SAPIENTIA. I cannot.
MATRONS. What, then, is your plan?
SAPIENTIA. I shall stay here in the hope that my petition will be granted, and that what I most desire will come to pass.
MATRONS. What is that petition? What do you desire?
SAPIENTIA. This only—that when my prayer is ended I may die in Christ.
MATRONS. Will you not let us stay to the end, then, and give you burial?
SAPIENTIA. As you please. O Adonai Emmanuel, begotten by the Divine Creator of all things before time began, and born in time of a Virgin Mother—O Thou Who in Thy dual nature remainest most wonderfully one Christ, the unity of person not being divided by the diversity of natures, nor yet the diversity of natures confounded in the unity of person—to Thee let the serene angelic choir, singing in sweet harmony with the spheres, raise an exultant song! Let all created things praise Thee, because Thou Who alone with the Holy Ghost art form without matter, by the will of the Father and the co-operation of the Spirit didst deign to become man, passible like men, yet impassible like God. O Thou Who didst not shrink from tasting death and destroyed it by Thy Resurrection that none who believe in Thee should perish, but know eternal life, on Thee I call! I do not forget that Thou, perfect God yet true man, didst promise that those who for Thy sake renounced their earthly possessions would be rewarded a hundredfold and receive the gift of eternal life. Inspired by that promise, Thou seest that I have done what I could; of my own free will, and for Thy sake, I have sacrificed the children I bore. Oh, in Thy goodness do not delay the fulfilment of Thy promise, but free me swiftly from the bonds of this flesh that I may see my children and rejoice with them. Grant me the joy of hearing them sing the new song as they follow Thee, O Lamb of the Virgin! Let me be gladdened by their glory, and although I may not like them chant the mystical song of virginity, let me praise Thee, Who art not Thyself the Father, yet art of the same substance as the Father, with Whom and with the Holy Ghost, one Lord of the whole world, one King of all things upon the earth and in the heights above and the deeps below, Thou dost reign and rule for ever and ever!
MATRONS. O Lord, receive her soul! Amen.
A Note on the Acting of the Plays
The evidence that Roswitha’s plays were intended for representation has already been discussed. If they were ever acted in her own time at Gandersheim by members of the community, we need not assume that the performances were ludicrously artless. We have only to read contemporary descriptions of the celebrations of great feasts in monasteries in the so-called “dark ages,” or to observe how strong is the element of significant and controlled “action” in the ceremonial of the Catholic Church as it exists to-day, to imagine that people accustomed to take part in these dramatic services would have little difficulty in giving an impressive performance of a religious play. Even if we discard the theory that such performances took place, an imaginative conception of what they might have been like will save us, if we desire to act these plays now, from adopting an exaggeratedly primitive method. It is our duty to do our best for them, neglecting no means of emphasizing their dramatic strength and helping their dramatic weakness. As we have no authority in a known “convention” to guide us, the least we can do is to refrain from inventing a comically crude one based on an arrogant condescension to past ignorance of what in any century is dramatically effective.