Plays, Roswitha of Gandersheim [readera ebook reader TXT] 📗

body unspotted, and your mind pure and holy. Mary It would be too great an honour for any human being to become like the stars. Ephrem If you choose you can be as the angels of God, and when at last you cast off the burden of this mortal body they will be near you. With them you will pass through the air, and walk on the sky. With them you will sweep round the zodiac, and never slacken your steps until the Virgin’s Son takes you in His arms in His mother’s dazzling bridal room! Mary Who but an ass would think little of such happiness! So I choose to despise the things of earth, and deny myself now that I may enjoy it! Ephrem Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings! A childish heart, but a mature mind! Abraham God be thanked for it! Ephrem Amen to that. Abraham But though by God’s grace she has been given the light, at her tender age she must be taught how to use it. Ephrem You are right. Abraham I will build her a little cell with a narrow entrance near my hermitage. I can visit her there often, and through the window instruct her in the psalter and other pages of the divine law. Ephrem That is a good plan. Mary I put myself under your direction, Father Ephrem. Ephrem My daughter! May the Heavenly Bridegroom to Whom you have given yourself in the tender bud of your youth shield you from the wiles of the devil! Scene III Abraham Brother Ephrem, Brother Ephrem! When anything happens, good or bad, it is to you I turn. It is your counsel I seek. Do not turn your face away, brother⁠—do not be impatient, but help me. Ephrem Abraham, Abraham, what has come to you? What is the cause of this immoderate grief? Ought a hermit to weep and groan after the manner of the world? Abraham Was any hermit ever so stricken? I cannot bear my sorrow. Ephrem Brother, no more of this. To the point; what has happened? Abraham Mary! Mary! my adopted child! Mary, whom I cared for so lovingly and taught with all my skill for ten years! Mary⁠— Ephrem Well, what is it? Abraham Oh God! She is lost! Ephrem Lost? What do you mean? Abraham Most miserably. Afterwards she ran away. Ephrem But by what wiles did the ancient enemy bring about her undoing? Abraham By the wiles of false love. Dressed in a monk’s habit, the hypocrite went to see her often. He succeeded in making the poor ignorant child love him. She leapt from the window of her cell for an evil deed. Ephrem I shudder as I listen to you. Abraham When the unhappy girl knew that she was ruined, she beat her breast and dug her nails into her face. She tore her garments, pulled out her hair. Her despairing cries were terrible to hear. Ephrem I am not surprised. For such a fall a whole fountain of tears should rise. Abraham She moaned out that she could never be the same⁠— Ephrem Poor, miserable girl! Abraham And reproached herself for having forgotten our warning. Ephrem She might well do so. Abraham She cried that all her vigils, prayers, and fasts had been thrown away. Ephrem If she perseveres in this penitence she will be saved. Abraham She has not persevered. She has added worse to her evil deed. Ephrem Oh, this moves me to the depths of my heart! Abraham After all these tears and lamentations she was overcome by remorse, and fell headlong into the abyss of despair. Ephrem A bitter business! Abraham She despaired of being able to win pardon, and resolved to go back to the world and its vanities. Ephrem I cannot remember when the devil could boast of such a triumph over the hermits. Abraham Now we are at the mercy of the demons. Ephrem I marvel that she could have escaped without your knowledge. Abraham If I had not been so blind! I ought to have paid more heed to that terrible vision. Yes, I see now that it was sent to warn me. Ephrem What vision? Abraham I dreamed I was standing at the door of my cell, and that a huge dragon with a loathsome stench rushed violently towards me. I saw that the creature was attracted by a little white dove at my side. It pounced on the dove, devoured it, and vanished. Ephrem There is no doubt what this vision meant. Abraham When I woke I turned over in my mind what I had seen, and took it as a sign of some persecution threatening the Church, through which many of the faithful would be drawn into error. I prostrated myself in prayer, and implored Him Who knows the future to enlighten me. Ephrem You did right. Abraham On the third night after the vision, when for weariness I had fallen asleep, I saw the beast again, but now it was lying dead at my feet, and the dove was flying heavenwards safe and unhurt. Ephrem I am rejoiced to hear this, for to my thinking it means that some day Mary will return to you. Abraham I was trying to get rid of the uneasiness with which the first vision had filled me by thinking of the second, when my little pupil in her cell came to my mind. I remembered, although at the time I was not alarmed, that for two days I had not heard her chanting the divine praises. Ephrem You were too tardy in noticing this. Abraham I admit it. I went at once to her cell, and, knocking at the window, I called her again and again, “Mary! My child! Mary!” Ephrem You called in vain? Abraham “Mary,” I said. “Mary, my child, what is wrong? Why are you not saying your office?” It was only when I did not hear the faintest sound that I suspected. Ephrem What did you do then? Abraham When I could no longer doubt that she had gone, I was struck with fear to my very bowels. I trembled in every limb. Ephrem I do not wonder, since I, hearing of it, find myself trembling all over. Abraham Then I wept