They never thought either that the stories they
acted had taken place long ago and in lands far away, where dress
and manners and even climate were all very different from what
they were in England.
For instance, in the Shepherd's play, of which I am going to
tell, the first shepherd comes in shivering with cold. For
though he is acting in summer he must make believe that it is
Christmas-time, for on Christmas Day Christ was born. And
Christmas-time in England, he knows, is cold. What it may be in
far-off Palestine he neither knows nor cares.
"Lord, what these weathers are cold! and I am ill happed;
I am near hand dulled so long have I napped;
My legs they fold, my fingers are chapped,
It is not as I would, for I am all lapped
In sorrow.
In storm and tempest,
Now in the east, now in the west,
Woe is him has never rest
Mid-day or morrow."
In this strain the shepherd grumbles until the second comes. He,
too, complains of the cold.
"The frost so hideous, they water mine een,
No lie!
Now is dry, now is wet,
Now is snow, now is sleet,
When my shoon freeze to my feet,
It is not all easy.
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