384 THE GERMAN PASSION-PLA Y 



with a flourish of trumpets condemns Christ. 1 Thus very 

 usually and fitly ends the second day's performance. 



The third and last day's performance was the 

 richest in incident, the most varied in character, and 

 probably the one best calculated to excite the strong if 

 not very refined emotions of a mediaeval audience. 

 Throughout all its scenes run the choral lamentations 

 of the mother and of the woman to whom Christ had 

 brought new life. These, as we have already noted, 

 bear traces of the inspiration of the great lyric poets of 

 an earlier age, and still in their rough folk-versification 

 are not without beauty. On the way to Calvary, 

 under the Cross, at the Entombment, we have a picture 

 of the Virgin as mother which contrasts oddly with the 

 divinity elsewhere so lavishly bestowed upon her. I 

 shall not refer more minutely to these Marienklagen? 



1 For the above account, see C, pp. 135-143 ; F, pp. 198-203 ; B, vol. ii. 

 pp. 298-305 ; D, pp. 55, 58 ; K, p. 155 ; S, p. 150. In a fete held in 1313, 

 mentioned by Geoffrey of Paris, we read : 



Les tisserands representer- 



. . . Adam et five, 



Et Pilate qui ses mains leve. 



See Jubinal, Mysteres inddits, vol. i. p. 22. In La Passion de nostre Seigneur 

 (ibid. vol. ii. pp. 223-226), Pilate's wife, accompanied by her son and daughter, 

 goes to entreat Pilate (see Schatzbehatter, Fig. 74). Pilatessa and her maids 

 offer much of interest in relation to mediseval social life and its conceptions 

 (see F, p. 207). 



2 Marienklagen, as independent plays, are to be found in B, vol. i. pp. 31, 

 198, with interesting introductions ; I, p. 150, Latin and German ; L, vol. ii. 

 p. 259 ; Schonemann, Der Sundenfall, 1855 ; and Z. There is small doubt that 

 at a very early date MarienTdagen formed part of the Church ritual, quite apart 

 from their relation to the later passion-plays. They were introduced into the 

 Good Friday service of the Adoratio crucis after the hymn Crux fidelis, and 

 before the cross was carried to the sepulchre ; see M, pp. 129, 138, 144 (Hie 

 portant crucem ad sepulchrum), and 146 (Maria cadit ad sepulchrum). But the 

 Freising rubric in particular should be noted : "Hie incipit ludus . . . et debet 

 cantari post Crux fidelis, et sic finire usque ad vesperam lamentabiliter cum 

 ceteris sicut consuetum est fieri. " 



