The Play of the Weather seemingly innocent meteorological plot contains associations with the cycle drama tyrants. In the York cycle and the fragmentary Coventry cycle, Herod claims to control the weather…Jupiter’s resemblance to the York Herod is even stronger, because this Herod mingles his claim of weather-controlling prowess with an assertion of his authority over classical gods.” The Play of the Weather The Play of the Weather is an English interlude or morality play from the early Tudor period. The play was written by John Heywood, a courtier, musician and playwright during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I and published by
Clerk of the Weather hailstones, sacks of wind, and a "portable tempest, firmly secured with iron bands". His companions include Jack Frost and Spring. In Herman Melville's poem "Pebbles" one finds "Though the Clerk of the Weather insist, / And lay down the weather-law, / Pintado and gannet they wist / That the winds blow whither they list / In tempest or flaw" In Samuel Clemens' speech at the New England Society of New York in 1876, he attributed New England weather to "raw apprentices in the Weather Clerk's factory, who experiment and learn how in New England, for board and clothes, and then