Everyman (play)

15th-century morality play.

Everyman, or The Somonyng of Everyman, is an anonymous English morality play, closely related to the Dutch play Elckerlijc. Most scholars now believe Everyman to have been translated around 1500 from the Dutch version.


  • The tyde abydeth no man.
    • Death, line 143.


  • Death: What, wenest thou thy lyfe is gyven thee
    And thy wordely gooddes also?
    Everyman: I had wende so, verely.
    Death: Ney, nay, it was but lend thee,
    For as sone as thou arte go
    Another a whyle shall have it, and than go therfro
    Even as thou hast done.
    Everyman, thou arte mad, that hast thy wyttes five
    And here on erth wyll not amende thy lyve,
    For sodenly I do cume.
    • Line 161.


  • Loo, fayre wordes maketh fooles fayne;
    They promyse, and nothynge wyll do certayne.
    • Everyman, line 379.


  • Everyman, I wyll go with thee and be thy guyde
    In thy moste nede to go by thy syde.
    • Knowledge, line 522.
    • A modernized-spelling version of these lines serves as the motto of Everyman's Library.


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