Quem quaeritis?

Two choirs, usually situated on opposite sides of the nave or cross-bar of the cathedral, or on opposite sides of the church doors, address each other with the first two and second two lines of this short paraphrase from the Vulgate Bible. The "three Marys"* come to his tomb on the third day after his crucifixion only to find the stone rolled away from its door and an angel standing in the doorway. The angel asks them the question in the first line, they reply with the second line, and the angel answers their request with the last two lines:

Whom seek ye in the sepulchre, O Christians?
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, O angel.
He is not here, He has arisen as He foretold:
Go, announce that He has arisen from the grave.

From the shallow root of the first recorded dramatic embellishment or "trope," called "quem quaeritis" after its first words, a tradition of English sacred drama emerged that fused with revivals of classical drama in the sixteenth century to create the "Elizabethan drama" of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson.

Theater then, theater now. In some places, truly bad theater.

(Quoted without permission from this web site. I took the photo in Venice.)