Readings from Latin Verse Part 16

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, pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 ma.s.ses. 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 repet.i.tion 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 G.o.d, 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 c.u.m 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 cla.s.sic 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 pa.s.sage 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. h.o.m.o deus: the G.o.d-man; i.e.

Christ. 10. non breve vivere: subject of retribuetur. 17. Sion: the church. Babylone: the world. Cf. such pa.s.sages 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 sh.o.r.e (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.