get x off and y on.  Here we hit a different problem – time must pass between the last speech and the next.  The body of the wife must be disposed of – we do not know how she was killed so we don’t know whether they can pretend she died of natural causes.  Is this a case of burying the body in the garden and pretending she’s gone away forever, or do they have a funeral?  Then there is the fact that his daughter is pregnant by him, and even assuming some time passed earlier before the wife returned, the next conversation states she has given birth.  Where was the daughter during the latter stage of pregnancy and birth that the Duke doesn’t notice these events?  How is this time gap jumped?  There are no internal clues as to how this jump occurs.  I don’t believe this play is more expansive than the central story, so I don’t see it as a matter of jumping to a subplot.  One answer is that there is some other character we haven’t met – either a narrator figure, an allegorical character or someone of the Duke’s court – who enters as the Duke and daughter exit with the body of the Wife – s/he speaks about the missing wife/her funeral/the passing of time/or whatever and then exits as the Duke and daughter re-enter.  It’s not a satisfactory answer.
Anyway, she tells him, a baby is born.  He doesn’t react well:

DUKE:  A! Have I begotten this stound [hour]
A child so lovely of thee?
I am in sorrows wound,
For care me must flee.
I prey thee in wreaths now wound,
That foot in sight might I see.

His first impulse upon hearing the news is to run away – he is conflicted in his reactions.  He is appalled and attracted at the same time – a child so lovely winds him in sorrows.  He asks to see the child, swaddled, that he might see it.  The text says foot here, as though to see a foot poking out of his blanket, but it could easily be food/fode – a term for child used again in the context of Herod killing babies.  Which is what the Duke now suggests doing.  It initial stage directions below are my own.

DUKE: (at first glad to see the child) A, bird, fair and bright… (then)
Do it out of my sight,
For thought I am ny sclawe! [near dead/killed]
Sclo it in present – [kill it presently]

That is my commandment –

Fast bring it of dawe! [put it to death]

For all this land I would nought
That lords of this land had it thought,
That I had sinned by thee.
For sorrow and care that we should drive [suffer]
We should lead ever life full rive [rywe – sad]
And thereon ay to be.

Therefore I prey thee,
For thy love of me,
Slay it with thine hand!
Then shall we be in peace,
Withoutyn any lease,
And have mirth in land.

We once again have a sense of the Duke fighting his own nature – in my added stage directions I noted his delight at being handed the baby and his sudden change of mind, which from the line seemed reasonable.  It could be that he’s just being evil, taunting his daughter that all will be well, but he’s a weak man, not a self knowing villain.  He has a moment of holding the child, a moment of sweetness, and then he remembers that he must turn away from it – a sudden change of tone – kill the child.

His tone fluctuates between persuasion, threats, flattery, reminders of their ‘love’ and predictions that they’ll never be happy again.  Again, he doesn’t do it himself, he gets her to do it.  The abuser cajoles his victim with threats and with his love for her.  It’s possibly the most evil part of the play, but not because he knows he’s a villain, it’s because he’s a creature beyond contempt.  She obeys his command.  Is there a scene with her and the baby?  Do we, the audience, see it happen?  There may be more dialogue to this section, as when we return to the Duke, murder done, the beginning of his speech is lost – though maybe not by much.  He, again, appears delighted by her actions.

DUKE:  … sing!
There I sit lovely in tower,
I thank thee lovely thing,
For thy workings this hour
For that perfect tiding
I give thee hall and bower, [hall and home]
For thou, withoutyn leasing,
Puts me from shame and dolour.

He thinks he is safe, and in return for her loyalty, he bribes her off – setting her up with a household.  It is highly probable this is a house a long way away from him, a neat separation from his crimes.  To hammer home his distance from these events he decides to go on a journey through his realm, to show people how good he is, doing good deeds, meeting his people – being physically far away from his crimes.

DUKE:  Into country I will wend, [I added ‘Into the country’ for our version]
There to plete both far and hend, [travel far and near]
With good deeds boun. [ready, prepared or as in boun-tiful?]
There as it come-it in my mind
For to meet with lords kind
Both in field and town.

It is all about appearance – how he is perceived.  He is happy so long as no one knows what he has done.  His next speech continues this theme, about going away, leaving his paramour behind, reminding her, perhaps, to remain silent – even to get rid of the dead baby.  We can’t know as the speech is partly lost

DUKE:  Betide me good…

Into country…

…

But I prey thee this hour,
My dear…            paramour,

…

I shall no more that…

But certys I shall fond

Without…
Have good day, worlych wight! [beautiful person]
Have good day, lovely in light! [Have – original just Ha]
Par…                seemly in sight,

…            comely…

We had fun filling in the blanks, using some established suggestions and some very obviously modern additions of my own.  It’s interesting that his final farewell is almost exactly the same as his earlier farewell to his wife.  Has his affection faded now that she can implicate him?  Is he going away as much to distance himself from her as from his crimes?  We don’t know.  

There is again a question as to how we get to the next scene – the Duke on some country road – but it’s easily bridged.  The daughter would be left onstage to speak a speech of some thirteen or more lines and then retire – giving him enough time to reenter as though on his journey.  His next speech could be to someone, but it seemed to us it was more a desperate attempt to return to his opening address, to reclaim his place as a good person, handing out charity as if that might save him.  This speech I suggest would have been off the scaffold – the main staging place – and would be among the audience.

DUKE:  I am mightful and merry, marked in mind,
I am flower fairest by fruit for to fare,
I am fairest in face, ferely to find, [wonderful]
I am loveliche in land, lightest in lare, [lovely] [wit]
I am comely and courteous and crafty of kind,
I am comely castyn from knots of care,
I am lordly to leykyn light under lynd, [play] [lime]
I am seemly to sittun seats so sore, [syttyn syttys so sare -endure cares so sore]

I will press me in pride!
When all the lords of this land are gathered together [infere]
I am flower of them all withoutyn dwere, [doubt]
And else I were woxyn of blames right here [grown / become]
But I be royal in array for to ride. [rayis – strips of cloth]

Lots of alliterative talk about how wonderful he is – but does he believe the pitch he is selling anymore?  The question is, are his deeds already weighing on his conscience, or will his repentance be sudden and spontaneous?  I began rehearsals going with the latter opinion, but was talked round as we rehearsed.  There is room in the text for him to be saying this to convince himself that he is still good.  Then he hears a peal of bells – which, in the original staging, could have been actual church bells:

DUKE:  Ah!  Now I hear
A bell ringant full near,
Yonder in the Kirk. [In our staging I had hither – but going back to the text I find I’m in error – Yendyr]
Thither I will fare,
For I am in great care
There some good deed to work.

Has he heard the bells and thought only of his continued outward show of piety?  Is he thinking to use the church as a good location to show his charitable deeds, to show the world how good he is – or is there a hint of repentance already?  We went with the latter, but I believe it would have been the former in the original. Now he goes to the church – i.e. he returns to the scaffold.  Does he go in, or is it just the sight of the church that makes him realise what a sinner he is?  These speeches could easily run into each other without other action.   

DUKE:  A sinful caitiff I am,
Sinfully I have wrought blame
Be great time of my life.
Now, Christ, hast thou me bought;
Forgive me that blame that I have wrought,
And make me somewhat blithe!

For in this world may be none,
That ever took life with flesh and bone,
That have-it so great blame.
But I have grace and help of thee,
I am lost fro thee so free,
In hell to be, by name.

A priest now me must have,
If I shall be save
Ageynus Christ of might, [in the sight of]
To tell him my blame
That I have wrought by name,
That is my thought now tight [tyth – quickly]
Today!
Jhesu, heaven-flower,
Put me from dolour,
And give me grace this hour
A priest to have, I say!

However gradual his realisation of sin prior to this moment was, now he falls headlong into his realisation of his sins.  Maybe he has had a vision between this speech and the last, Jesus himself even, and that makes him find a priest.  I don’t believe there is a meaningful gap between this speech and the next, no change of location, simply that a priest approaches him with a short greeting, maybe seeing the look in the Dukes face, asking if he can help.

DUKE:  A! Blissed be thou ay,
That thou come today
To hear my deadly sin.
Whiles we are together [infere]
I will shrive me here,
For now will I begin.

Deep breath everyone, he’s got a lot on his chest.

I have led my life
In sorrow and in strife,
With cursedness and care –
Yet is more in my thought,
Sins I have wrought
By my daughter in lare. 

It’s almost like the priest is supposed to try to interject halfway through this stanza, and the Duke cuts him off with – there’s more.  The last line is particularly tricky.  I first read in lare as in law – making the incest slightly less problematic, that she was his step daughter.  Lare could mean wit, or learning, so there is some tangent connection with law/learning.  The Early English Text Society edition put in lare as meaning at my instigation.  That felt like a leap to me, but it’s not my field.  We went with their definition because it makes that part of the play really nasty, rather than just exploitative and grubby.  

And child she bore by me,
Which was fair and free
Both in body and face,
And I might never be fawe [glad]
Till we had him sclawe – [kill]
I say the true case! [sooth – don’t quite know why we changed sooth to truth, it’s clear enough]

The Duke is telling his story out of order, confused by this sudden release of all this guilt.  The next line is telling, of suddenly remembering there are more sins…

Yet more I will tell now.
My wife there she sclow [killed]
Through urgement of me. [incitement]
And thus is my life spent –

Lord omnipotent,
Grant me my sins to flee.

We don’t know how far the priest goes in his forgiveness of his sins.  It isn’t clear if he gives the Duke a clean pass, or whether he orders the Duke to make the various amends he now goes to make – either way, it does seem to a modern audience a bit rich that the Duke gets forgiven at this stage with no real consequences. The Duke is happy with the result of his confession: 

DUKE:  I will blively, my leve friend, [dear]
Do penance both far and hend, [near]
To save my soul fro wrath.

The Priest probably gives him a final warning before the Duke exits – the priest may also now perform a long speech about repentance.  It’s the kind of thing they do.  On his exit it is probable the daughter reenters first to deliver a short speech reestablishing her at home, ready for the Duke to reenter unto her.  He is formal in his speech to her… well after the first line anyway: 

DUKE:  Hail daughter, lovely of sight.
Hail, lovely leuende today, [creature]
Christ that is mighty in might
Save thee evermore and ay! [originally ermor, the modernisation seemed reasonable]

It’s like he reverts briefly, before remembering to call on Christ.  She presumably picks up on this distance, perhaps throwing herself at him as in the past – his reaction is a bit condescending.

DUKE:  Let be, my daughter dear,
Let be, lovely in lere, [face]
I have forsaken here
My blame and my sin.
My sin I have forsake,
And to penance I have me take,
For that wicked wrake
Now is time to blyn. [end]

There is still some resistance in himself, now that he sees her again – the cry of Let be is almost to himself, to not go near her lovely face.  He has repented and their ‘affair’ must end.

And therefore I prey thee,
Certys with heart free, [certainly]
That thou make not me
To fall in no more blame!

This is decidedly rich – his blaming her for the ‘affair’ he instigated.  He is literally telling her she’s doing this to him, that his lusts are her fault.  Such victim blaming leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.  But it gets worse:

Now will I do away
My treasures rich and gay,
And travellyn I will ay
For my wicked fame.

He says he’s going to forgo possession and travel as a poor man – which would be fine, if that didn’t mean, by association, that this includes everything he gave to her.  In a rage she attacks him, hitting him in the face, which – frankly – seems pretty reasonable.  The play doesn’t take that view: he has repented, she caused his failings, he is now the good guy, she the fallen woman.  So, as he lies dying, he has the gall to forgive her.

DUKE:  Now my life will pass
Fro me this ilk stound, [same hour]
I am smitten in the face
With careful strokes and round.
Jhesu full of grace
Will forgive this trespass
That thou hast done to me,
And give thee grace to blyn [end]
Of that wicked sin
Which thou hast done so free.

He asks Jesus to forgive her killing him – which isn’t entirely unreasonable – but then asks that she is given the grace to end the sin that she’s done freely.  Which is a bit rich.

My time comest fast to
That I shall pass you fro,
In other place to dwell.
In manus tuas, domine!
Jhesu have mercy on me,
And save my soul fro hell.

The Duke dies.  It seems pretty clear from the tone of the play that he now goes to heaven.  But what happens to the daughter?  Whilst there are other versions of this story that go on to tell the rest of her story, it’s my assessment that this play doesn’t do this – or not fully.  I cannot prove this, but here is my reasoning.  The text, by the narrowness of the action, suggests a moral interlude comparable with other plays of the time – around 900 to 1000 lines – rather than a longer more expansive tale.  We don’t need more characters than those referenced in the text to make the action work, though I would assume there were maybe one or two others.  If we infer a number of possible lines per character we know of we could come up with something like the following.

The Duke – 268+ lines

The Wife fewer as she dies early – 100/150 

The Daughter, possibly as many possibly as the Duke – 200+ 

The Priest, fewer, but possibly covers a scene change – 100

That leaves us somewhere in the region of 700 lines, allowing for another 200 lines for smaller additional characters, prologues or epilogues, or expansion of the above roles.  

The play could go on to see the daughter live a longer life of sin and then repent, but I suspect it was instead a short ending, repenting by the body of her father.  Or perhaps she goes to hell.  I wouldn’t put it past the author.  But these are, of course, just suppositions.

Below are the various podcasts for the play – a basic plain text version, the live Donald Trump comedy version, and a discussion of the play with myself and Simon Nader* who played the Duke.
Till next time.  And save my soul fro hell.

*Now going as Simon Nader Mirza