Note 102 — Chapter XVIII · LITURGICAL PLAYS

The Bohemian fourteenth-century version (Lange, 130) is nearly all narrative sung by the Ebdomarius: the only dialogue is from the Victimae paschali. Martene, iii. 173, gives, from a ‘vetustissimum Rituale,’ this Poitiers version, not in Lange, ‘Finitis matutinis, accedunt ad sepulchrum, portantes luminaria. Tunc incipit Maria: Ubi est Christus meus? Respondet angelus Non est hic. Tunc Maria aperit os sepulchri, et dicit publica voce: Surrexit Christus. Et omnes respondent Deo gratias.’ Possibly Maria here is the Virgin, who is not usually included in the Visitatio. But the same anthem opens a twelfth-century Limoges version, headed ‘Oc est de mulieribus’ in B. N. Lat. MS. 1139, a collection of ritual plays. The full text is ‘Ubi est Christus meus dominus et filius excelsus?’ which is not really appropriate to any other speaker: cf. Milchsack, 38. A frequent variant on ‘Quem quaeritis in sepulchro, o Christicolae?’ is ‘Quem quaeritis, o tremulae mulieres, in hoc tumulo plorantes?’; nor can the two forms be localized (Lange, 84).