The Second Shepherds’ Play intends to make biblical stories interesting to a largely uninformed population, but the play seems to contain a very notable amount of material that had no biblical source. Was the nativity scene involving the well-known thief, Mak, stealing the shepherd’s sheep and calling it his “baby” purely for the audience’s entertainment or was there a deeper explanation?
ENGL 201 | British Literature to 1800
Myra Seaman | Fall 2012
The portion of the story with Mak and his wife is clearly meant to be entertaining, but it is not merely entertaining. For the plot, the portion gives the shepherds a bit of back story so that the audience could relate and potentially imagine themselves in the same position as the shepherds. The story contains minor lessons throughout, which seem intentional given the purpose of the play as a whole to present religious stories and ideas. In mention of the “child” Mak and the shepherds speak of it as a blessing. As many families would have had a large number of children just as Mak and Gill did, confirming value for children and joy in their birth would have been socially important. The idea presented protects families from viewing children as a burden. On a larger scale, the story warns against stealing because the truth will come out.
The audience at this time did not concern themselves much on learning religion or the Bible. Due to this, the author of The Second Sheperds’ Play has to incorporate comedic elements to engage and capture his audience’s attention. The trickery of Mak and his wife is meant to give of a mainly comedic aura. The author still manages to draw parallels between the stolen sheep and Christ’s nativity scene. The sheperds visiting Mak at his house to see the ‘baby’ who is asleep in the cradle mimics Jesus in his manger. Another parallelism between the two stories is the fact that sheperds are present in both scenes. I agree with Emily’s comment above that the play presents this biblical story in hopes that lay people would more easily relate to it.
I think, like many elements in this play, that the scene in which Mak steals the sheep is included because of it’s comedic entertainment. Including the background story of Mak and his wife, along with the stealing and the scene that follows where the shepherds find the stolen sheep, was an attempt to make the story enjoyable for the audience. However, enjoyment was not the only thing that the author intended for the audience to take away from this play. The author would not have made so many biblical and manger-scene references if he wasn’t trying to get across a deeper message.
Not being fully confident in my thinking about what the exact point the author was attempting to make, I will say that perhaps the author was trying to make the shepherds more personable by showing their vulnerability to Mak and the lies that he tells. Another point that I think is being shown is that even though Mak is able to deceive the shepherds at first, he fails at the end because the three shepherds are able to figure out his wrong-doings.
The author is trying to make biblical stories interesting to a largely uniformed population, so this would lead me to believe that Mak stole the shepherd’s sheep and called it his baby for more than just entertainment purposes. I’m completely with Sam on this one, in that the author uses Mak to inform the audience about the history of Christ’s birth and to convey a message of hope. The author perceptively uses Mak as a comic figure to draw the uninformed audience in, while he throws in subliminal biblical undertones. The stolen lamb in the cradle is a parody of the Christian story of Nativity, wherein the lamb of God (Jesus) rests in a manger. I think the author made Mak and his wife slightly morally corrupt to show that Christianity will open its doors even for sinners and people who don’t live the best lives – that they can change and be redeemed. And after the shepherds catch Mak, they let him off rather easily – which brings up another Christian notion, that of forgiveness. And in the end the Shepherds are rewarded for their kindness.
I would agree with Vincent in saying that this section of the play was posed in this way in order to draw attention to something deeper. However, the idea was to portray the biblical reference in a more humorous way that would cause the audience to find entertainment in the story, rather than feel as if they were reading a bible passage. I also really like what Vincent said about the message also having to do with how people make mistakes and Christianity allows for sinners to repent from their sins and follow a Christian lifestyle. I think the idea of Mak stealing the sheep and calling it his baby is supposed to be comical, but it is also teaching the readers a deeper lesson. The Religious aspect of the story portrays a message that you can be a good Christian person and not be fully serious all the time about everything. The religion itself and the deeper meaning of the story is there to make the reader think, but not to make a drastic statement. Therefore I don’t believe that this depiction in the play was solely meant for entertainment. The humility of the story helps to make the message seem lighter and more relatable for all people.
The fact that Mak and Gill so adamantly claim that the sheep they have stolen is their child seems to imply that they themselves are sheep (because only a sheep can give birth to a sheep, right?) run astray. Considering they are thieves (or at least Mak is) this is an easy comparison to make. The newborn Jesus is to be their shepherd. The Angel summons the three shepherds to meet the infant Jesus because they share a common profession. He summons his flock of shepherds because, like Vincent pointed out, they believe in forgiveness, a common tenet of Christianity. They seek out the sheep gone astray (their literal sheep as well as Mak and Gill) and ask the human sheep to admit their crime. They simply ask for a confession, another feature familiar to the Catholic faith.
I feel as if the nativity scene involving the thief, Mak, stealing the shepherd’s sheep and calling it his “baby” was for the audience’s entertainment, but also had deeper meaning. I agree with someone above that this was during a time that people still didn’t know much about religion and just would have found this humerus, but the author obviously clearly knew the biblical story he was referencing and made it to be funny and made it so the story was more casual while also including a lesson. It also seems as if maybe the author was using Mak to explain to the audience Christ’s birth.
Staying in line with what the rest of my classmates are saying, I feel that the story has a strong comedic purpose, but and underlying meaning for the plot as well. Yes, Mak and his wife stealing a sheep and calling it their baby is humorous, but as with most stories, every element is added for a specific reason. When it comes to The Second Shepherd’s Tale, this comedic plot line is meant to draw the audience in to teach them about Christ’s birth, something that they are unfamiliar with. The author uses several parallels (mentioned in comments above) between the two stories in order to teach the lesson. That being said, it was meant for more than just humor. It was humor with a purpose, and that purpose was gaining people’s attention in order to teach.
I believe the deeper meaning behind the shepherds initially being fooled my Mak an his wife, thinking the sheep is their child, represents the dichotomy of views on who Jesus was during his lifetime. Although the three shepherds are iconic biblical figures who supposedly had great faith and reverence for god incarnate (Jesus), they still represent the general population, normal people with faith as well as doubt. I think the lamb represents Christs true identity (The lamb of God as Vincet said, the perfect sacrifice for all mankind’s sins) and the shepherds eventually finding out thats who Mak and his wife really have. Furthermore, it’s possible that the entire process from believing they have a mere boy to realizing he’s a lamb being comical scene is a play on the strange mystical nature of Christ ring fully god but fully human at the same time, a concept that no one can fully understand.
Christ *being* fully god
It was extremely comical to me. The fact that it almost worked is even more comical. Mak and his wife, Gill are a funny couple all by themselves with their crazy schemes.I was a bit upset when the shepherds firstly accused Gill for the treachery instead of Mak when in this society, women are obviously second to their husbands.