Story
The opening lines, spoken by the Magdalene, are an adaptation of the third chapter of the Song of Songs. In the Vetus Latina and in one manuscript grouping of the Vulgate this chapter has the rubric Mariae Magdalenae ad Ecclesiam: Mary Magdalene to the Church. The Vic dramatist evidently picked up on this allegorical exegesis and adapted it to his theme. As the play opens, Mary is searching a garden for the tomb of Christ. First some angeli (angels) and then an ortolanus (gardener) ask her why she is weeping and for whom she is looking. She mistakes the gardener for Christ when he says to her "Mary, Mary, Mary!" and she responds "Raboni, raboni, master!" The drama does not incorporate a sequence of her on the road meeting Christ, but jumps to her return to the garden from meeting him. There she scoffs at the gardener who deceived her and, meeting the discipuli (disciples), relates to them the fact of Christ's resurrection and the empty tomb. The disciples do not hesitate to believe her, Marie veraci (truthful Mary), over the "whole deceitful multitude of Jews" (Iudeorum turbe fallaci). The play ends on a prayer, sung by a chorus (choir), and the Greater Doxology.
Read more about this topic: Versus De Pelegrino
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.”
—Will Durant (1885–1981)