SOURCE: "Callimachus, A Play by Hrotswitha," Allegorica, Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring, 1976, pp. 7-11.

In the following introduction to her co-translation of Callimachus, Nichols explores the classical sources and romantic / Christian theme of the play.

Hrotswitha was a canoness at the Abbey of Gandersheim in Saxony during the tenth century. She wrote two epics, a number of shorter works, and six plays modelled after Terence's to replace his for readers who were "fascinated by the charm of [his] manner [and] risked being corrupted by the wickedness of [his] matter," as she says in her Preface to the plays.

Callimachus is her most romantic drama. At first reading it seems to be a play that loses its sense of direction. It begins with friends drinking in a tavern and ends with resurrections at Drusiana's tomb. Its opening style is literal and jocular: its closing tone is symbolic and reverent. The problem...