tations from the legendary debris of
antiquity. The first appears to have been taken by Roswitha from a
Latin translation of a fourth-century Greek legend.[10] Whilst she
does not display any originality in elaborating the story, but keeps
carefully to the text--so much so that at times she merely
transcribes--she reveals her artistic as well as her psychological
instinct by concentrating the essentials, thereby transforming a
rather discursive composition into a poignant picture. The subtle
touches, the sentiment, and the dialogue so pathetic and so true to
nature, make this drama verily her masterpiece, and one worthy of a
place beside the delicate and dramatic miniatures of the time. In a
few words, here is the story. A holy man, by name Abraham, has
abandoned a life of solitude in order to take care of his young
orphaned niece. After a few years, she is tempted to a house of ill
fame. Some two years later, her uncle, having discovered her
whereabouts, determines to exchange his hermit garb for that of a man
of the world, and go to the house in the guise of a lover, so as to
get an opportunity of speaking with his niece alone. Of course she
does not recognise him in his change of costume, and when he asks for
a kiss, she puts her arms round his neck, and suddenly detects a
strange perfume. Instantly a change comes over her. The scent recalls
to her her former unsullied life, and tears fill her eyes. At the
fitting moment the uncle makes himself known, and showing her with
sweet words of sympathy and encouragement that sin is natural to
humanity, and that what is evil is to continue in it, takes her back
with him to begin afresh the simple good life.

[10] Migne, _Patrol. Lat._ lxxiii.

The second play recounts an incident taken from the apocryphal Acts of
the Apostles, supposed to take place in the first century. A young
heathen, Callimachus, falls in love with a young married woman, a
Christian. She dies, and is buried the same day. That night
Callimachus goes to the grave, and with the help of a slave disinters
the body. Holding it in his arms, and triumphing in the embrace denied
to him in life, he suddenly falls dead. In the morning the husband and
St. John, coming to the cemetery to pray for her soul, see the rifled
grave and the two dead bodies. St. John, at the command of Christ, who
appears for but a moment, restores them both to life, and brings to
repentance the young man, who, in further amendment of