Everyman

By Digireads.com Publishing

Written in Middle English during the Tudor period, “Everyman” is the most famous example of the medieval morality play. Popular in Europe during the 15th and 16th century, morality plays were allegorical dramas in which the protagonists are met with the personifications of personal attributes and tasked with choosing either a good and godly life or evil. “Everyman” is the archetypal morality play, as the main character, Everyman, represents all of mankind. God, frustrated with the wicked and greedy, sends Death to Everyman and summons him to account for his misdeeds and sins. It was believed that God tallied all of one’s good and evil deeds in life and then one must provide an accounting before God upon one’s death. During Everyman’s pilgrimage to God, he meets many characters, such as Fellowship, Good Deeds, and Knowledge. Everyman asks them all to join him in his journey so that he may improve his reckoning before God. In the end, it is only Good Deeds that stays with him before God and helps Everyman find salvation and eternal life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Dec 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781420979381

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EVERYMAN

By ANONYMOUS

Everyman

By Anonymous

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7800-1

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-7938-1

This edition copyright © 2021. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover Image: a detail of the frontispiece from Everyman, published by Chapman & Hall, c. 1925 (colour litho) / Bridgeman Images.

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CONTENTS

CHARACTERS

EVERYMAN

Everyman

CHARACTERS

EVERYMAN

GOD: ADONAI

DEATH

MESSENGER

FELLOWSHIP

COUSIN

KINDRED

GOODS

GOOD-DEEDS

STRENGTH

DISCRETION

FIVE-WITS

BEAUTY

KNOWLEDGE

CONFESSION

ANGEL

DOCTOR

EVERYMAN

HERE BEGINNETH A TREATISE HOW THE HIGH FATHER OF HEAVEN SENDETH DEATH TO SUMMON EVERY CREATURE TO COME AND GIVE ACCOUNT OF THEIR LIVES IN THIS WORLD AND IS IN MANNER OF A MORAL PLAY.

MESSENGER. I pray you all give your audience,

And hear this matter with reverence,

By figure a moral play—

The Summoning of Everyman called it is,

That of our lives and ending shows

How transitory we be all day.

This matter is wondrous precious,

But the intent of it is more gracious,

And sweet to bear away.

The story saith,—Man, in the beginning,

Look well, and take good heed to the ending,

Be you never so gay!

Ye think sin in the beginning full sweet,

Which in the end causeth thy soul to weep,

When the body lieth in clay.

Here shall you see how Fellowship and Jollity,

Both Strength, Pleasure, and Beauty,

Will fade from thee as flower in May.

For ye shall hear, how our heaven king

Calleth Everyman to a general reckoning:

Give audience, and hear what he doth say.

GOD. I perceive here in my majesty,

How that all creatures be to me unkind,

Living without dread in worldly prosperity:

Of ghostly sight the people be so blind,

Drowned in sin, they know me not for their God;