Note 1 — Chapter VII · The Witch in Dramatic Literature

The Floralia, the most wanton of Roman festivals, commenced on the fourth day before the Kalends of May, and during these celebrations the spectators insisted that the mimæ should play naked, “agebantur [Floralia] a meretricibus ueste exutis omni cum uerborum licentia, motuumque obscænitate,” says the old commentator on Martial I, 1. “Lasciui Floralia laeta theatri” Ausonius names them, De Feriis Romanis, 25. Lactantius, De Institutionibus Diuinis, I, 20, writes: “Celebrantur ergo illi ludi cum omni lasciuia, conuenientes memoriæ meretricis. Nam praeter uerborum licentiam, quibus obscænitas omnis effunditur; exuuntur etiam uestibus populo flagitante meretrices; quæ tunc mimorum funguntur officio; et in conspectu populi usque ad satietatem impudicorum luminum cum pudendis motibus detinentur.” Both S. Augustine and Arnobius reprehend the lewdness of these naked dances. At Sens during the Feast of Fools, when every licence prevailed, men were led in procession nudi. Warton (History of English Poetry, by T. Warton, edited by W. C. Hazlitt, 4 vols., 1871), II, 223, states that in the Mystery Plays “Adam and Eve are both exhibited on the stage naked, and conversing about their nakedness; this very pertinently introduces the next scene, in which they have coverings of fig-leaves.” In a stage-direction of the Chester Plays we find: “Statim nudi sunt.... Tunc Adam et Eua cooperiant genitalia sua cum foliis.” Chambers, The Mediæval Stage, II, 143, doubts whether the players were actually nude, and suggests a suit of white leather. Warton, however, is probably right.