262 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



Wolgemut at Munich (Pinakothek, Nos. 5 and 22), and 

 in Cut 10 of Albrecht Diirer's Kleine Passion, and Cut 

 4 of his Grosse Passion. This piece of symbolism seems 

 unnecessary for a great artist ; he could represent some- 

 thing of the agony by facial expression. On the other 

 hand, on the great outdoor stages with craftsmen for 

 actors little could be trusted to facial expression and 

 gesture. Hence symbolism is in its right place there, 

 and its use in the passion-play probably long continued 

 to influence the artist. Thus we find it a common 

 stage direction of passion-plays that " Here an angel 

 shall appear with a cross (or a cup, as the case may 

 be) " ; * and the direction was actually carried out in 

 the Brixlegg play of 1882. Another frequent subject 

 for the artist is that of the soldiers brutally playing 

 with the blindfolded Christ. A good example will be 

 found in Diirer's Kleine Passion (Cut 14). This game 

 of puczpirn, as a symbolic emphasis of the torture, is 

 a favourite incident of the passion-plays. 2 One of the 

 earliest references to it occurs in The Legends of the 

 Holy Rood, published by the Early English Text Society 

 (pp. 178, 179). 



The cloth, beforn thyn eyn too 

 To bobbyn the they knyt it soo. 



In the Coventry Mysteries (Halliwell, p. 296) the 

 stage-directions bid the Jews " castyn a cloth ovyr 

 his face." In the Townley Mysteries a ' vaylle ' is 



1 See Lukas Cranach's Passion, Cut 1, and his Wittemberger Heiligthums- 

 buch, k, iii. These representations, with those of Holbein, Wolgemut, and 

 Diirer, should be compared with F, p. 157 ; B, Bd. ii. p. 263 ; and R, p. 23, etc. 



2 See F, pp. 168, 176 ; E, p. 181 ; C, p. 114 ; B, Bd. ii. p. 275 ; and com- 

 pare the Old English Miscellany, E.E.T.S. p. 45. 



