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The "Coventry Carol" is an English Christmas carol dating from the 16th century. The carol was traditionally performed in Coventry in England as part of a mystery play called ''The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors''. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew: the carol itself refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod ordered all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed, and takes the form of a lullaby sung by mothers of the doomed children. The music contains a well-known example of a Picardy third. The author is unknown; the oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known setting of the melody dates from 1591.〔Studwell, W. E. (1995). ''The Christmas Carol Reader.'' Haworth Press. pp. 15 ISBN 978-1-56023-872-0〕 The carol is traditionally sung ''a cappella''. There is an alternative, modern setting of the carol by Kenneth Leighton, and another by Philip Stopford. ==History and text== The carol is the second of three songs included in the Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, a nativity play that was one of the Coventry Mystery Plays, originally performed by the city's guilds. The exact date of the text is unknown, though there are references to the Coventry guild pageants from 1392 onwards. The single surviving text of the carol and the pageant containing it was edited by one Robert Croo, who dated his manuscript 14 March 1534.〔Rastall, ''Minstrels playing: Music in Early English Religious Drama'', Boydell and Brewer, 2001, p.179〕 Croo, or Crowe, acted for some years as the 'manager' of the city pageants. Over a twenty-year period, payments are recorded to him for playing the part of God in the Drapers' Pageant,〔King and Davidson, ''The Coventry Corpus Christi plays'', Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000, p.53〕 for making a hat for a "pharysye", and for mending and making other costumes and props, as well as for supplying new dialogue and for copying out the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant in a version which Croo described as "newly correcte". Croo seems to have worked by adapting and editing older material, while adding his own rather ponderous and undistinguished verse.〔 Religious changes caused the plays' suppression during the later 16th century, but Croo's prompt-book, including the songs, survived and a transcription was eventually published by the Coventry antiquarian Thomas Sharp in 1817 as part of his detailed study of the city's mystery plays.〔 Sharp published a second edition in 1825 which included the songs' music. Both printings were intended to be a facsimile of Croo's manuscript, copying both the orthography and layout; this proved fortunate as Croo's original manuscript, which had passed into the collection of the Birmingham Free Library, was destroyed in a fire there in 1879.〔 Sharp's transcriptions are therefore the only source, luckily Sharp had a reputation as a careful scholar, and his copying of the text of the women's carol appears to be accurate. Within the pageant, the carol is sung by three women of Bethlehem, who enter on stage with their children immediately after Joseph is warned by an angel to take his family to Egypt:〔Glover (ed.) ''The Hymnal 1982 Companion, Volume 1'', 1990, p.488〕 :''Lully, lulla, thow littell tine child,'' :''By by, lully, lullay, thow littell tyne child,'' :''By by, lully, lullay!'' :''O sisters too, how may we do'' :''For to preserve this day'' :''This pore yongling for whom we do singe'' :''By by, lully, lullay?'' :''Herod, the king, in his raging,'' :''Chargid he hath this day'' :''His men of might in his owne sight'' :''All yonge children to slay,—'' :''That wo is me, pore child, for thee,'' :''And ever morne and may'' :''For thi parting nether say nor singe,'' :''By by, lully, lullay.'' The words are modernized variously, but commonly: :''Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,'' :''Bye bye, lully, lullay.'' :''Lully, lullay, thou little tiny child,'' :''Bye bye, lully, lullay.'' :''O sisters too, how may we do'' :''For to preserve this day'' :''This poor youngling for whom we sing,'' :''"Bye bye, lully, lullay"?'' :''Herod the king, in his raging,'' :''Charged he hath this day'' :''His men of might in his own sight'' :''All young children to slay.'' :''That woe is me, poor child, for thee'' :''And ever mourn and may'' :''For thy parting neither say nor sing,'' :''"Bye bye, lully, lullay."'' Sharp's publication of the text stimulated some renewed interest in the pageant and songs, particularly in Coventry itself. Although the Coventry mystery play cycle was traditionally performed in summer, the lullaby has been in modern times regarded as a Christmas carol. It was brought to a wider audience after being featured in the BBC's Empire Broadcast at Christmas 1940, shortly after the Bombing of Coventry in World War II, when the broadcast concluded with the singing of the carol in the bombed-out ruins of the Cathedral.〔Wiebe, ''Britten's Unquiet Pasts: Sound and Memory in Postwar Reconstruction'', CUP, p.192〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Coventry Carol」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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