Introduction

The play you are about to hear was written by me -Hrotsvit of Gandersheim. My name got changed a bit as time passed: Hrosvith, Hrosthwitha, Roswitha. But then, I died a thousand years ago.

I was born round about 935 and did most of my writing in the 960's - all of it in Latin of course. I wrote quite a lot: the Legendae or eight poetic adaptations of saints' lives, a couple of historical poems and the Dramata which are seven plays which focus on women in situations which test their devotion to virtue. By the grace of my Abbess, all these works were copied out by my nuns. Down the centuries they were used as texts to help school children learn Latin. Which was a great help to their survival - the texts not the children!

As a member of a noble family, I was accepted into the royal abbey of Gandersheim in eastern Saxony - a region in northern Germany today. We weren't just any old nuns! No. Our Abbess was Gerberga the Second and a niece of the Emperor Otto the First, no less, and we were an abbey of 'canonesses', that is to say, women who lived under a Rule but didn't have to go in for vows of chastity and poverty - and we didn't take permanent vows either! If a family decided to make an alliance and marry one of us off, or if we were wanted at home for some other reason, we could leave.

The play's original title was Dulcitius. But even though I'm dead I can keep up with the times and I can quite see that that is a 'dull' name (groan) and doesn't tell you anything about the plot which is all about the martyrdom of three women with meaningful and allegorical Hellenic names.

The first martyr is Irene (Hirena, which means Peace), who very conveniently has two sisters called Agape (or Brotherly Love) and Chionia (the Snowy One or Purity). Irene is a real Saint. Her feast day is April 3rd Or 5th or . . . March 30th I thought of saying that Agape and Chiona are there just to make a point, but lo! According to the Catholic Forum, they are saints too - though no one else mentions them.

Of course, the plot of my play is the authentic one, but as a nun I have to be truthful so I must say that there are other versions dating before and after mine. One of them says that in the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, Irene and her sisters, daughters of pagan parents living in Salonika, were brought before the Governor of Macedonia, Dulcitius, because they refused to eat meat which had been sacrificed to the gods. Irene was also in trouble as they found that she had a secret hoard of Christian books. The sisters died at Thessalonica around 304 AD. The year after that Diocletian retired. He was the only Roman Emperor ever to do so - so much for getting his comeuppance for persecuting innocent Christians!

In another source, Irene was the widow of Saint Castulus, who suffered martyrdom during the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian (well at least that's something similar to the other variant). She healed the wounds of Saint Sebastian, who, shot with arrows like a porcupine (a popular subject for paintings later on) had been left for dead. Once healed, and despite Irene's exhortations to leave Rome, Sebastian continued his Christian teaching and was finally clubbed to death.

However, yet a third source, says that she was born during the reign of Constantine the Great in the Persian city of Magydus, and was the daughter of Licinius, governor of the region, who attributed her new eagerness for Christianity as a teenage thing, and told her to give it up - as parents do. When she didn't, he flew into a rage, threatening to have her trampled in the arena by wild horses. But, alas . . . He was at the arena arranging the stampede, when, goodness gracious, he was somehow accidentally trampled himself!

Irene hurried to the side of her father, and, as he lay mortally wounded, she prayed that he be spared. He was. He repented, and became a Christian too. For this he was promptly removed from office by the Persian Emperor, Sedecian, who, in true villainous fashion, said to Irene, that he would restore her father to his post and allow her to go free if etc. etc.. She said no, and in prison was subjected to inhuman torture and was given just enough food to sustain her until the next session. After Sedecian's death she was released and went about preaching. Three consecutive successors to Sedecian - the Emperors Savor, Numerianus, and Savorian all failed to stop Irene This isn't surprising as the only one that may just have existed was Numerian (283-284 AD), Diocletian's predecessor. Further imprisonment, argument and torture having failed, she was beheaded on 5th May 384.

Well, that's how sixteen hundred years or so can warp things more than a little. But now let's get on with the one true version set out by me Hrosthwitha of Gandersheim - with maybe a little help from Kendall and Helen, my exegetists.

Three Virgin Martyrs and a Chicken

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