THIRD INTERLUDE[19]
Now through the Interlude gates, and from all sides, a jocund festival pours into the illumined space of the ground-circle: the folk festival of Elizabethan England.
Simultaneously, in different parts, as in a merry rural fair, various popular arts and pastimes begin, and continue together: Morris dancers and pipers, balladists and play-actors, folk dancers, fiddlers, clowns, and Punch-and-Judy performers romp, rant, parade, and jingle amongst flower-girls and gay-garbed jesters spangling by the bright venders’ booths.
Central, at a point of vantage, above a gaping crowd of lumpkins and children, Noah’s wife harangues the heavens from the old play.
So they pursue their merriment, till the low rumble and lowering of a thunder-cloud disperses them with its passing shadow.