e with the Pythagorean theory as interpreted by Cicero in his
_Somnium Scipionis_, who represented the eight revolving spheres of
heaven--the Earth being fixed--as forming a complete musical octave.
Such celestial music forms the subject of the argument in Roswitha's
play, the music of Earth being merely touched upon. Why, it is asked,
do we not hear this music of the spheres if it exists? To this comes
the answer that some think it is because of its continuity, others
because of the density of the atmosphere, and others again because the
volume of sound cannot penetrate the narrow passage of the human ear.
And so with subtle argument, the music of Heaven was often drowned in
the din of Earth. Dante, in the _Paradiso_, lifted the idea once more
from Earth to Heaven, and clothed it in a wealth of gorgeous imagery.
But it is Shakespeare who, with the magic of a few words, has given
the thought immortality.

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,

* * * * *

Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

In judging of Roswitha's dramatic work it must be remembered that, in
true mediaeval spirit fearing to profane what she venerates, she allows
herself but little licence with the legends she dramatises.
Nevertheless, as has been said, she from time to time shows, in
psychological touches, a capacity for originality quite phenomenal for
her time and for the literature of the cloister. Still her plays
express but a very small part of the whole gamut of human emotions and
experiences, just as her life was lived in an intellectual world
narrow from the point of view of to-day or of the great intellectual
age of antiquity. Many causes contributed to this. Intellectually, the
Christian world shrank as Paganism was superseded by Christianity, a
supersession by no means complete in Roswitha's day. Of course this
nascent Christianity was inconsistent with much of the intellectual
life of the ancient world, which was either inextricably interwoven
with Paganism, or essentially anti-religious. With its task of laying
afresh the foundations of education, politics, and morality, it had to
take root and become established in a relatively narrow intellectual
field, the boundaries of which had gradually to be broken down,
sometimes with violence.

Time, like som