ABSTRACT
The Adoration of the Shepherds has frequently been commented upon for the comic scenes which it contains and which make it stand out from the normally serious and devout rest of the Chester cycle. This chapter endeavours to suggest that the rather simplistic distinction between comic and secular on the one hand and serious and religious on the other must be modified and that some comic action has been part of the original structure of our play. It demonstrates the observation of certain inconsistencies and contradictions between the various stanza-forms to establish a relative chronology. The chapter investigates whether the features of style and content observed in the metres of this scene reappear in corresponding parts elsewhere in the play. The three metres are indifferently employed for the rather repetitive discriminations of "glore", "glare" and "gli", etc.
