The original manuscript is divided into three parts. The first contains eight poems or metrical legends of the Saints in which reliable authorities are carefully followed, much skill being shown, however, in the arrangement of the material and in the handling of the “leonine hexameter.” The second part consists of the six plays here given in English; the third, of a long unfinished poem called “Panegyric of the Othos.” Celtes changed the order, which is to be regretted, as it is obviously chronological. Roswitha’s preface to Part III shows more confidence than the preface to the plays, and very much more than the diffident preface to the poems. One of these poems, “Passio Sancti Pelagii,” once enjoyed a very high reputation, and is often quoted by Spanish and Portuguese hagiographers. The Bollandists print it entire in the Acta Sanctorum. It has another interest in that Roswitha tells us that she obtained her facts from a witness of the saint’s martyrdom.
Although Roswitha claims Terence as her master in the art of playwriting, it cannot be said that she imitates him closely. When Paphnutius was acted in London in 1914 the dramatic critic of The Times was justified from one point of view in asserting that Roswitha’s style is “not in the least Terentian.” For one thing she is quite indifferent to the “unities,” and transports us from place to place with bewildering abruptness. Her relation to Terence, as she herself insists, is one of moral contrasts rather than of literary parallels. The “situation” in Terence’s comedies almost invariably turns on the frailty of women; in Roswitha’s plays as invariably on their heroic adherence to chastity. Although considerable variety is shown in the treatment of each story, the motive is always the same—to glorify uncompromising fidelity to the vow of virginity. This nun dramatist deals courageously, but, it must be added, delicately, when it is remembered that she lived in an age when even the best educated were neither fastidious nor restrained in manners or conversation, with the temptations which her characters overcome. The preface to her plays shows that it was not without some qualms of conscience that she wrote of things “which should not even be named among us.” But the purity of her intentions, which was obviously recognized by her religious superiors, should induce the most prudish reader to refrain from charges of impropriety. With all their shortcomings, Roswitha’s works have a claim to an eminent place in medieval literature, and do honour to her sex, to the age in which she lived, and to the vocation which she followed.
The Plays of Roswitha2
By Christopher St. John
This translation of the six plays of Roswitha (there are really seven, for the two parts of Gallicanus practically constitute two separate dramas) was begun in the year 1912 and completed in 1914. The lively interest provoked by the stage performance of one of the translations (that of the play Paphnutius) by the Pioneer Players in January 1914 led me to think that the publication of the whole theatre of Roswitha in English would be welcomed by all students of the drama. Unfortunately, the war delayed publication, and the manuscript was entirely destroyed by a fire at the publisher’s premises in Dublin during the Irish insurrection of Easter 1916.
The work of collating the various Latin texts of Roswitha’s plays and producing a translation which should preserve some of the naive simplicity of the original had been a difficult one, and to begin it all over again was a heartbreaking task. The consciousness that the interest in Roswitha provoked by the performance of Paphnutius had waned did not alleviate the heaviness of spirit in which the work of replacing the burned manuscript was undertaken.
Those readers who are unable or unwilling to compare the translations with the original should be warned that Roswitha’s dialogue is characterized by a simplicity and conciseness hardly attainable in any tongue but Latin. The difficulty of finding equivalents for the terse phrases employed tempts the translator to “write them up.” Although I have aimed at producing a readable translation for lovers of the drama in all its forms rather than an exact paraphrase for scholars, I have tried to resist this temptation at the risk of making the dialogue seem at times almost ludicrously bald. Except in a few cases where the use of “thou” seemed dramatically fit, “tu” has been rendered by “you.” Roswitha’s style is colloquial, and the constant employment of the singular pronoun would misrepresent its character. The Latin is not obsolete, and it would surely be a mistake to translate it into an obsolete vernacular. Although the author’s syntax is decadent, and there is a tendency to make every sentence analytical, her use of words is classical, and her Latin in this respect superior to the scholastic Latin of the Middle Ages. The only principle observed in my translation has
