Chapter XII: Anonymous

Metre: Dactylic Hexameter, B. 368; A. & G. 615.

_1._ 1. Lindi: a city of Rhodes. 2. Ephyra: another name for Corinth. 7. Cecropius: Attic. Cecrops was the first king of Athens. induperabit: indu is an old form of in.

SACRED LATIN POETRY.

The Latin hymns differ from classical poetry in that accent and rhyme prevail instead of syllabic quantity. This is in accordance with the genius of a language which never disregarded accent and in which rhyme occurs even in its earliest extant literature, as in Ennius' _Andromacha_:

Haec omnia vidi inflammari,
Priamo vi vitam evitari, etc.

Among the famous authors of Latin hymns are Adam of St. Victor; St. Ambrose; Fortunatus; Robert the Second, King of France; Bernard of Clairvaux; Bernard of Cluny; and Abelard. Among the greatest of the hymns are the Te Deum, the Veni, Creator Spiritus, the Stabat Mater, the Veni, Sancte Spiritus, the Dies Irae, the Ut Iucundas, the Iesu, Dulcis Memoria, and the Hora Novissima.

For Reference: Trench, _Sacred Latin Poetry_ (London, 1874); March, _Latin Hymns_ (New York, 1874); Daniel, _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_ (Leipzig, 1841-1856, 5 vols.); Merrill, _Latin Hymns_ (Boston, 1904); Julian, _Dictionary of Hymnology_ (London, 1907). In all see indices of first lines.

ANONYMOUS. FOR CHRISTMAS DAY.

This was till recently a favorite in the Lutheran churches of Germany. Like most of the other hymns in this collection, it has often been translated; as by Schaff in his _Christ in Song_. The oldest text known is as early as the fourteenth century.

The subject is the birth of Christ. Cf. Matthew 2. 1. Bethlehem: indeclinable, like most proper names of Hebrew origin. 5, 6. The ox and ass were believed to have occupied the stable with Christ on the combined authority of the Septuagint reading of Hahakkuk 3. 2: 'Between two animals shalt thou be known'; and of Isaiah 1. 3: 'The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib.' quod: that. 7. Reges: Isaiah 60. 3; Psalms 72. 10, 15. Saba: Psalms 72. 10, 15. 11. Sine serpentis vulnere: without 'original sin.' Cf. Genesis 3. 14, 15; 1 John 3. 5.

FOR EASTER DAY.

This fine sequence was highly esteemed by Luther and became a favorite in many countries. Its composition was as early as the eleventh century. At first sight it appears to be prose, but proves on closer examination to be rhymed throughout. The dialogue form made possible its dramatic use in the Easter Mystery Plays and the church service. For this and for translations see Julian, p. 1223 ff.

The subject is the Resurrection. Cf. Matthew 28. 1-15; John 20. 1-18.

2. Agnus: John 1. 29. oves: John 10. 11. 3. regnat: Matthew 25. 34. 4-9. Dic ff.: the conversation supposed to have taken place between Mary Magdalene and the disciples after her return from the sepulchre. Surrexit: Luke 24. 34.

PLAUDITE CAELI.

This hymn was composed by a member of the Jesuit Order. Its date is of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century; its subject the Resurrection.

1. Plaudite: cf. Flumina plaudent manu, Psalms 97. 8; 'All the trees of the field shall clap their hands.'--Isaiah 55. 12. 2. aether: the upper air. 3, 4. Let the heights and the depths of the world rejoice. 5, 6. The black storm-rack has passed by. 7. almae: bountiful. 11, 12. pictis...campis: cf. 'daisies...do paint the meadows.'--_Love's Labour's Lost_, V. 2. 905. 17, 18. Full veins are metaphorical for the full strong flow of song. 20. Barbytha: bad spelling for barbita, lutes. 26. Ludite: flow merrily.

The hymn has been translated into English by Mrs. Charles, _Christian Life in Song_, p. 184, and by Duffield, _Latin Hymns_, p. 398. The latter thus renders ll. 9-24:

Spring breezes are blowing,
Spring flowers are at hand,
Spring grasses are growing
Abroad in the land,

And violets brighten
The roses in bloom,
And marigolds heighten
The lilies' perfume.

Rise then, O my praises,
Fresh life in your veins,
As the viol upraises
The gladdest of strains,
For once more he sees us,
Alive, as he said;
Our holy Lord Jesus
Escaped from the dead.

PONE LUCTUM, MAGDALENA.

The subject is the appearance of the risen Christ to Mary Magdalene at the tomb, John 20. 11-18.

1. Pone: dismiss thy grief. 3. Simonis: Mary Magdalene, as in _Dies Irae_, 37, is identified with 'the woman which was a sinner' of Luke 7. 37-50, who, while Jesus sat at meal in the house of Simon, the Pharisee, 'weeping, began to wet his feet with her tears,' 1. 4. 22, 23. Lift thy face, O Magdalen! Behold the risen Christ. 25. Quinque plagas: the five strokes are the nail prints in Jesus' hands and feet and the spear wound in his side, Luke 24. 40; John 20. 24-29. inspice: as Thomas and the other disciples beheld.

Translation by Mrs. Charles, _Christian Life in Song_, p. 182.

BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX.

1091-1153 A.D.

SALVE, CAPUT CRUENTATUM.

This selection is taken from a hymn in seven parts, each addressing some member of Christ's body on the cross, the feet, the knees, etc. The composition is more probably by some German poet than by Bernard, but its supposed origin with the latter has become a subject of religious legend. One ancient copy describes the hymn as 'a divine and most devout prayer of the Abbot St. Bernard, which he made when an image of the Saviour with outstretched arms embraced him from the cross.' Again we read, 'The image on the cross bowed itself and embraced him with its wounded arms as a sure token that to it this prayer was most pleasing.'

Julian refers to eight English metrical versions. One of the finest forms in which it has come into the language (through P. Gerhardt's free German version 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden') is _O sacred Head! now wounded_.

3. Conquassatum: mangled. 7. Immutatus: 'His visage was so marred more than any man.'--Isaiah 52. 14. 10. All heaven shudders. The curia is the centre of government. 11. viror: Late Latin for viriditas, vigor; we might freely render brightness. 14. Expressing the extremity of weakness, hanging all in faintness. 19. intersigno: proof, Late Latin. 23-25. From whose mouth I have taken honey with the sweetness of milk, beyond all delights. A figurative use of the story of Samson, who found a honeycomb in the mouth of the carcass of the lion which he had slain, Judges 14. 8, 9. Milk is religiously associated with honey because of the description of Canaan in Deuteronomy 31. 20, terram lacte et melle manantem. 28-30. Now that death is near Thee, lay here Thine head, rest in my arms. 32. gauderem: I would rejoice, were I associated with Thy holy passion; present contrary to fact condition. 40. absque: without, ante- and post-classic preposition. 46. emigrare: depart from life. Cf. qui e vita emigravit, Cicero, _De Legibus_, 2. 48. 49. Temetipsum: Thine own self. An emphatic -met is suffixed to Te.

'JESUS, THE VERY THOUGHT OF THEE.'

The author is probably St. Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux and the great preacher of the Second Crusade. Few men in Christendom have ever exercised a personal influence equal to his.

These quartrains are selected from a hymn composed of fifty such, and familiar to English-speaking Christians from Caswall's translation, _Jesus, the very Thought of Thee_, and Ray Palmer's _Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts_. It was a favorite of Livingstone who quotes from it in his _African Diary_. 'No other poem in any language,' says Julian, 'has furnished to English and American hymn-books so many hymns of sterling worth and well-deserved popularity.'

Subject, Jesus.

1-4. Iesu: vocative. We would expect das instead of dans and tui instead of eius. Supply est with praesentia.

13-16.

Thou bliss of souls in bitter need,
Water to lip and light to eye,
All joy thou dost how far exceed,
All yearning more than satisfy.

ROBERT II, KING OF FRANCE.

971-1031 A.D.

'COME, HOLY SPIRIT, FROM ABOVE.'

Robert, the son of Hugh Capet, to whom this hymn is commonly, but probably incorrectly, ascribed, became king of France in 988 A.D. He 'was a kindly, easy man, endowed with all the charming and dangerous virtues which commend themselves in the man and often prove fatal to the king. His reign was a constant struggle, first with the church for his wife, afterwards with his barons for his existence.'--_Encyclopaedia Britannica_, vol. ix, p. 536.

This hymn was in the Middle Ages often called the _Golden Sequence_. Clichtovaeus (_Elucidatorium_, Paris, 1516, f. 171) declares it 'above all praise whether by reason of its wonderful sweetness...or of its brevity along with wealth of ideas or...of the elegant grace of its structure.' Trench, _Sacred Latin Poetry_, says it 'could only have been composed by one who had been acquainted with many sorrows and also with many consolations.'

Julian refers to thirty-eight renderings into English. One of the best of these is A. P. Stanley's version, _Come, Holy Spirit, from Above_.

The subject is an entreaty to the Spirit to come and to bestow His gifts. To the former thought belong the earlier stanzas, to the second thought the latter stanzas. At the beginning of the poem veni, emphasizing the former thought, is in its position and repetition like da at the close, emphasizing the latter.

3. lucis: cf. lumen cordium, 1. 6, lux beatissima, 1.13. The Spirit, as the 'guide into all truth,' is naturally addressed as light and the giver of light. 7. Consolator: John 14. 16. 9. refrigerium: refreshment. 'May God refresh thy spirit' is a phrase not uncommon in Christian epitaphs of the Catacombs. 7-12. Stanley renders:

O Thou, of comforters the best,
O Thou, the soul's most welcome guest,
O Thou, our sweet repose,
Our resting-place from life's long care,
Our shadow from the world's fierce glare,
Our solace in all woes.

19, 20. Lava, Riga: John 3. 5; Isaiah 44. 3. 27. septenarium: the seven-fold gift. The spirit is septiformis munere, the seven gifts being 'the spirit of wisdom,' 'of understanding,' 'of council,' 'of might,' 'of knowledge,' 'of piety,' and 'of the fear of the Lord,' Isaiah 11. 2, 3.

ANONYMOUS.

PHOENIX INTER FLAMMAS EXPIRANS.

The suggestion of this beautiful poem is from _Canticles_. The date of composition is the seventeenth century.

The subject is the soul's 'desire to depart and to be with Christ.' The second to the fifth stanzas take their form from the legend of the phoenix, a fabulous bird which was said to build its funeral pyre, to burn itself, singing a death-song, and to rise from its ashes in renewed youth. The soul, passing from this life to immortality, conceives itself as a phoenix consuming in the flames and singing a death-song (the third, fourth, and fifth stanzas).

3. aegram: Canticles 2. 5. 4. Dilecto: Christ in heaven. Cf. Canticles 2. 3. 27-30. The flame leaping toward the sky is a type of the soul in its eagerness to ascend to heaven. Cf.:

Rivers to the ocean run
Nor stay in all their course:
Fire ascending seeks the sun:
Both speed them to their source.
So the soul that's born of God
Pants to view his glorious face,
Upward tends to his abode
To rest in his embrace.
--Seagrave.

THOMAS A CELANO.

DIES IRAE.

Thomas, called _a Celano_ from a small town in central Italy, was a Franciscan monk who lived in the thirteenth century and was custos of certain convents of his order on the Rhine. His authorship of this hymn is probable, not certain.

For the literature see Julian, p. 294.

In the ritual the _Dies Irae_ is used for All Souls' Day and for requiem masses. The most famous musical setting is by Mozart.

Daniel says of this hymn, 'Each word is a peal of thunder.' Trench says, 'The triple rhyme has been likened to blow following blow of the hammer on the anvil.'

Goethe introduces the _Dies Irae_ into a scene of the first part of Faust; the remorse of Gretchen becomes overwhelming as she hears the hymn pealing through the cathedral, the culmination corning with the repetition of the words Quid sum miser tunc, dicturus?

Sir Walter Scott thus quotes and summarizes at the end of _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_:

Far the echoing aisles prolong
The awful burthen of the song,--
DIES IRAE, DIES ILLA,
SOLVET SAECLUM IN FAVILLA;...
Thus the holy fathers sung.

HYMN FOR THE DEAD.

That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
When heaven and earth shall pass away,
What power shall be the sinner's stay?
How shall he meet that dreadful day?

When, shrivelling like a parched scroll,
The naming heavens together roll;
When louder yet, and yet more dread,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead.

Oh! on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes from clay,
Be THOU the trembling sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.

The same poet was heard to quote portions of the hymn on his deathbed, and the last words of the Earl of Roscommon, author of one of the well-known versions, were a rendering of line 51:

My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end!

Hundreds of metrical translations of this hymn exist. A good selection will be found in Nott, _Seven Great Hymns).

1. Dies irae, dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiae, dies calamitatis et miseriae, etc.--Zephaniah 1. 16. Cf. dies magnus irae, Revelation 6. 17. 2. Shall lay the world in glowing ashes. Cf. 2 Peter 3. 10-12, especially 'The elements shall melt with fervent heat.' 3. Teste David cum Sibylla: Jew and Gentile both testify that the Day of Judgment shall come. As Vergil in his fourth _Eclogue_ was believed to have foretold Christ, so the Sibyl was thought to have prophesied the Day of Judgment. This was due to the still extant 'Sibylline Oracles,' a collection of twelve books in Greek hexameters supposed to have emanated from the Sibyl, but really pretended prophesies composed in the interest of their respective religions partly by Alexandrian Jews, partly by Christians. For the witness of David see Psalms 11. 5, 6; 96. 13; 97. 2, 3. Cf. Trench, pp. 303, 304. Teste David is ablative absolute. 6. Discussurus: investigate, a meaning not classic in the literary language. 7. Tuba: 'the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised.'--1 Corinthians 15. 52. Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4. 16. 11. creatura: every creature. 13. Liber scriptus: Daniel 1. 10; Revelation 20. 12. 16. Matthew 25. 31. 17. Luke 12. 2. 20. patronum: advocate, 1 John 2. 1. 21. vix iustus: 'if the righteous is scarcely saved.'--1 Peter 4. 18. 22-24.

King of awful majesty,
Saving sinners graciously,
Fount of mercy, save Thou me!

23. gratis: freely, Revelation 21. 6. 28-30. Dr. Johnson frequently quoted this stanza with tears. 28. 'Jesus, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.'--John 4. 6. 33. 'After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and maketh a reckoning with them.'-- Matthew 25. 19. 37. The writer identifies Mary Magdalene with 'the woman which was a sinner' to whom Jesus said, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee.' 38. latronem: the penitent thief, Luke 23. 39 ff. 43-48. Matthew 25. 31 ff. 49. acclinis: bowing before Thee. 50. A heart bruised even as ashes. The literal meaning of contritum, 'separated into small pieces,' is strongly in mind. Cf. cor contritum; Psalms 51. 17. Cor is in apposition with the subject of oro. 52-57. These lines adapt the hymn to the service. 56, 57. Note the wonderful sweetness of these lines, like calm after storm.

BERNARD OF CLUNY.

DE PATRIAE CAELESTIS LAUDE.

This writer, born in Brittany of English parents and a contemporary of St. Bernard, was a monk in the monastery of Cluny under Peter the Venerable. The verses here given form the opening of his _De Contemptu Mundi_, a bitter satire about three thousand lines long upon the corruptions of the time. The passage is described by Neale as 'the most lovely of mediaeval poems.'

The metre is dactylic hexameter with the leonine and tailed rhyme, each line being broken up into three parts. This measure is so difficult that the composer was enabled to master it only, as he believed, by a special inspiration; but two translators into English, Moultrie and Duffield, have attempted to reproduce it, as:

Here we have many fears; this is the vale of tears, the land of
sorrow.
Tears are there none at all, in that celestial hall, on life's bright
morrow.

The great English rendering is by Neale in his _Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix on the Celestial Country_. From this many favorite hymns have been drawn.

The subject is the speedy coming of Christ to judge the world and the joys and glories of the New Jerusalem. Cf. Revelation 21 and 22.

3. terminet: subjunctive of wish. 8. homo deus: the God-man; i.e. Christ. 10. non breve vivere: subject of retribuetur. 17. Sion: the church. Babylone: the world. Cf. such passages as Revelation 16. 19. 19. sobria: sober and impliedly watchful. Cf. 1 Thessalonians 5. 6. 24-29.

With jasper glow thy bulwarks,
Thy streets with emerald blaze;
The sardius and the topaz
Unite in thee their rays;

Thine ageless walls are bonded
With amethyst unpriced;
Thy saints build up its fabric,
And the corner-stone is Christ.

The cross is all thy splendor,
The crucified thy praise;
His laud and benediction
Thy ransomed people raise.

Thou hast no shore, fair ocean;
Thou hast no time, bright day
Dear fountain of refreshment
To pilgrims far away.
--Neale.

26. The heavenly throng compose thy fabric and Christ is thy precious stone; i.e. each believer is a stone built into the structure of the heavenly city of which Christ, the 'living stone, elect and precious,' is the foundation. Cf. 1 Peter 2. 3-6. 29. Thou without shore (i.e. unbounded in extent), thou without time (i.e. never ceasing to flow), fountain that art soon a stream. 34.

Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed.
--Neale.

49. Plaude...Deus:

Exult, O dust and ashes!
The Lord shall be thy part.
--Neale.

HILDEBERT.

1057-1184 A.D.

THE HEAVENLY CITY.

Hildebert, a contemporary and fellow-countryman of the Bernards, became Archbishop of Tours in 1125. His verses number more than ten thousand.

The selection is taken from his _Address to the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity_.

Cf. Revelation 21 and 22.

3. Auctor lucis: Genesis 1. 3. 5. lapis vivua: 1 Peter 2. 4, 6. 6. Rex festivus: Matthew 22. 2. 12-14. Revelation 21. 4; 1 John 3. 2. 15-18. Cf. O civitas sancta, civitas speciosa, de longinquo te saluto, ad te clamo, te require.--Augustine, _De Spiritu et Anima_. 26. Revelation 21. 24.

The following is a portion of Neale's translation (_Mediaeval Hymns_, pp. 35-36):

Mine be Sion's habitation,
Sion, David's calm foundation:
Built by him, light's source immortal,--
To whose streets the cross is portal:
In this city, uninvaded
Peace,--spring endless, light unfaded:
Endless breath of flowerets vernal,
Festal melody eternal.
Home, no change nor loss that fearest,
From afar my soul thou cheerest:
Thee it seeketh, thee requireth,
Thee affecteth, thee desireth.

---

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