Title: The Passion-Play at Ober-Ammergau.
London: Hutchinson and Co., 1900. First Edition. 8vo. 256 pages.
Edited, with preface by W. H. Wilkins.
With half-title and frontis portrait of Isabel Burton. Title page printed is
in red and black. Publisher's original violet cloth, titled in gilt to spine.
Wear to boards, spine sunned, otherwise in Very Good condition internally
and retaining solid binding. A charming volume with each page bordered in red.
Excerpt from the preface:
"LADY BURTON wrote this little book on her return to Trieste, after visiting
Ober-Ammergau in August, 1880. It was written from her notes, jotted down within
a few hours of witnessing the Play, when her impressions were fresh and vivid,
and bears, like everything she wrote, the impress of her remarkable personality.
Sir Richard Burton, who accompanied his wife, also recorded his impressions from
a very different point of view........ the exoteric view taken by Burton would
strike a jarring note...... With Lady Burton's description of Ober-Ammergau this is far different. As a devout Catholic, a sincere Christian, she approached the Passion-Play
in a devotional spirit; all that she writes is tempered by reverence."
In August 1880 the Burtons paid a visit to Ober Ammergau, which was just then
attracting all eyes on account of its Passion Play. Burton’s object in going was
"the wish to compare, haply to trace some affinity between, this survival of the
Christian ‘Mystery’ and the living scenes of El Islam at Mecca," while Mrs. Burton’s
object may be gauged by the following prayer which she wrote previous to their
departure from Trieste. "O Sweet Jesu. .. Grant that I, all unworthy though I be,
may so witness this holy memorial of thy sacrificial love, Thy glorious victory over
death and hell, that I may be drawn nearer to Thee and hold Thee in everlasting
remembrance. Let the representation of Thy bitter sufferings on the cross renew
my love for Thee, strengthen my faith, and ennoble my life, and not mine only,
but all who witness it."
Burton found no affinity between the scenes at Ober Ammergau and those at Mecca,
and he was glad to get away from "a pandemonium of noise and confusion," while
Mrs. Burton, who was told to mind her own business by a carter with whom she
remonstrated for cruelly treating a horse, discovered that even Ober Ammergau
was not all holiness. Both Richard Burton and his wife Isabel recorded their
impressions in print, but though his volume appeared in 1881, hers was not
published until 1900, posthumously.
Oberammergau Passion Play is a passion play performed since 1634 as a
tradition by the inhabitants of the village of Oberammergau in Bavaria Germany.
The town vowed that if God were to spare them from the effects of the bubonic
plague ravaging the region, they would perform a play every ten years depicting
the life and death of Jesus. The death rate among adults rose from one in October 1632
to twenty in the month of March 1633. The adult death rate slowly subsided to one in
the month of July 1633. The villagers believed they were spared after they kept
their part of the vow when the play was first performed in 1634.
Back to home page
) 
VOYAGER PRESS BOOKS 1.888.656.2006
Print
Report item
