The play opens with an unnamed narrative voice explaining the allegory of the parable, the identity of the bridegroom with Jesus, and the Gospel.
The angel tells the five wise virgins—the five foolish ones have presumably fallen asleep after Ecclesia's more general caution—to attend a groom, Jesus Christ, who came to save them from their sins.
After Gabriel's message, the foolish virgins (recognised from the rubric fatue) enter and announce that they have spilled the oil for their lamps.
The foolish then plead with the wise to share their oil, capping each strophe with the lamenting refrain Dolentas, chaitivas, trop i avem dormit: "We, wretched in our grief, have slept too long!"
The text's English translator, Peter Dronke, praises the dramatist's clever portrayal and insights into human nature.
[1] Christ's lines are sung to the same melody as Ecclesia's and the drama closes where it has begun, with the foretold penalty for negligence being meted out by the agents of Hell.
A later medieval German play on the same theme and style, the Ludus de decem virginibus (the Eisenacher Zehnjungfrauenspiele), so disturbed the landgrave of Thuringia, Frederick I, and caused him to doubt God's mercy, that he took to his bed ill on 4 May 1321.
The music of Sponsus has been praised by Rafaello Monteross for "redeem[ing] the anonymous poet's colourless paraphrase of the gospel text from its generic inexpressiveness.
[6] The combination of original music, unique theme, and implicit questioning of traditional theodicies have led to the suggestion that the play may stand at the very beginning of non-liturgical and vernacular drama in Europe.