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''Sponsus'' or ''The Bridegroom'' is a medieval Latin and Occitan dramatic treatment of Jesus' parable of the ten virgins. A liturgical play designed for Easter Vigil, it was composed probably in Gascony or western Languedoc in the mid-eleventh century. Its scriptural basis is found in the ''Gospel of Matthew'' (25:1–13), but it also draws on the ''Song of Songs'' and the Patristics, perhaps Jerome's ''Adversus Jovinianum''. In certain respects—the portrayal of the merchants, the spilling of the oil, the implicit questioning of accepted theodicy—it is original and dramatically powerful. "Sponsus" is the Latin word for groom/husband and is a cognate of the English "spouse". The feminine form is "sponsa" (bride/wife). ==Story== The play opens with an unnamed narrative voice explaining the allegory of the parable, the identity of the bridegroom with Jesus, and the Gospel. This unnamed voice has been identified with both Gabriel and the Church (''Ecclesia'') personified. The next speaker of the play, who uses Occitan, is probably Gabriel, though this rubric is fragmentary and identifies only those whom he addresses: the ''prudentes'', prudent ones. The angel tells the five wise virgins—the five foolish ones have presumably fallen asleep after ''Ecclesias more general caution—to attend a groom, Jesus Christ, who came to save them from their sins. He gives them the ominous warning ''Gaire no.i / dormet'': "Don't fall asleep!", which is repeated several times. After Gabriel's message, the foolish virgins (recognised from the rubric ''fatue'') enter and announce that they have spilled the oil for their lamps. The spilling of the oil was probably acted out for dramatic effect, though the bible knows nothing of it. The foolish then plead with the wise to share their oil, capping each strophe with the lamenting refrain ''Dolentas, chaitivas, trop i avem dormit'': "We, wretched in our grief, have slept too long!" The wise virgins turn them away without pity, inviting them to buy oil from the merchants nearby. The foolish (who now seem wise) only blame themselves, but the merchants, who are presented sympathetically, tell them that they cannot help them and advise them to beseech their sisters in God's name. The merchants' eight lines, which are significant to the dramatic movement, are given in Occitan without any comparable Latin. The dramatist builds tension between the foolish, who are repentant, the wise, who are condescending, and the merchants, who are sympathetic to the foolish and trusting of the charity of the wise. The text's English translator, Peter Dronke, praises the dramatist's clever portrayal and insights into human nature. The foolish do not follow the merchants' advice, having been twice rebuffed by their wise sisters. The drama ends when ''modo veniat sponsus'': "Now let the bridegroom arrive." ''Christus'' arrives as bridegroom and promptly dismisses the foolish virgins' pleas, sending them away. They are then taken by demons to Hell: the earliest attested appearance of demons in western drama.〔Davidson, p. 310.〕 Christ's lines are sung to the same melody as ''Ecclesias and the drama closes where it has begun, with the foretold penalty for negligence being meted out by the agents of Hell. It is possible that the play was acted above the stairwell that led to the crypt and that a brazier may have sufficed as an inferno for the maidens to be led into by grotesque demons. There is a possible ''serio-comic'' combination of gravity and levity in the final scenes of the play.〔Dronke, pp. 7–9, who also uses ''fearsome-comic'', derived from Robert Weimann's ''furchtbare Komik''.〕 On the other hand, Davidson suggests that the demons must have been portrayed in grim seriousness as personifications of real human fears.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sponsus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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