The Seven Great Hymns of the Mediaeval Church

Front matter

THE

SEVEN GREAT HYMNS

OF THE

Introduction to this Edition

INTRODUCTION.

THE firt edition of the Seven Great Hymns was publihed anonymouly, years ago, because I did not wih to aume a cholarhip which I did not poes. In framing the book the proces of election and rejection was intinctive or intuitive rather than the operation of a well-informed judgment. It was the cae of one reaching out for omething which he intenely deſired to find with the reult of finding it. The purpoe of the book was what might be termed expoition—to give to American readers an expoition of the ubject by placing before them the greatet of the mediæval hymns, and an expoition of each hymn by appending to it its bet tranlation. Since then there have been immene additions to the English branch of the subject in the form of translations and commentaries; and it would be an eay tak now with the material at hand to make this volume three times its preent ize; but after traveling around the circle of thee years I top very nearly where I began, for I am now of the opinion that the preent edition, with the alterations and additions which it embodies, does about all for the reader in the way of expoition, either of the general subject or of the everal hymns, which it is poible for me to do.

During this lape of years there have been three books publihed which hould be brought to the attention of any peron who may be intereted in early religious poetry. The firt is the "Chrit in Song" of Dr. Schaff. This is not limited to mediæval times, but on the contrary contains a wealth of the bet hymns of all times and lands. In it will be found many tranlations of mediæval hymns with Dr. Schaff's annotations—the annotations of one of the mot learned and judicious commentators who ever touched the ubject. The econd is a mall volume of mediæval hymns with tranlations and notes by the late Eratus C. Benedict, a member of the New York bar. Its title is "The Hymn of Hildebert." The third is the "Chritian Life and Song" of Mrs. Charles, better known as the author of the Schonberg-Cotta Family. This work weeps over the whole wide horizon of Greek, Latin and German hymns, and is, in my opinion, the mot intereting and trutworthy work of combined hitory and tranlation that has ever been publihed in Englih. Indeed, I know of no book which o combines the fervor of a religious and poetic temperament with the calm dicrimination and good ene of a judicial mind.

During thee intervening years, I have not, in the proper ene of the term, purued the tudy of mediæval hymns, but there are ome concluions of my maturer judgment which I wih to note; and there are ome changes in this final edition which hould be explained:

I.

The De Contemptu Mundi is not properly a hymn. It has come to be claed as uch in conequence of the admiration of Archbihop Trench and the beautiful paraphrae of Dr. Neale. It cannot, therefore, be compared with the other hymns in this volume, but tands alone a fragment taken from an extended poem. The ubequent notes, retained from the firt edition, will discloe the difficulty, the almot impoibility of tranlation into Englih and the incomparable adaptability of the Latin, both for meaure and rhyme. Nevertheles, the Rev. Samuel W. Duffield has made a tranlation in the meaure of the original with the intermediate dactylic rhymes and the final double-rhymes, which moreover, is a literal rendering of the poem line for line and often word for word. The introduction of Mr. Duffield is alo a valuable eay upon the construction of the vere.

The great difficulty of rendering thee mediæval hymns into Englih is caued by the fact that generally they are both in Latin and in rhyme, and the rhyme is often double-rhyme, an element which is little better than artificial in our monoyllabic Englih tongue. If the reader will compare the following pecimens he will ee how far apart tranlators can be.

The firt tranlation is Mr. Duffield's; the econd is one which I made for the Seven Great Hymns; the third, it is needles to ay, is Dr. Neale's.

Hora noviima, || tempora peima || unt, vigilemus. Ecce minaciter || imminet arbiter || ille urpremus. Imminet, imminet || et mala terminet, || æqua coronet, Recta remuneret, || anxia liberet, || æthera donet, Auerat apera || duraque pondera || mentes onutæ, Sobria muniat, || improba puniat, | utraque jute.

Thee are the latter times, thee are not better times, let us tand waiting: Lo, how with awfulnes He, firt in lawfulnes, comes arbitrating! Nearer and nearer yet!—Wrong hall in terror et, right hine refulgent. Sad ones He liberates, righteous renumerates, ever indulgent; Harhnes He mitigates, burdened ouls animates, freeing them lightly; Holy ones bleeth He, wicked ditreeth He— each alike rightly.

Hours of the latet! times of the baet! our vigil before us! Judgment eternal of Being upernal now hanging o'er us! Evil to terminate, equity vindicate, cometh the Kingly; Righteounes eeing, anxious hearts freeing, crowning each ingly, Bearing life's wearines, tating life's bitternes, life as it must be Th' righteous retaining, inners arraigning, judging all jutly.

The world is very evil, The times are waxing late; Be ober and keep vigil, The Judge is at the gate— The Judge that comes in mercy, The Judge that comes with might, To terminate the evil, To diadem the right. When the jut and gentle Monarch Shall ummon from the tomb, Let man, the guilty, tremble, For Man, the God, hall doom!

II.

The Dies Iræ is undoubtedly the greatet of the mediæval hymns. It tands "majetic and olitary" in the words of Mr. Benedict; its train is "o clear and deep that its oftet tones are heard throughout Chritendom," in the words of Mrs. Charles. The zeal of the tranlator has not cooled, and many tranlations have been publihed, and many, unpublihed, have been ent to me ince the firt edition of this work. A econd verion was made by General Dix, which he deemed uperior to the firt, but which was unquetionably inferior. The firt tanza, for example, is as follows:

Day of vengeance, lo! that morning On the earth in ahes dawning, David with the Sibyl warning.

For this he diplaced the tanza of the firt verion which the Rev. Franklin Johnon has characterized as never urpaed in "its high finih, its delicate uggetion of the antique and its perfection of form." I have, therefore, retained the firt verion. The effort of tranlators generally has been to reproduce the double-rhyme of the original; but the truth is that the ingle-rhyme better preerves for the Englih reader the two important elements of implicity and trength. Of uch tranlations I have found none better than that of Mr. Sloon.

In 1883 a tranlation of the Dies Iræ was publihed by the Rev. Franklin Johnon, of Chicago, which I regard as the mot nearly perfect in form that has ever been made, and which I have incorporated in this edition. Dr. Johnon ays in his preface that he publihed a previous edition in 1865; that the work of tranlation occupied his attention at frequent intervals during a period of fifteen years, and that there were weeks in succeion during which, both day and night, his mind was filled with the tanzas. I may well believe this, for nothing has ever been publihed which denotes in the tranlator uch fervor of admiration retrained by uch exacting criticim. Indeed, I am inclined to believe that Dr. Johnon o scrupulouly complied with his own inexorable canons as to dipoil his tranlation of poetic beauties which might better have been retained. For example, he acrificed the mot exact and poetical tranlation of the thirteenth tanza that has ever been made becaue it contained the word "hriven"—becaue the word hrive "is a ectarian term, and is ued in general with reference to the Romih Church, the Dies Iræ being ingularly free from everything peculiar to the communion of which its author was a member." When the word is taken in connection with Him "by whom the thief was hriven," I deem this criticim is too technical and the tranlation is as free from sectarianim as the original. I have, therefore, taken the liberty of retoring the rejected tanza. Taking this verion all in all, its adherence to the meaure of the original, its retention of the double-rhyme, its avoidance of the Englih participle ending in "ing," its preervation of the ideas and imagery of the original, I doubt whether a better tranlation will ever be made by a tranlator of the critical chool.

Nevertheles, thee things mut be borne in mind—that power is the great characteristic of the Dies Iræ; that its power cannot be tranferred to Englih vere by means of the weaket form of Englih words; that the double-rhyme has, to the Englih ear, omething of the jingle of the humorous ballad; and that, if we would feel the trength of the great hymn, we mut, foregoing form, go to the old verion of Crahaw, or to single-rhyme tranlations like that of Mr. Sloon.

III.

The Stabat Mater loes more by tranlation, probably, than any other piece of poetry that was ever written. "The oft, ad melody of its vere is untranlatable " (Dr. Schaff). If we take the lines, melodious in their pathos,

Quæ mœrebat et dolebat, Pia mater, dum videbat,

and render them into Englih as Dr. Schaff has done,

Who tood grieving, ighs upheaving, Spirit-reaving, boom-cleaving;

or as Dr. Coles tranlates them,

Trembling, grieving, boom-heaving; While perceiving, carce believing,

we bring them perilouly near to the aburd.

In a word, free tranlations do not catch the delicate pathos of the Stabat Mater, and are not echoes of its melody. I have hitherto had an occaion to ay that a tranlator may well make three tranlations of a poem; one to portray its tructure, that is, its meaure, melody, movement and rhyme; one to present in detail its ideas and images; and one to produce an impreion as imilar as poible to that of the original on the mind of the reader. But many renderings do not eem to bring nearer to us the eluive power of this original. The more the Stabat Mater is tranlated, the farther it drifts from us.

Here, however, I hould add that Dr. Franklin Johnon has publihed a tranlation of the Stabat Mater—a beautiful poem in a beautiful etting—which probably comes as near to the pirit of the original as Englih vere will ever bring us.

The Mater Specioa is not one of the Seven Great Hymns. It has been inerted here becaue it is cloely aociated with the other poem and in ome degree an expoition of it. Like the Stabat Mater, it has generally been acribed to Jacobus de Benedictus, and I have left his name as the reputed author. My own opinion, however, is that it was neither written by him nor before the Stabat Mater. Thee concluions ret on what we know of Jacobus and on the internal evidence of the two poems. 1. One of them is undiputably econdary—a companion-piece to the other. 2. The Stabat Mater is founded on the criptural basis of the text in John, "there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother," as the Dies Iræ is founded on the scriptural basis of the terrible text in Joel. This fact alone is uficient to be termed concluive; i. e., the poem prings from that text and not from another poem. Converely, the Mater Specioa prings from the other poem and not from a criptural image. The picture in John was the germ of both poems. 3. The Stabat Mater is the poem of the great tragedy of the world; the Mater Specioa runs upon lines of ordinary human emotions. It follows the meaure and catches the melody and adopts the entiment of its original; but it is of inferior texture, and in places its pathos verges on the extravagant. 4. One or the other of thee two poems has the fundamental element of imitation; it is necearily a clever piece of literary workmanhip, following the other in stanza, in meaure, in words, and often in the repetition of lines; it may be melodious, poetical, beautiful, but confeedly it cannot be in the true ene of the term original. If I mut chooe between the two, I do not heitate to ay that the econdary poem is the Specioa. The Stabat Mater eems to me one of thoe marvelous outburts which eize the hearts and imaginations of men and come down the centuries with unabated power.

IV.

The Veni Sancte Spiritus is till repreented by a ingle tranlation, that of Catherine Winkworth, which is indeed but a tranlation of a tranlation, the German. The reader will find a much more actual rendering in Mrs. Charles' "Chritian Life in Song." But here again the two renderings illutrate how the more free is occaionally the more literal; how it may give the leading thought or image of the author which the more critical may overlook. Thus the

Come, Thou Father of the poor, Giver from a boundles tore Light of Hearts, O hine!

of Mrs. Charles, mies the impreive Veni, Veni, Veni of the original, which is plendidly rendered by Mis Winkworth:

Come, Father of the poor, to earth; Come with Thy gifts of precious worth; Come, Light of all of mortal birth!

V.

The Veni Creator Spiritus has been acribed to Charlemagne, and in the firt edition it was aid, with ome reervation, that his authorhip is not impoible. I have allowed his name to remain at the head of it, but my preent concluion is that it was written before the time of the Great King. Mr. Benedict, judging from internal evidence alone, acribes it to St. Ambroe, who died in 397. It eems to me improbable that o well known a hymn would not have been always claed with his other hymns, and that it would have lept, if written before 397, for at leat three hundred years.

VI.

The Vexilla Regis is the ixth of thee expoitional hymns. The firt five, as it were, elected themelves, i. e., there was no quetion as to their being taken and others left. But at this point the work of rejection began. This hymn is not one of the great piritual hymns of the world; but the object of this compilation was to give an expoition of the ubject: by hymns which were both repreentative and celebrated. The Vexilla has indeed been a famous hymn—a hymn of eccleiatical warfare and victory which has rung around the world. "In the churches of our own country and time," as the late Preident Welling has aid, "may be heard natches and echoes of that antique poey which was firt intoned in the New World by the Jeuit miionaries and Romih eccleiatics who planted the cedar and the cedar-cros along the hores of the Great Lakes and the waters of the West, chanting the while, amidt the painted avages who tood around in their robes of beaver and buffalo, the onorous paion-hymn of Fortunatus, "Vexilla regis prodeunt."

VII.

The Alleluiatic Sequence may likewie be claed as a famous hymn. It was elected for the ame reaons as the Vexilla Regis, and for the additional reaon that it is regarded as the parent of every Hallelujah Chorus that has been written ince. At the time of the original compilation I heitated for a long time between it and the De Gloria et Gaudiis Paradii of Damiani, but at lat compromied with my doubts by electing the chorus but etting forth Mr. Wackerbarth's tranlation of the De Gloria in the notes to the Celetial Country, where it will now be found.

C. C. Nott.

January, 1902.

The Celestial Country

THE

CELESTIAL COUNTRY.

BERNARD DE MORLAS, monk of Cluni, is not to be confounded with the great Bernard his contemporary, Abbot of Clairvaux, and Saint in the Romih calendar. The place of his nativity is uncertain, and the years of his birth and of his death are alike unknown. He lived during the firt half of the twelfth century; he was born, according to one authority, at Morlaix, in Bretagne; according to another, at Morlas, in the lower Pyrenees; whilt a third gives his birth-place to England, and claes him with her illutrious writers (De illutribus Angliæ Scriptoribus). After even centuries of comparative forgetfulnes, the genius of two Englih cholars has revived a portion of his works; and hereafter his name will be bet known in that country, which may poibly poes his birth-place.

There till survive of his writings five poems, the greatet of which is De Contemptu Mundi. It was written about 1145, and contains three thouand lines, divided into three books. In ubtance the poem is a atire, unforgiving and evere: in form it is in dacylic hexameter vere. According to Dr. Duffield, to whoe judgment I defer, "each line conits of a firt part compoed of two dactyls, a econd containing two more dactyls, and a third made up of a dactyl and a trochee. The lat dactyls of the firt and second parts rhyme together, and the lines are in couplets—the final trochees alo rhyming. This remark upon the dactylic nature of the rhymes in the firt two parts is not made by Neale or Coles or the compiler of the Seven Great Hymns. They all italicie the lat two yllables, whereas it hould be the lat three, i. e., the foot itself.

Sobria muniat

is in all repects a perfect line—each foot being a word, and the rhyme unimpeachable."

This vere, o difficult that the Englih language is incapable of expreing it, is continued through the three thouand lines of the poem. In his preface the monk avows the belief that nothing but the pecial inpiration of the Spirit of God enabled him to employ it through o long a poem. After recounting its difficulties, and alluding to the faint attempts of the two great verifiers of his day, Hildebert de Lavardin and Wichard of Lyons, he exclaims: "I may then aert, not in otentation, but with humble confidence, that if I had not received directly from on high the gift of inpiration and intelligence, I had not dared to attempt an enterprie o little accorded to the powers of the human mind."

"This work," ays the author of the Hitoire Littéraire de la France, "was drawn from the dut in 1483, and its publication was achieved on the tenth of December of the ame year, at Paris, in magni domo campi Gaillardi. The Protetants, eager to gather every thing which appears unfavorable to the Church of Rome, have ince multiplied the editions. Some Catholics have alo given to it ome praies; and urely it merits them, at leat by the entiments of piety which it exhales, and by the zeal with which the author attacks the abues of his time."

"In holy Rome the only power is gold; There all is bought—there every thing is old. Becaue he is the very way to right, There truth is perihed by unholy leight. Even as the wheel turns, Rome to evil turns, Rome, that preads fragrance as when incene burns. Rome wrongs mankind, and teaches men the road To flee far off from Righteounes' abode! To eek for ruinous and digraceful gain, The pallium's elf with imony to tain. If aught you wih, be ure a goodly bribe Will hate the ealing of the lingering cribe. Rie! follow! let your penny go before, Seek boldly then the threhold; fear no more That any tumbling-blocks will bar the way, The Pope's own favor you can get for pay— Without that help, 'tis bet to keep away."

The opening of this monkih atire on the corruptions of its barbarous age, glows with a decription of the Heavenly Land more beautiful than ever before was wrought in vere. This a great cholar of our time has taken from the poem and brought within the reach and notice of the world (Trench). It alo has been re-woven into imple Englih vere, and has received the appropriate name of The Celestial Country.

The tranlator of The Celestial Country is Dr. John Maon Neale, Warden of Sackville College, Suex, England, the mot ucceful tranlator of mediæval hymns, and one of the mot varied and voluminous writers of the time. "Lays and Legends of the Church of England;" "A Church Hitory for Children;" even volumes of romances; a hitory of Greece; a hitory of Portugal; of the Patriarchate of Alexandria, and of the Janenit Church of Holland; a large number of tales and hymns for children, and a mot learned and elaborate commentary on the Book of Palms, are included in the long catalogue of his works.

This cholar of Cambridge, and this monk of Cluni, have given to the religious world the weetet and dearet religious poem that our language contains. Dr. Neale ays that he looks upon the lines of Bernard "as the mot lovely, in the ame way that the Dies Iræ is the mot ublime, and the Stabat Mater the mot pathetic of mediæval poems," but his own poem may claim more jutly that word. The Celestial Country is better than De Contemptu Mundi. The beautiful implicity of its artles, childlike lines portrays more naturally the fervid imagery of the monk. After even hundred years of darknes, the holy fervor of Bernard re-kindles in it as warmly as when in the warmth of his devotion he believed himelf pecially inpired by the Mot High. In another language, at another time, and among thoe who can but dimly trace his name in the crumbling record of his works, the Rhyme of the poor monk relives to gladden the hearts of other Chritians, loved by uch as poes its faith, and treaured by the gentlet and the bet of earth.

NOTES.

The Celestial Country

neale

THE

CELESTIAL COUNTRY.

DR. NEALE.

I.

THE world is very evil, The times are waxing late; Be ober and keep vigil, The Judge is at the gate— The Judge that comes in mercy, The Judge that comes with might, To terminate the evil, To diadem the right. When the jut and gentle Monarch Shall ummon from the tomb, Let man, the guilty, tremble, For Man, the God, hall doom!

2.

Arie, arie, good Chritian, Let right to wrong ucceed; Let penitential orrow To heavenly gladnes lead— To the light that hath no evening, That knows nor moon nor un, The light o new and golden, The light that is but one.

3.

And when the Sole-Begotten Shall render up once more The kingdom to the Father, Whoe own it was before, Then glory yet unheard of Shall hed abroad its ray, Reolving all enigmas, An endles Sabbath-day.

4.

Then, then from his oppreors The Hebrew hall go free, And celebrate in triumph<br/ /> The year of Jubilee;<br/ /> And the unlit Land that recks not<br/ /> Of tempet nor of fight,<br/ /> Shall fold within its boom<br/ /> Each happy Iraelite—<br/ /> The Home of fadeles plendor,<br/ /> Of flowers that fear no thorn,<br/ /> Where they hall dwell as children,<br/ /> Who here as exiles mourn.

5.

Midt power that knows no limit,<br/ /> And widom free from bound,<br/ /> The Beatific Viion<br/ /> Shall glad the Saints around—<br/ /> The peace of all the faithful,<br/ /> The calm of all the blet,<br/ /> Inviolate, unvaried,<br/ /> Divinet, weetet, bet.<br/ /> Yes, peace! for war is needles—<br/ /> Yes, calm! for torm is pat—<br/ /> And goal from finihed labor,<br/ /> And anchorage at lat.

6.

That peace—but who may claim it? The guileles in their way, Who keep the ranks of battle, Who mean the thing they ay— The peace that is for heaven, And hall be for the earth; The palace that re-echoes With fetal ong and mirth; The garden, breathing pices, The paradie on high; Grace beautified to glory, Unceaing mintrely.

7.

There nothing can be feeble, There none can ever mourn, There nothing is divided, There nothing can be torn. 'Tis fury, ill, and candal, 'Tis peaceles peace below; Peace, endles, trifeles, ageles, The halls of Syon know.

8.

O happy, holy portion, Refection for the blet, True viion of true beauty, Sweet cure of all ditret! Strive, man, to win that glory; Toil, man, to gain that light; Send hope before to grap it, Till hope be lot in ight; Till Jesus gives the portion Thoe bleed ouls to fill— The inatiate, yet atified, The full, yet craving till.

9.

That fulnes and that craving Alike are free from pain, Where thou, midt heavenly citizens, A home like theirs halt gain. Here is the warlike trumpet; There, life et free from in, When to the lat Great Supper The faithful hall come in; When the heavenly net is laden With fihes many and great (So glorious in its fulnes, Yet o inviolate); And perfect from unperfected, And fall'n from thoe that tand, And the heep-flock from the goat-herd Shall part on either hand.

10.

And thee hall pas to torment, And thoe hall triumph then— The new peculiar nation, Blet number of blet men. Jerualem demands them; They paid the price on earth, And now hall reap the harvet In blisfulnes and mirth— The glorious holy people, Who evermore relied Upon their Chief and Father, The King, the Crucified— The acred ranomed number Now bright with endles heen, Who made the Cros their watchword Of Jesus Nazarene, Who (fed with heavenly nectar Where oul-like odors play) Draw out the endles leiure Of that long vernal day.

11.

And, through the acred lilies And flowers on every ide, The happy dear-bought people Go wandering far and wide; Their breats are filled with gladnes, Their mouths are tun'd to praie, What time, now afe for ever, On former ins they gaze: The fouler was the error, The adder was the fall, The ampler are the praies Of Him who pardoned all.

12.

Their one and only anthem, The fulnes of His love, Who gives intead of torment, Eternal joys above— Intead of torment, glory; Intead of death, that life Wherewith your happy Country, True Iraelites, is rife.

13.

Brief life is here our portion, Brief orrow, hort-liv'd care; The life that knows no ending— The tearles life, is there.

14.

O happy retribution! Short toil, eternal ret; For mortals and for inners A manion with the blet! That we hould look, poor wand'rers, To have our home on high! That worms hould eek for dwelling, Beyond the tarry ky! To all one happy guerdon Of one celetial grace; For all, for all, who mourn their fall, Is one eternal place.

15.

And martyrdom hath roes Upon that heavenly ground; And white and virgin lilies For virgin-ouls abound. There grief is turned to pleaure— Such pleaure as below No human voice can utter, No human heart can know; And after flehly candal, And after this world's night, And after torm and whirlwind, Is calm, and joy, and light.

16.

And now we fight the battle, But then hall wear the crown Of full and everlating And paionles renown: And now we watch and truggle, And now we live in hope, And Syon, in her anguih, With Babylon mut cope; But He whom now we trut in Shall then be een and known, And they that know and ee Him Shall have Him for their own.

17.

The mierable pleaures Of the body hall decay; The bland and flattering truggles Of the fleh hall pas away; And none hall there be jealous, And none hall there contend; Fraud, clamor, guile—what ay I? All ill, all ill hall end!

18.

And there is David's Fountain, And life in fullet glow; And there the light is golden, And milk and honey flow— The light that hath no evening, The health that hath no ore, The life that hath no ending, But lateth evermore.

19.

There Jesus hall embrace us, There Jesus be embraced— That pirit's food and unhine Whence earthly love is chaed. Amidt the happy chorus, A place, however low, Shall hew Him us, and hewing, Shall atiate evermo.

20.

By hope we truggle onward: While here we mut be fed By milk, as tender infants, But there by Living Bread. The night was full of terror, The morn is bright with gladnes; The Cros becomes our harbor, And we triumph after adnes.

21.

And Jesus to His true ones Brings trophies fair to ee; And Jesus hall be loved, and Beheld in Galilee— Beheld, when morn hall waken, And hadows hall decay, And each true-hearted ervant Shall hine as doth the day; And every ear hall hear it— "Behold thy King's array, Behold thy God in beauty, The Law hath pas'd away!"

22.

Yes! God my King and Portion, In fulnes of Thy grace, We then hall ee for ever, And worhip face to face. Then Jacob into Irael, From earthlier elf etranged, And Leah into Rachel For ever hall be changed; Then all the halls of Syon For aye hall be complete, And in the Land of Beauty, All things of beauty meet.

23.

For thee, O dear, dear Country! Mine eyes their vigils keep; For very love, beholding Thy happy name, they weep. The mention of thy glory Is unction to the breat, And medicine in icknes, And love, and life, and ret.

24.

O one, O onely Manion! O Paradie of Joy! Where tears are ever banihed, And miles have no alloy, Beide thy living waters All plants are, great and mall, The cedar of the foret, The hyop of the wall; With japers glow thy bulwarks, Thy treets with emeralds blaze, The ardius and the topaz Unite in thee their rays; Thine ageles walls are bonded With amethyt unpriced; Thy Saints build up its fabric, And the corner-tone is Christ.