380 Elbert N. S. Thompson 
I hath bin told, ben told, in prouerbs old, 
That souldiares suffer both hunger and cold, (25) 
and then bind and blindfold Idleness to make him the butt of their 
pranks; the quest of Constable Search for Idleness, who in the 
disguise of a ratcatcher consents to help Search cry the proclamation 
for his own arrest; the trouble between Doll and Lob over the 
stolen “poredge pot”—these are the prototypes of real comedy. 
The romance that distinguishes this group of plays, and indeed 
the whole allegorical conception of the various branches of knowl- 
edge, owes its origin to a contemporary of Prudentius, Martianus 
Capella. He began his long treatise on the liberal arts with a ro- 
mance from which the book received its title, De Nuptis Philo- 
logiae et Mercurit. According to the story, Mercury, who has fallen 
in love with Philologia, the highly cultured daughter of an ancient 
family, persuades the gods in council to make her a goddess and 
sanction their marriage. The preparations for the wedding, the 
bride’s appearance on the day of the ceremony, the dress and at- 
tributes of the seven branches of év7vium and quadrivium that ac- 
company her, are fully described in this curious allegory. The 
seven matrons are then given an opportunity to deliver each a long 
discourse on the branch of knowledge she represents. To these 
treatises medieval scholars attached great value; they treasured 
the manuscript in their libraries, used it as a text-book in their 
schools, and freely recommended it to later writers and to the 
sculptors who carved the figures of the arts and sciences on the 
portals of the cathedrals. 
Although these three plays hark back more or less directly to 
this bizarre product of the fifth century, the direct influence upon 
the drama of the English humanists came from the Continent. The 
teachers and patrons of the New Learning who shortly before the 
middle of the sixteenth century revived in Holland and Germany 
the comedy of Terence, took a new and professionally inspired 
interest in the training of youth. In a style not unworthy of their 
Latin model, they sought to display the temptations that draw youth 
from the pursuit of knowledge and godliness, and so to combine 
the intrigue of Roman comedy with Christian example of the fruits _ 
of idleness and sin. The Asotus of Macropedius, the Paradell of 
Waldis, and the Acolastus of Gnapheus, adapt the story of the 
Prodigal Son to this new end, and other plays, like the Redelles of 

1 Ebert, 1. 483-85; Male, 98-112. 
