The Plays of Roswitha: Roswitha's Preface to Her Poetical Works
(The Life Story of the Blessed Virgin, The Fall and Conversion of Theophilus, The
Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, Poems concerning the First Cenobites at Gandersheim, The Acts of
Otho I, etc., etc..)
I OFFER this little book, which has not much to recommend it in the way of beauty,
although it has been compiled with a good deal of care, for the criticism of all those
learned people who do not take pleasure in a writer's faults but are anxious to amend
them. I am well aware that in my first works I made many mistakes not only in prosody but
in literary composition, and there must be much to criticise in this book. By
acknowledging my shortcomings beforehand I hope I am entitled to ready indulgence as well
as to careful correction of my mistakes. To the objection that may be raised that I have
borrowed parts of this work from authorities which some condemn as apocryphal, I would
answer that I have erred through ignorance, not through presumption. When I started,
timidly enough, on the work of composition I did not know that the authenticity of my
material had been questioned. On discovering this to be the case I decided not to discard
it, because it often happens that what is reputed false turns out to be true. In these
circumstances I shall need as much assistance in defending this little work as in
improving it. It must be remembered that when I began it I was far from possessing the
necessary qualifications, being young both in years and learning. Up to the present I have
not submitted the work to any experts much as I needed their advice, for fear that the
roughness of the style would make them discourage me to such an extent that I might give
up writing altogether. Unknown to all round me, I have toiled in secret, often destroying
what seemed to me to be ill written, and rewriting it. I have tried to the best of my
ability to improvise on phrases collected from sacred writings in the precincts of our
convent at Gandersheim. I was trained first by our most learned and gentle novicemistress
Rikkarda and others. Later, I owed much to the kind favour and encouragement of a royal
personage, Gerberga, under whose abbatial rule I am now living. She, though younger in
years than I, was, as might be expected of the niece of an Emperor, far older in learning,
and she had the kindness to make me familiar with the works of some of those authors in
whose writings she had been instructed by learned men. Although prosody may seem a hard
and difficult art for a woman to master, I, without any assistance but that given by the
merciful grace of Heaven (in which I have trusted, rather than in my own strength), have
attempted in this book to sing in dactyls. I was eager that the talent given me by Heaven
should not grow rusty from neglect, and remain silent in my heart from apathy, but under
the hammer of assiduous devotion should sound a chord of divine praise. If I have achieved
nothing else, this alone should make my work of some value. Wherefore, reader, whosoever
you may be, I beg you, if you think it right before God, to help me by not sparing censure
of such pages as are poor and lack the skill of a master. If, on the contrary, you find
some that stand the test of criticism, give the credit to God, ascribing all defects to my
shortcomings. Do this in an indulgent rather than in a censorious spirit, for the critic
forfeits the right to be severe when the writer acknowledges defects with humility.
Source.
Hrotsvitha, ca. 935-ca. 975. The Plays of Roswitha. Translated by Christopher
St. John, with an introduction by Cardinal Gasquet and a critical preface by the
translator.(London, Chatto & Windus, 1923)
Scanned in and HTMLed by C. Liang <cliang@carleton.edu>
This text is part of the Internet
Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
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Paul Halsall, October 1999
halsall@fordham.edu
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