Page:Plays of Roswitha (1923) St. John.djvu/24

xviii bloody executioners are replaced by comic soldiers and a comic governor. Unfortunately, the farcical vein is suddenly abandoned, perhaps because Roswitha's Abbess thought such fooling undignified in a nun! There must be some explanation of the sudden disappearance of the comic character of Dulcitius from the play. However, even as it stands Dulcitius is worth a great deal, since it affords the best proof we have that Roswitha's plays were written for representation. There is indirect proof in the fact that we know that plays were acted at Gandersheim, as at other monasteries, on great occasions, but here is direct evidence. All the fun of Dulcitius lies in the action. No dramatist who had not in mind the effect on spectators could have conceived the scene in which the foolish governor, black as a sweep from his amorous encounter with the kitchen pots and pans which he mistakes for young women, is chased away from the palace gates, asking the while if there is anything amiss with his fine and handsome appearance. Stage directions, or didascalia, are very rarely found in old dramatic texts, but when Magnin compared Roswitha's original text with the first printed edition he found several which had been omitted by Celtes.

Callimachus, Abraham, and Paphnutius precede