Rosyth

“ In Callimachus, Abraham, and Paphnutius, Roswitha sets out to describe the war between the flesh and the spirit, and the long penance which must be done by those who have allowed the flesh to triumph. It is not enough for them to be converted and to realise their crime against the infinite beauty and goodness of God. They are called on to take practical measures to cleanse themselves. Callimachus is the first of these plays, and by no means the best, although it timidly sounds a note of passion, rare, if it exists at all, in medieval literature. ”

“ Tush, desire hath no respect of persons: Cupid is blind and shooteth at random, as soon hitting a rag as a robe, and piercing as soon the bosom of a captive as the breast of a libertine. Thou speakest it, poor Rosalynde, by experience; for being every way distressed, surcharged with cares, and overgrown with sorrows, yet amidst the heap of all these mishaps, love hath lodged in thy heart the perfection of young Rosader, a man every way absolute as well for his inward life, as for his outward lineaments, able to content the eye with beauty, and the ear with the report of his virtue. ”

“ He can be as lazy as he likes here, the lazier the better. And her Ladyship would like it so much. She always says, when she walks upon the marsh or over the fields: 'I am really afraid, Roswitha, because I am so alone; but who is there to accompany me? Rollo, oh yes, he would do. He bears no grudge against me either. That is the advantage, that animals do not trouble themselves so much about such things.' These are her Ladyship's words and I will say nothing further, and merely ask your Lordship to remember me to my little Annie. Also to Johanna. ”

“ John appears to more advantage as a theologian than as a man.
Abraham and Paphnutius show Roswitha at her best as a dramatist. In both plays the scenes are well knit, the characterization deft and sure, and the dialogue admirably expressive. The opening scenes of Abraham reveal that power to suggest character and situation without wordy explanations which is essential in drama. We know at once, although we are not told, that Mary, mere child as she is, is not made of stern stuff, and that her vocation is doubtful. ”

“ Every member to appoint some person with the proper qualifications to succeed him at his own decease. The word Rosy-Cross to be their seal, watchword, and characteristic mark. The association to be kept unrevealed for a hundred years. Christian Rosycross died at the age of a hundred years. His death was known to the Society, but not his grave; for it was a maxim of the first Rosicrucians to conceal their burial places even from each other. New masters were continually elected into the House of the Holy Ghost, and the Society had now lasted 120 years. ”

“ It is in a spirit far different from that of her panegyric on the emperor Otho that Roswitha writes her dramas. Fear and mental perplexity no longer possess her. Though humbly begging the reader not to "despise these strains drawn from a fragile reed," she has no misgiving, for she feels that herein lies her mission. She explains her reason for using the dramatic form, and for taking Terence as her model. ”

“ Unfortunately for Rosilia, she was thrown into solitude in that susceptible period when, with a native enthusiasm of character, her heart had first opened to a youthful impression. Secluded from the possibility of ever beholding another who could in the least dispute with Douglas his reign over her fancy, those imperfections, originating in the love of the world and pride of shining, formerly so regretted by her, were then, if not wholly forgotten, at least considerably softened to her view. ”

“ Rosita vows she loves me, and at the same time declares she will never be mine while Dulaurier lives. While he lives! And I must take upon myself the peril of saving him, when I have only to let him——Oh, how despair tempts us to horrible deeds! Is there time to fly, to quit this spot where each thought is torture: to hasten and join the guerillas before they enter the house? For, alas! if they enter now and demand where their enemy is—by Heaven! I shall not have the strength to resist—I must fly! ”

“ She further expresses the hope that by trying to imitate his manner, and by at the same time dramatising legends calculated to edify, she may induce readers to turn from the "godless contents of his works" to the contemplation of virtuous living. Emboldened by this pious hope, Roswitha shrinks from no difficulties or details, details which might well have made her hesitate, and which, betraying a knowledge of the world, have raised the question as to whether she made her profession as early as was customary. ”

“ Follow thou her steps, Rosalynde, and the rather, for that thou art an exile, and banished from the court; whose distress, and it is appeased with patience, so it would be renewed with amorous passions. Have mind on thy forepassed fortunes; fear the worst, and entangle not thyself with present fancies, lest loving in haste, thou repent thee at leisure. Ah, but yet, Rosalynde, it is Rosader that courts thee; one who as he is beautiful, so he is virtuous, and harboreth in his mind as many good qualities as his face is shadowed with gracious favors ”

“ Perhaps nothing in Paphnutius is on quite the same level of achievement, but a play is not made by a single scene, and Paphnutius as a whole is better than Abraham as a whole. Few will question that it is Roswitha's masterpiece. It is very creditable to her that, although the stories of the two plays are similar, she should have shown such variety in the treatment of them. When we compare them we find hardly any repetition. ”

“ Old Lawless maintained complete silence as to his past; and as Rosita’s mother formed part of that doubtful darkness when he, and his child, and his stock in trade installed themselves at Lawrence, he had never been heard to refer to her. That she had belonged to some mixed breed, part Spanish, part Indian, was, however, written on each feature of her daughter’s body and mind—if Rosita could be said to have a mind.
'Every woman, savage or civilized, will love some day to her own sorrow,' her father had declared, with a cynical laugh. 'But Rosita’s future is tolerably safe. ”

“ But her mother thought it best to take no further notice, only in her own heart she said to herself, "Was there ever such a child?"
In spite of all she had said Rosy felt, what she would not have owned for the world, a good deal of curiosity about the little girl who was to come to live with them. And now and then, in her cross and unhappy moods, a sort of strange confused hope would creep over her that Beata's coming would bring her a kind of good luck.
"Everybody says she's so good, and everybody loves her," thought Rosy, "p'raps I'll find out how she does it." ”

“ It is impossible to develop character with any continuity when the supernatural, like some sword of Damocles, hovers continually overhead, ready to descend at any moment and sever cause from effect. Such a sword was the Divine Presence to Roswitha. When her plot requires it, she introduces a miracle, converting a character, at a moment's notice, and in a way that no evolution could possibly effect, into one of a totally different kind. ”

“ In the ‘Thais’ of the great French romancer the whole point is that Thais repents but that Paphnutius relapses. The nun saves both souls. Anatole France loses one of them. That is modern universalism.”
I hope that the publication of these plays in the English language will confirm Roswitha’s right to a high place in medieval literature, and a place also among the few writers of plays which have more than a transitory interest. Perhaps a certain predilection for medieval art is necessary before we can love her wholeheartedly. ”

“ The Rosie is faithless, she's nae the less the fair,
The thought of her beauty but feeds my despair;
With painful remembrance my bosom is full,
And weary of life is the Harper of Mull.
As slumb'ring I lay by the dark mountain stream,
My lovely young Rosie appear'd in my dream ”

“ It is natural, thought Rosilia, this good woman should be given to chat; for what else could vary the sameness of her life? Love-stories ending in happy marriages, afforded her an ample topic; sensible and well-spoken for one in her situation of life, she would often descant upon those joys and felicities experienced by the married couple, when happily united; to which, Rosilia consenting, the wary nurse, seldom long absent from her point, would return to Melliphant.
"What a pity that one so good and kind should be unhappy in his mind." ”

“ When we compare them we find hardly any repetition. It is interesting to notice that it is not Mary, brought up to the religious life from which she lapses and to which she turns again, who becomes a saint, but Thais, whose life from childhood has been spent in “dangerous delights.” There is a spice of irony in the fact that the penitence of Thais, who had not had Mary’s opportunities, is represented by the dramatist as being on a much higher spiritual plane. With true insight Roswitha makes Paphnutius treat his penitent with far more severity than the hermit Abraham treats Mary. ”

“ ROSALYNDE'S PASSION "Infortunate Rosalynde, whose misfortunes are more than thy years, and whose passions are greater than thy patience! The blossoms of thy youth are mixed with the frosts of envy, and the hope of thy ensuing fruits perish in the bud. Thy father is by Torismond banished from the crown, and thou, the unhappy daughter of a king, detained captive, living as disquieted in thy thoughts as thy father discontented in his exile. Ah Rosalynde, what cares wait upon a crown! what griefs are incident to dignity! what sorrows haunt royal palaces! ”

“ Roswitha tells us how much she herself owed to the two successive abbesses under whose rule she lived, for suggestion, information, and encouragement in her literary work.
The convents of Saxony, as many elsewhere in the tenth and eleventh centuries, were centres of culture in the nature of endowed colleges. In some of them women resided permanently, and besides their religious exercises, devoted themselves to learning and the arts, for the Church of the Middle Ages took thought for the intellect as well as for the soul. ”

“ It is possible to like the art of Rossetti very deeply, and also to love the changing colours of the sea and the shadows of the sun clouds moving swiftly on the hills. But often to pagan lovers of such things the art of Rossetti, shuttered close in its mediaeval darkened rooms, has seemed as an almost poisonous flower, with its forgetfulness of the world without. ”

“ ROSALYNDE PASSIONATE ALONE "Ah, Rosalynde, how the Fates have set down in their synod to make thee unhappy: for when Fortune hath done her worst, then Love comes in to begin a new tragedy: she seeks to lodge her son in thine eyes, and to kindle her fires in thy bosom. Beware, fond girl, he is an unruly guest to harbor; for cutting in by entreats, he will not be thrust out by force, and her fires are fed with such fuel, as no water is able to quench. ”

“ It is not the spirit breaking through corruption, but the life of the senses longing to shine with the light which makes saintly things beautiful: and it would put on the jeweled raiment of seraphim, retaining still a heart of clay smitten through and through with the unappeasable desire of the flesh: so Rossetti's women, who have around them all the circumstance of poetry and romantic beauty, seem through their sucked-in lips to express a thirst which could be allayed in no spiritual paradise. ”

“ Why then doth my Rosalynde grieve at the frown of Torismond, who by offering her a prejudice proffers her a greater pleasure? and more, mad lass, to be melancholy, when thou hast with thee Alinda, a friend who will be a faithful copartner of all thy misfortunes, who hath left her father to follow thee, and chooseth rather to brook all extremities than to forsake thy presence. What, Rosalynde,
Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
Cheerly, woman: as we have been bed-fellows in royalty, we will be fellow-mates in poverty: I will ever be thy Alinda, and thou shalt ever rest to me Rosalynde ”

“ The actors and actresses took their task seriously and used all their skill in making the characters live. The old story of the conversion of Thais became new, and although many found Roswitha’s treatment of it unpalatable, none found it ludicrous. A comparison of the divergent impressions made by the Roswitha of Callimachus and the Roswitha of Paphnutius is a lesson in the difficulty of sifting what the dramatist has done from what the interpreter has done, a difficulty all the greater when the text of a play is not available. ”

“ Choose not a fair face with an empty purse, but say as most women use to say:
Si nihil attuleris, ibis Homere foras.
Why, Rosalynde! can such base thoughts harbor in such high beauties? can the degree of a princess, the daughter of Gerismond harbor such servile conceits, as to prize gold more than honor, or to measure a gentleman by his wealth, not by his virtues? No, Rosalynde, blush at thy base resolution, and say, if thou lovest, 'either Rosader or none!' And why? because Rosader is both beautiful and virtuous. ”

“ It will be all over the place to-morrow that Rosetta accepted you and you threw her over."
"Let it be; I accepted the position," said Rosetta.
"I will not let it be," stormed the admiral. "If a young man thinks he can play fast and loose with a niece of mine, let him try—let him try!"
Here Rosetta, growing really frightened, hastily went out and returned with sherry and biscuits, which she pressed upon Roscoria's acceptance in the midst of his indignant rejoinder to her uncle. ”