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The Coventry Carol
Jan. 29th, 2012 09:09 pmLully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
( O sisters too )
I've posted several hymns with very old lyrics on this blog; this, I think, is probably the oldest coupling of words and music that I'll ever manage. This comes from the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, part of the Coventry cycle of mystery plays.
In the play (I am reliably informed by the note at the bottom of the page in Carols for Choirs) the carol is sung by the women of Jerusalem just before Herod's soldiers arrive to kill their children (Matthew 2). It gives a voice to characters we never see again.
The thing about the mystery plays, though, is that they tried to put the whole story of salvation on the stage at once, from the Creation to the Last Judgement, and so every episode shown parallels something else. (Noah's flood, for example, is a type of baptism; Lazarus' raising from the dead prefigures Jesus'...) And so this isn't just about one child in the slaughter of the innocents. It is about the voice in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children (Matthew picked up on that one). It is about Isaac. It is about Jesus. It is about all the innocents who suffer and die for someone else's greed, or fear.
It is much more than an obscure moment from a bygone drama.
Sadly, I don't have my copy of the mystery plays with me, or I would probably quote large chunks of the surrounding dialogue. As it is, you'll have to be content with another video:
By, by, lully, lullay.
Thou little tiny Child,
By, by, lully, lullay.
( O sisters too )I've posted several hymns with very old lyrics on this blog; this, I think, is probably the oldest coupling of words and music that I'll ever manage. This comes from the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, part of the Coventry cycle of mystery plays.
In the play (I am reliably informed by the note at the bottom of the page in Carols for Choirs) the carol is sung by the women of Jerusalem just before Herod's soldiers arrive to kill their children (Matthew 2). It gives a voice to characters we never see again.
The thing about the mystery plays, though, is that they tried to put the whole story of salvation on the stage at once, from the Creation to the Last Judgement, and so every episode shown parallels something else. (Noah's flood, for example, is a type of baptism; Lazarus' raising from the dead prefigures Jesus'...) And so this isn't just about one child in the slaughter of the innocents. It is about the voice in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children (Matthew picked up on that one). It is about Isaac. It is about Jesus. It is about all the innocents who suffer and die for someone else's greed, or fear.
It is much more than an obscure moment from a bygone drama.
Sadly, I don't have my copy of the mystery plays with me, or I would probably quote large chunks of the surrounding dialogue. As it is, you'll have to be content with another video:
