324 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



oil cannot injure her. The same dolium inverted will 

 serve for the pinnacle of the Temple, the Mount of Olives, 

 or the rostrum from which the Condusor may recite 

 the epilogue of the drama. 1 In the Frankfurt play, 

 however, the Mount of Olives was represented by 

 " virides arbores in modum orti " an almost isolated 

 attempt at scenery. 2 The thunder and earthquake 

 which followed the crucifixion were represented by the 

 firing of a gun. 3 The doors of hell must have been of 

 a fairly substantial character after the type of their 

 original, the church door for we hear of heavy bolts 

 being drawn across them as Christ appeared. In some 

 cases a devil was represented as placing his long nose in 

 the bolt-hasps, only to have it promptly torn off as the 

 triumphant Christ broke open the gates. 4 The cruci- 

 fixion was somehow managed with the live actor, and, as 

 a rule, the live Judas hanged himself, 5 although we hear in 

 the Frankfurt play of an " imago facta ad instar Judas " 



1 SeeL, p. 291. In the A Isf elder Spiel we read : ' ' Sathanas ducit eum ad doleuin 

 quod positum est in medio ludi representans pinnaculum templi" (C, p. 36). 

 In the Frankfurter Spiel we find the stage-directions : " Deinde Sathanas ducat 

 Jhesuin super dolium quod positum sit in medio ludi, representans pinnaculum 

 templi " ; and again : "Item Sathanas ducat Jhesum ad alium locum ludi super 

 dolium representans montem excelsum " (S, p. 139). For the inverted tub of the 

 Condusor see B, vol. ii. p. 104. 



2 S, p. 146. 3 K, pp. 61, 173 ; B, vol. ii. pp. 324, 339. 



4 F, p. 284 ; C, p. 225 (where Lucifer first looks out per fenestram), etc. 

 On the long-nosed devil Rapax see H, vol. ii. p. 70 ; and compare with 

 Mathesius' Sermons, quoted in Flogel, Geschichte der Grotesk-Komischen, p. 239. 

 He frequently appears in mediaeval art. The barring of the gates of hell is an 

 incident in the Vision of Piers Ploughman. 



5 Real death was occasionally the result of these mock death -arrangements of 

 the stage : "C'est ainsi que la chronique de Metz rapporte que le cure de Saint- 

 Victor de cette ville faillit pe"rir en croix, dans un mystere de la Passion, ou il 

 repre'sentait Je'sus- Christ, et que 1'acteur qui representait Judas s'etrangla presque 

 en se pendant " ( Jubinal, Mysteres ine~dits, vol. i. p. 42). A like incident is re- 

 ferred to in Platter's Aiitobiographie (ed. Fechter), p. 123. At Zuckmantel (see Y, 

 p. 11) the Christ wore a tight-fitting, flesh-coloured linen garment, strong enough 

 to support him on the cross, when the nails were driven through it. 



