uthor. The _Passion_, as originally written in the middle of
the fifteenth century, consisted of some 25,000 lines, and thirty or
forty years later it was nearly doubled in length by the alterations of
Jean Michel. The _Mystere du Viel Testament_, of which no manuscript is
now known, but which was printed in the last year of the fifteenth
century, is now being reprinted, and extends to nearly 50,000 verses.
Additions even to this are spoken of; and Michel's _Passion_,
supplemented by a _Resurrection_, extended to nearly 70,000 lines, which
vast total is believed to have been frequently acted as a whole. In such
a case the space of weeks rather than days, which is said to have been
sometimes occupied in the performance of a mystery, cannot be thought
excessive.

[Sidenote: Heterogeneous Character of Mysteries.]

The enormous length of the larger mysteries makes analysis of any one of
them impossible; but as an instance of the curious comedy which is
intermixed with their most serious portions, and which shocked critics
even up to our own time, we may take the scene of the Tower of Babel in
the _Mystere du Viel Testament_[124]. Here the author is not content
with describing Nimrod's act in general terms, or by the aid of the
convenient messenger; he brings the actual masons and carpenters on the
stage. _Gaste-Bois_ (Spoilwood), _Casse-Tuileau_ (Breaktile), and their
mates talk before us for nearly 200 lines, while Nimrod and others come
in from time to time and hasten on the work. The workmen are quite
outspoken on the matter. They do not altogether like the job; and one of
them says,

On ne peut en fin que faillir.
Besongnons; mais qu'on nous paie bien.

A little further on and they are actually at work. One calls for a hod
of mortar, another for his hammer. The labourers supply their wants, or
make jokes to the effect that they would rather bring them something to
drink. So it goes on, till suddenly the confusion of tongues falls upon
them, and they issue their orders in what is probably pure jargon,
though fragments of something like Italian can be made out. In the very
middle of this scene occurs a really fine and reverently written
dialogue between Justice and Mercy pleading respectively to the Divinity
for vengeance and pardon. Instances such as this abound in the
mysteries, which are sometimes avowedly interrupted in order that the
audience may be diverted by a farcical interlude.

[Sidenote: Argument