n German Literature_) thinks that
Roswitha, though surrounded by the atmosphere of the nunnery, was
carried away by the naturalistic tendencies of her time. Scherr asserts:
"Methinks that we may not offend her state as a nun when we suppose that
she must have had, before she wrote her comedies, some experience in
love, not merely in Terentius." Preferably, she chooses quite equivocal
situations. It is true that in her preface she deprecates any such
purpose with great ardor: "There are many good Christians who, for the
sake of a more refined language, prefer the idle glitter of pagan books
to the usefulness of the Holy Scriptures, a fault of which we also
cannot acquit ourselves entirely. Then there are industrious Bible
readers, who, though they despise the writings of the other pagans, yet
read the poems of Terentius too frequently, and, allured by the grace of
diction, stain their minds through acquaintance with unchaste objects.
In view of this I, the clearly ringing voice of Gandersheim, have not
disdained to imitate the much read author in diction, in order to
glorify the praiseworthy chastity of pious women according to the
measure of my feeble ability in the same way as the vile vices of
lascivious women are there represented." It is interesting to see how
she executes her plan. Take for example, her play entitled Abraham. In
this an old hermit hears that his stepdaughter, who had run away with a
seducer, is living in abject misery. He seeks to rescue her from a house
of ill repute where she has sought shelter. She does not recognize him
in his disguise, but he comes to see all the wretchedness of her life of
shame, and melts her heart in a wonderfully poetic conversation which
reminds one of Erasmus's colloquy between the youth and the fallen
woman. "O my daughter, part of my soul, Maria, do you recognize the old
man who with fatherly love brought you up and betrothed you to the Son
of the Heavenly Lord?" "Whither has flown that sweet angelic voice which
formerly was yours?" "Your maiden purity, your virgin modesty, where are
they?" "What reward, unless you repent, is before you? You that plunged
wilfully from heavenly heights into the depth of hell!" "Why did you
flee from me? Why did you conceal your misery from me from me who would
have prayed and done penance for you?" The miserable woman in her agony
replies only by exclamations of pain, and confesses: "After I had fallen
a victim to sin, I did not dare appr