Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T01:26:11.092Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Noah's Wife Again

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Anna Jean Mill
Anna Jean Mill*
Affiliation:
Mount Holyoke College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In her important study of the Wakefield Group in the Towneley cycle, Dr. Millicent Carey has much to say regarding the various English versions of the play of Noah and his wife. Here, says Dr. Carey, “Noah's wife appears as a speaking character for the first time ... Although she is mentioned in all the other versions from the Bible on, she is never known to utter a word until the dramatists of the Middle Ages make her an important member of their dramatis personae.” For the unbiblical Newcastle introduction of the devil and the temptation of Noah's wife—unique in the English miracle plays—Dr. Carey says that she has found no hint in Jewish legend. She considers the suggestion of Brotanek, who favors derivation by analogy with the Eve legend; of Brandl, who argues an approximation to Morality play construction; and of Cushman, who, rejecting the two former theories, remarks on the ubiquitous rôle of the devil as tempter in medieval legend generally. She points out an English dramatic parallel in the incident of the appearance of the devil to Pilate's wife in the York cycle, itself perhaps derived through analogy from the Eve story, and refers to certain other Continental parallels where the devil is a well-recognized device for registering “obstruction to the expressed wishes of God”—a device which may have originated in the Eve story or “may simply be a reflection of the mediaeval tendency to explain all evil as caused by the devil.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 1941 , pp. 613 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1941

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The Wakefield Group in the Towneley Cycle (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1930).

2 Op. cit., p. 66.

3 O. Waterhouse, The Non-Cycle Mystery Plays, E.E.T.S. (1909).

4 Op. cit., p. 69.

5 Ibid., p. 70.

6 Ibid., p. 76. Attention is called however to the scorn of Noah's companions in Cursor Mundi, ll. 1729–14.

7 Ibid., p. 77.

8 To this is added a suggestion that the final stage in the creation of Uxor may have been the result of realistic acting.

9 MLN, xlix (Feb. 1934), 88–90.

10 The Caedmon Manuscript of Anglo-Saxon Biblical Poetry (British Academy, 1927), p. xlv.

11 A. de Laborde, La Bible Moralizée illustrée, t. i (Paris, 1911), Pl. 9.

12 Migne, Dictionnaire des Apocryphes, ii, 647. Cf. also M. R. James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament—Their Titles and Fragments (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1920), p. 12.

13 The Koran ... translated into English by George Sale, Gent. (London, 1850), Ch. xi, p. 178.

14 Ibid., Ch. lxvi, p. 457.

15 I translate from the French Chronique de Abou-Djafar-Mo'Hammed-Ben-Djarir-Ben-Yezid TABARI, traduite sur la version persane ... par H. Hermann Zotenberg (Paris, 1867), p. 110. Here the Koran scoffers at Noah are said to stone him. Cf. also Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. Nūh; and H. Carnoy and J. Nicolaïdes, Traditions populaires de l'Asie Mineure (Paris, 1889), where, uniquely, in gratitude for his reception Satan invents a helm and steers his ark.

16 Oskar Dähnhardt, Natursagen (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907), i, 260. Cf. Anton Herrmann, Die Flutsagen der finnischugrischen Völker, in Globus, lxiii, 337.

17 Op. cit., p. 338. Valuable collections of Flood stories have been made by Herrmann; also by Dähnhardt in the work already cited.

18 In a Magyar tale the brothers and sisters of Uxor usurp the rôle commonly played by the devil and themselves provide the intoxicating potion. (Ibid., p. 334.) Dähnhardt cites many instances of the far-spread folk-tradition of the devil as the discoverer of brandy. (Op. cit., i, 264 ff.)

19 Herrmann, op. cit., p. 333 ff., cites some Magyar tales in which the devil himself, by various means, obstructs Noah's work; others in which Uxor's relations or other inquisitive spectators befoul the Ark and so hinder the building.

20 A Roumanian folk-tale explaining why a cat sits in a doorstep in the sun begins with the recalcitrance of Uxor and the devil-naming. See M. Gaster, Roumanian Bird and Beast Lore (Folk-Lore Society, 1914), No. lxviii, p. 214.

21 In Methodius, infra note 37, it is the devil himself who changes into a mouse and gnaws the hole. Similarly in a Roumanian folk-tale (Gaster, op. cit., No. lxvii A, p. 213).

22 Op. cit., i, 258.—Unfortunately neither here nor in his earlier “Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sagenforschung,” Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde xvi (1906), 369–396, does Dähnhardt date more specifically this “spätrussische Redaktion” of Methodius; but from the arrangement of the material in his Natursagen he might conceivably regard it as antedating the late thirteenth century chronicle of Enikel which he subsequently draws on. I regret that my ignorance of Russian prevents my following up Dähnhardt's sources. Dr. Leon Nemoy of the Yale University Library has kindly translated for me the Deluge passage from the interpolated Church Slavic version of the Revelations of Methodius published in Readings of the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities [Chteniia v Imperatorskom Obshchestvie istorii i drevnoste rossiskikh] iv (1897), 116. The editor, Istrin, says Dr Nemoy, dates this interpolated version as fifteenth century, though it did not become widely known until the seventeenth century. The relevant passages are as follows: “And Noah went forth upon the Arabian mountain and began to build the Ark, according to what the Angel of the Lord had commanded him. Now the Devil, the ancient hater of mankind, accosted Noah's wife, saying to her, ‘Find out where your husband is going.’ She answered him, ‘My husband is a hard man, I am not able to find out from him.’ And the Devil said to her, ‘There is a herb near the river, which coils itself around a tree; take the flower of this herb, ferment it with flour and give it to him to drink, and he will tell you everything.’ And Noah came down from the mountain to partake of food, for he used to come out every third month during all the seven years; thus he came down from the mountain and said to his wife, ‘Give me sweet beer [kvas] to drink, for I am thirsty after my work.’ She poured a cup of sweet beer and gave it to him. Noah drank it and said, ‘Is there any more?’ Having drunk three cups he wished to lie down to rest, for he had become joyful, but she began cozening him, saying, ‘My lord, tell me, where have you been going?’ But he told her nothing. She then began to cozen him still further, according to the Devil's incitement, speaking flattering words, and he said to her, ‘What is there to tell? The Lord sent to me His angel and he said to me that the Lord wishes to send a deluge upon the earth, and commanded me to build an ark, which I am to enter with you and my sons and their wives; already I have been building it for seven years.’ Having said this Noah went up to the mountain and saw that the Ark was demolished into dust, and he sorrowed for forty days, and an Angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I have told you not to tell. Why have you told your wife about your work? Therefore the Lord has sent you His sign, but now He has forgiven your sin, begin therefore to build a second Ark.’ And he showed him an incorruptible tree called Kilitnor and said, ‘Build out of this tree’ ... [Noah completes the Ark and summons the animals.] ... Now the Devil, not desiring any good to mankind, but wishing to destroy the whole human kind approached Noah's daughter-in-law [snokha] and said to her, ‘Do not enter the Ark without my command’ ... And at that time Noah's daughter-in-law would not enter the Ark, according to the Devil's instruction, and Noah began calling her into the Ark, saying, ‘Come,’ but she would not come, but waited for the word, according as the Devil had spoken. Noah said to her, ‘Come, Cursed One; come Beautiful One’; whereas she stood waiting. Then Noah said to her, ‘Come, you Devil, into the Ark.‘ She then went in, and the Devil with her, into the Ark ... [The Deluge begins.] ... At that time the cursed Devil wished to drown all creatures; he turned into a mouse and began to gnaw at the bottom of the Ark. Noah then prayed to the Lord, and there appeared a fierce beast, and from its nostrils there sprang out a male and female cat, and having jumped down they choked the Devil in mouse's shape and the Devil's evil scheme was not executed ...”

Were it not for the surprising and interesting emergence of the daughter-in-law as a substitute for Uxor in the devil-naming episode of the foregoing version, Dähnhardt's version might conceivably be regarded as a rough summary. I must leave it to some Russian scholar to pursue the matter of the relationship between the two versions.

23 Jansen Enikels Werke, hg. von Philipp Strauch (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Deutsche Chroniken und andere Geschichtsbücher des Mittelalters, iii, 1900). Some of / this material is cited in Dähnhardt, Natursagen, i, 258–260.

24 Enikel, ll. 1671–1752.

25 Ibid., ll. 1753–56.

26 Strauch gives two variant readings: from MS 9, “erst sun des noe”; from MSS 14, 15, “ainer.”

27 Ibid., p. 36 n., the editor comments: Ähnlich erzählt noch Wolfgang Bütner, Epitome Historiarum 1579 bl. 54 in erinnerung an eine zu Erfurt gehörte predigt (und mit besonderer betonung, dass so auch die mönche vor zeiten gepredigt): mit wändschen hat sich der Sathan auch in die Arca Noe das Menschliche geschlecht zu erseuffen verschlichen. Das solle also geschehen sein; wie Noe alle Thierlein ein pärlein zu ihm in die Arca beruffen, hatte der Sathan sein Weib zuvor unterrichtet, das sie in der thür sich sperrete und verdrehete und nicht eilend in die Arca eingienge. Solchs thete Noe Weib und seumet sich mit willen in der thür der Arca. Davon ward Noe fertig und sprach: ‘Woleinher in des Teufelsnamen.‘ Also ward der Teufel auch, wie alle lebendige Thiere, genennet und kam in den Kasten. Er brach aber ein loch hindurch, das Wasser einzulassen und die Leute zu erseuffen. Dafür und darein kroch eine Schildkröte und wehrete dem wasser und rettet den Noe mit den seinen (Arch, für litteraturgesch., hg. von Schnorr von Carolsfeld, vi, 308)... .

28 Ibid., ll. 1795–1821.

29 Ibid., ll. 2545–50; 2560–64.

30 Ibid., ll. 2565–82.

31 See the facsimile edition edited by Sir George Warner (London, 1912) The relation of this manuscript to the English Noah plays is ignored by Dr. Carey, though attention had been briefly called to it by Warner, op. cit., p. 14; M. R. James, op. cit., p. 13; F. Holthausen, Anglia Beiblatt, xxxi, 90; as well as by the Swedish scholar, Andreas Lindblom, to whose work I shall return later.

32 Warner, op. cit., p. 56 ff.

33 Op. cit., p. 108.

34 Herrmann, op. cit., pp. 333–334.

35 Ibid., p. 334 ff.; Dähnhardt, op. cit., i, 269 ff.

36 I know only one other instance, and that in the later Mandeville (The Buke of John Maundeuill, Roxburghe Club, 1889, p. 74). Note the contrast with the cursing episode in Enikel, supra, p. 620.

37 Dähnhardt, op. cit., i, 276ff. Sometimes the devil himself changes into a mouse who bores the hole. Various animals, snake, hare, hedgehog, stop the hole. Cf. also, W. R. S. Ralston, Russian Folk-Tales (London, 1873) p. 330; Gaster, op. cit., No. lxxi, p. 218. Paul Sébillot, Le Folk-Lore de France (1906) iii, 8, cites a tale current among the peasants of Nivernais to the effect that, when the devil drilled a hole in the Ark, Noah, in default of a plug, hastily cut the tail off the hare to stop the hole.

38 M. R. James, An English Picture Book of the Fourteenth Century (Walpole Society, 1923), pp. 4, 9, 10.

39 M. R. James, Illustrations of the Book of Genesis, being a complete reproduction in facsimile of the manuscript British Museum, Egerton 1894 (Roxburghe Club, 1921).

40 Ibid., p. 4., English influence on, if not English execution of, this manuscript is conceded by the experts.

41 La Peinture Gothique en Suède et en Norvège. Etude sur les relations entre l'Europe occidentale et les pays Scandinaves (London, 1916); Den A pokryfa Noahsagen i Medeltidens Könst och Litteratur in Nordisk tidskrift för vetenskap Könst och Industri (Stockholm, 1917).

42 N. M. Mandelgren, Monuments Scandinaves du Moyen Age (1862), Pl. xiii. Reproductions by Lindblom in the works already cited.

43 Originally suggested by Mandelgren, loc. cit.

44 La Peinture Gothique, p. 211, fig. 55; Den A pokryfa Noahsagen, p. 366.

45 Warner, op. cit., Pl. 12, f. 7.

46 Mandelgren, op. cit., Pl. xxii. Lindblom, Den A pokryfa Noahsagen. p. 367, reproduces only 2., 3., and 4.

47 I am greatly indebted to Professor Lindblom for a photograph, of the Örberga frescoes which he himself had not reproduced in this connection.

48 Moncure Daniel Conway, Demonology and Devil-Lore (London, 1879), ii, 411–412.

49 Loc. cit.

50 Ibid., fig. 29, ii, 413. “In the old version of the legend given by Buslaef ‘after apocryphal tradition used by heretics’,” continues Conway, still with inadequate reference but with a clue that might be pursued by a Russian scholar, “Satan always addresses Noah's wife as Eve, which indicates a theory. It was meant to be considered as a second edition of the attack on the divine plan begun in Eden, and revived in the temptation of Sara. (Cf. Brotanek's theory, Supra, p. 613.) Satan not only taught this new Eve how to make kvas but also vodka (brandy); and when he had awakened her jealousy about Noah's frequent absence, he bade her substitute the brandy for the beer when her husband, as usual, asked for the latter. When Noah was thus in his cups she asked him where he went, and why he kept late hours. He revealed his secret to his Eve who disclosed it to Satan. The tempter appears to have seduced her from Noah, and persuaded her to be dilatory when entering the ark. When all the animals had gone in, and all the rest of her family, Eve said, ”I have forgotten my pots and pans,“ and went to fetch them; next she said, ”I have forgotten my spoons and forks,“ and returned for them. All of this had been arranged by Satan in order to make Noah curse; and he had just slipped under Eve's skirt when he had the satisfaction of hearing the intended Adam of a baptised world cry to his wife, ”Accursed one, come in!“ Since Jehovah himself could not prevent the carrying out of a patriarch's curse. Satan was thus enabled to enter the ark, save himself from being drowned and bring mischief into the human world once more.” (Ibid., pp. 412–414.)

51 “The Hull Noah Play,” MLR, xxxiii (October, 1938), p. 495.

52 Cf. the commentary cited in a footnote to Sale's edition of The Koran on Ch. xi, p. 178, they derided him: “For building a vessel in an inland country, and so far from the sea; and for that he was turned carpenter, after he had set up for a prophet. (Al Beidawi)” See also The Encyclopaedia of Islam, iii, 948.

53 York Plays, ed. L. T. Smith (Oxford, 1885), p. 49.

54 The Chester Plays, ed. H. Deimling, E.E.T.S., e.s. (1892), p. 56.

55 Waterhouse, op. cit., p. xxxviii.

56 Ibid., p. 23.

57 Ibid., p. 25. The manuscript of the play is lost and the transcript by Bourne, the first editor, is unsatisfactory. Waterhouse follows Brotanek in emending l. 184, thee speed, to thee take. Holthausen has thee speed rhyming with I take no heed in l. 182.

58 l. 195 told J Bourne reads cowld; Brotanek and Holthausen, cold. Waterhouse's emendation is almost certainly correct.

59 There is however no evidence of text or performance of the Newcastle play before the early fifteenth century. Waterhouse believes that Bourne's transcript of the Newcastle play may have been made from a manuscript dating from the first half of the fifteenth century and states that the earliest record of a Corpus Christi play in Newcastle is 1426 (op. cit., pp. xxxvi, xxxix).