ANONYMOUS
TEMPERANCE AND HUMILITY,
or TEMPERANCE, HUMILITY, AND DISOBEDIENCE

c. 1521—1535

This is a fragmentary work, appearing as a single sheet bound up with Albion Knight. While only three characters speak in the page that survives, they refer to other characters who may appear elsewhere in the lost portions and may even be present on stage during the sequence that survives. Identification of character by gender is not suggested in the surviving piece of the play, so these notes follow the model of Respublica and similar moralities in assigning maleness to the vice characters and femaleness to the virtuous. This gender identification, while defensible, is not certain.
The text is preserved in the 1909 collection of works published by the Malone Society.

a synoptic, alphabetical character list

ADVERSITY

Possibly a "ghost character," but probably an actual character from the lost portion of the play. Disobedience names him as a friend.

AUDACITY

Possibly a "ghost character," but probably an actual character from the lost portion of the play. Disobedience names him as a friend.

DISOBEDIENCE

Disobedience states a wish to assume the counterfeit name Prosperity. He declares his freedom from every creature and strikes Temperance when she scolds him. He claims there is no obedience in the world and even the poorest wretch lacks love and dread (of authority?) He revels in the vice that men currently embrace, a vice that makes them untrue to their masters.

GRACE

Possibly a "ghost character," also possibly a reference to the abstraction of God's grace, but more probably an actual character from the lost portion of the play. Humility wishes that grace (not capitalized) would go with and abate Audacity and Adversity.

HUMILITY

Humility chastises Disobedience for striking Temperance. She begs God to banish Disobedience and to allow Grace to drive vice from every man. She upbraids Disobedience for the trouble that he has caused in the world.

EVERYMAN

Possibly a "ghost character," and perhaps not a character at all, but possibly a character from the lost portion of the play. Both Temperance and Humility refer to the trouble and sorrow that Disobedience has caused to "every man" (not capitalized). It seems likely that some character representing humanity would appear in this play, whatever his name.

OBEDIENCE

Possibly a "ghost character," but probably an actual character from the lost portion of the play. Temperance refers to Obedience as needing to go with Audacity and Adversity in order to abate them.

PROSPERITY

The counterfeit name that Disobedience wishes to assume.

TEMPERANCE

Temperance debates with Disobedience, who strikes her. She upbraids Disobedience for all of the sorrow he has caused in the world.