370 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



VIII. The Contents of a Sixteenth-Century 

 Passion-Play 



In order to bring more vividly before the reader 

 the course of a fully developed religious folk -drama, I 

 purpose in this, the last section of my essay, to briefly 

 sketch the leading incidents of such a play, without 

 slavishly following any particular version. 



As soon as the procession had arrived at the stage, 

 the chorus of angels would sing SUete? and the 

 Precursor or Proclamator would open the play. 

 Usually he would call upon young and old, poor and 

 rich, to attend to him, give them a short sermon on 

 the meaning of the leading incidents in the Christian 

 world-drama, suggest the need of penitence, recite 

 the principal events of the first day's play, and bid the 

 people make no disturbance, but listen attentively to 

 all that shall follow. Sometimes the Precursor would 

 adopt a more humorous folk -tone, of which the follow- 

 ing although taken from a fifteenth-century carnival 

 play is a very fair specimen : 2 



Silence, now for a while to-day, 

 Come and hear what we've got to say, 

 You in the corners here and there ! 

 Yonder old women will talk away 

 Why in the world their hens won't lay ! 

 Other old gammers their gaffers are rating, 

 Can't they see that we all are waiting 1 



1 For example, in the Ludus de decem Virginibus ( Wariburg Bibliothek, i. p. 15) 



Angeli cantant : 



Nu swigit liben lute 



lazzit u bedute. 



Swigit, lazt uch kunt tun, etc. 



2 ' Ain spil von mayster Aristotles ' (Keller, No. 128, Fastnachtspiele aus 

 dem 15ten Jahrhundert, Stuttg. Lit. Verein). 



