OF SIX MEDLEVAL WOMEN 



what is evil is to continue in it, takes her back 

 with him to begin afresh the simple good life. 



The second play recounts an incident taken 

 from the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, sup- 

 posed to take place in the first century. A young 

 heathen, Callimachus, falls in love with a young 

 married woman, a Christian. She dies, and is 

 buried the same day. That night Callimachus 

 goes to the grave, and with the help of a slave 

 disinters the body. Holding it in his arms, and 

 triumphing in the embrace denied to him in life, 

 he suddenly falls dead. In the morning the 

 husband and St. John, coming to the cemetery 

 to pray for her soul, see the rifled grave and the 

 two dead bodies. St. John, at the command of 

 Christ, who appears for but a moment, restores 

 them both to life, and brings to repentance the 

 young man, who, in further amendment of his 

 ways, becomes a Christian. This mere outline of 

 the play is given to suggest points of resemblance 

 between it the first sketch of this kind of drama 

 of passion, the frenzy of the soul and senses and 

 the masterpiece of this type, Romeo and Juliet. 



Many passages in the plays of Roswitha 

 remind us of Shakespeare, but it is not possible 

 to deal adequately with them here, nor does it 

 seem material to do so. There is no reason why 

 Shakespeare should not have seen a printed 

 collection of her dramas. He, like Dante, 

 seems to have had the power of attracting 

 aterial from every ppssible source, and it should 

 not be forgotten what a sensation was caused by 



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