Charles Davidson — English Mystery Plays. 145 



Planetus B. Marice virginis ad filium in cruce pendentem : 



Virgo plorans filium 

 ductus ad supplicium : 

 Die o rex humilium, 



fili quid f ecisti ? 

 quia gens incredula, 

 mordax velut vipera, 

 te traxit ad vincula 



et crucem subisti. 



This continues through thirteen stanzas. Then : 



Responsio afflictifilii ad moestissiTnain matrem. 



This Responsio closes the song in five stanzas. 



The next step of dramatic development is shown in a MS. of 

 1439, now in the library of Karlsruhe, but written in Florence.* 

 The metre is more simple, but the lyrical dialogue has been greatly 

 expanded. It begins : 



Ante crucem virgo stabat, 

 Christi poenas cogitabat, 

 totam se dilaniabat, 

 vultum la vat lacrimis, 



and continues through eight stanzas, when Christ replies in four 

 stanzas, Mary answering in three. Then, JRespondet crux Marice 

 in seven stanzas, Mary replies in three, and the cross closes the dia- 

 logue in four.^ 



Our next example passes from the language of the church to the 

 tongue of the people. The MS. is judged to be of about 1430." I 

 give it in full, as it is comparatively short, and yet contains all the 

 distinctive features of the lamentation after it had passed into the 

 vulgar tongue.* 



1 Mone, p. 37. 



2 Note.— Compare with these the "Stabat Mater: The Lamentation of the Blessed 

 Virgin Mary, a Sequence or Prose, appointed, in the Roman Missal, to be sung between 

 the Epistle and the Gospel, at High Mass, on the Friday in Passion Week, and the 

 Third Sunday in September. The Poem, written towards the close of the thirteenth 

 century by Jacobus de Benedictus, is one of the finest examples of mediteval Latin 

 prose."— Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians s. v. Stabat Mater. 



3 Note.— It should be borne in mind that most of these plays are older than the MSS. 

 containing them. Nevertheless, the development in Germany seems to have been 

 slower than elsewhere, and consequently many steps of development, elsewhere lost, 

 have been preserved there. 



* Hoffman, vol. 3, j^. 281. 



