Everyman Script - Our Interpretation
Jester [Clowns-Introduction.]
I pray you all give audience,
For our play is a moral play.
The summoning of everyman
And doth of our lives and ending show.
Look well, take heed
To thy ending,
For sin, though in the beginning so sweet,
Yet doth cause in the end for the soul to weep,
When the body lieth in clay.
How will fade from thee as flowers in may,
Thy strength and thy beauty, thy pleasure and folly,
When thou art called to a reckoning,
Like everyman, to out heavenly King.
Give audience and hear our play.
God's messenger comes,
List to what he doth say.
Gabriel
I, Gabriel am, God's messenger am I.
Here on earth for yet this little time,
I see how all His creatures
Be to their God unkind.
Drowned in sin, in worldly riches is all their mind,
They fear no more His anger, the sharp rod
Man, on this earth, forgetteh his God.
So therefore now, with all the speed he can,
God will a reckoning take of everyman!
Death
Here am I, Death. Come at your will.
Here am I, Death. Come at your will.
God's every commandment to fulfil.
I will claim everyman that liveth ill,
That dreadeth not folly, nor fears God's will,
And he that loves riches I will strike with my dart.
In hell shall he dwell, world without end.
Death
I see everyman walking,
Little he think of my coming.
Everyman stand still!
In great haste I am sent to thee,
From God out of his Majesty.
A reckoning from thee He must have,
Thy many bad deeds, and good but a few
I am death that all men dreadeth
Thy God, thy life and deeds to show
Thee with me on a journey must go
I care not for gold, nor silver, nor riches,
Nor pope, nor emperor, king nor princes.
Thee must get thee gone on thy journey today.
Everyman
Oh Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind.
A thousand pounds and more thou shall have,
If thou comest to me on another day.
Death
This is the day,
That no man living may escape away.
Everyman
To whom were it best my sorrow to show?
I pray you all give audience,
For our play is a moral play.
The summoning of everyman
And doth of our lives and ending show.
Look well, take heed
To thy ending,
For sin, though in the beginning so sweet,
Yet doth cause in the end for the soul to weep,
When the body lieth in clay.
How will fade from thee as flowers in may,
Thy strength and thy beauty, thy pleasure and folly,
When thou art called to a reckoning,
Like everyman, to out heavenly King.
Give audience and hear our play.
God's messenger comes,
List to what he doth say.
Gabriel
I, Gabriel am, God's messenger am I.
Here on earth for yet this little time,
I see how all His creatures
Be to their God unkind.
Drowned in sin, in worldly riches is all their mind,
They fear no more His anger, the sharp rod
Man, on this earth, forgetteh his God.
So therefore now, with all the speed he can,
God will a reckoning take of everyman!
Death
Here am I, Death. Come at your will.
Here am I, Death. Come at your will.
God's every commandment to fulfil.
I will claim everyman that liveth ill,
That dreadeth not folly, nor fears God's will,
And he that loves riches I will strike with my dart.
In hell shall he dwell, world without end.
Death
I see everyman walking,
Little he think of my coming.
Everyman stand still!
In great haste I am sent to thee,
From God out of his Majesty.
A reckoning from thee He must have,
Thy many bad deeds, and good but a few
I am death that all men dreadeth
Thy God, thy life and deeds to show
Thee with me on a journey must go
I care not for gold, nor silver, nor riches,
Nor pope, nor emperor, king nor princes.
Thee must get thee gone on thy journey today.
Everyman
Oh Death, thou comest when I had thee least in mind.
A thousand pounds and more thou shall have,
If thou comest to me on another day.
Death
This is the day,
That no man living may escape away.
Everyman
To whom were it best my sorrow to show?