272 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



While the comic element became an all -important 

 factor in the greater passion-plays, as well as in the 

 shorter religious plays, and invaded even the scenic 

 representation of the most sacred portion of the Passion, 

 there still remained a simplicity and earnestness about 

 the action and words of the central figure which could 

 not fail to impress both sturdy burgher and rougher 

 peasant. Next to the figure of Christ, that of the 

 Virgin appeals most strongly to our religious feeling 

 and dramatic sense. There is scarcely a single greater 

 passion-play in which the beauty of the MarienMage 

 the grief of the Virgin at the Cross and tomb of her son 

 does not fill the reader with a deep sympathy, and 

 render him conscious of a truly poetic, nay dramatic, 

 feeling struggling with a primitive mode of expression 

 and often a pitiable versification. There is something 

 almost of the Greek tragic spirit in the MarienMage, 

 and this relation to the Greek is not so accidental 

 as might be supposed. The earliest MarienMage which 

 I have come across actually exists in a fourth-century 

 Greek passion-play, X/KC-TO? Trda-^cov. 1 This remarkable 

 production appears to have been hardly sufficiently 

 studied in relation to the mediaeval religious drama. 



1 Printed as an appendix by Wagner and Diibner in Fragmenta Euripidis, 

 Paris, 1846. The opening lamentations of the deoroKos on hearing of the 

 Crucifixion may perhaps interest the reader : 



at at, ri Spdo-w ; Kapdta yap 



TrcDs TTWS d' ZTI "w Kol 0^/3w TttOra K\6eii> ; 



Ideiv d ravra TrcDs TTOT' ol'cra; 



fa', cD yvvaiKes, TTJS FaXtXa^as 



TrpotretTrar' avr6v, Kai irpoirt[j.\f/aTe 



& devre <f>L\ai, devre, X/TTW/^CJ' dtos. 



The reader should also notice 11. 370 et seq. See footnote p. 384. 



