Sponsus

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.