Children of the Heavenly King

I have fond memories of the hymn "Children of the Heavenly King".

I first learnt it at LSM in the days when we still had the English Hymnal and sang real hymns as they should be sung. It's a wonderful hymn for singing on journeys, and it particularly takes me back to a rather peculiar holiday we had in Cornwall with Rowan Williams and Jane and their baby Rhiannon. They had a car, we didn't; so we all piled in together like sardines into the Williams's not-very-big yellow car; in those days you didn't have to have seat belts or car seats for children. And then, once we were in, we had to sing hymns constantly because that was the only thing that could prevent our Annie, then 3 years old, from being travel sick within minutes of getting on the road.

"As ye journey sweetly sing" we all yelled, four adults two children and a baby, squeezed in with the windows shut to keep out the howling wind and rain of the most miserable week in a miserable early spring. "Jesus Christ your father's son bids you undismayed go on."

People might be forgiven for thinking that we still sing that hymn at Little St Mary's, and that we sang it this morning. But they would be sadly wrong.

We did sing the first two verses as John Cennick wrote them, and also his fourth (out of five). But the point of the hymn lies in the last verse of the hymn, which begins "Lord obediently we go...". That verse has quietly gone from the New English Hymnal.

John Cennick (1718-55), who wrote the real hymn, including its last verse and several others that we don't usually sing, was a Methodist lay preacher, friend of the Wesleys. Besides 'Children of the heavenly king', he also composed a rather less successful poem that began

Lo he cometh, countless trumpets
blow before his bloody sign!
Midst ten thousand saints and angels
see the crucified shine.
Alleluia!
Welcome, welcome bleeding lamb!

It was Charles Wesley who, in 1758, turned that unpromising start into a great Advent hymn (Lo he comes with clouds descending...).

Perhaps the editors of the New English Hymnal thought that because Wesley could improve upon Cennick then they, a committee of uninspired twentieth century Anglicans with little poetry but a great many sociological prejudices, must be able to do so too.

This is what they did.

They cut out the last verse, and put in, in its place, a piece of sexist doggerel based loosely on the fifth verse of Cennick's original (which the English Hymnal editors had wisely omitted—for they too evidently thought that Cennick could be saved from some of his worst errors of judgement). This is what Cennick wrote at verse 5:

Lift your eyes, ye sons of light,
Zion’s city is in sight:
There our endless home shall be,
There our Lord we soon shall see.

The editors of the New English Hymnal have come up with the following adaptation of that verse (in lieu of the last verse):

Lift your eyes ye sons of light
Sion's city is in sight;
There our endless home shall be,
There our Lord in glory see.

You might have a sense that the grammar and syntax of the last two lines don't work.

You'd be quite right.

There's no subject for the verb 'see' in the last line . To make it right, you'd need a 'we shall' somewhere in the sentence: "There our Lord in glory we'll see", but of course that won't scan. Cennick had "we soon shall see" which works perfectly well. You could get away with having the 'we' in the previous line (There our endless home we'll see, there our Lord in glory see) but of course you don't want 'see' twice, and, as it is, the subject in line 3 is 'our endless home' not 'we' so that can't serve as the subject of 'see' (unless our endless home is what sees, which I don't think is intended).

So the last two lines as written in the NEH are nonsense. That's odd because when Cennick wrote the verse, the last two lines made perfect, if somewhat uninspired, grammatical sense. As we saw, he wrote "There our endless home shall be, There our Lord we soon shall see." There's no problem with that.

So the NEH editors have garbled the syntax in order to replace "we soon shall see" with "in glory see." We'll come back to why they might want to do that in a minute.

What about lines 1 and 2 of that verse? Those are (alas) unadulterated Cennick, though he didn't put them at the very end of the poem as the editors have mysteriously chosen to do. Sadly they are not among Cennick's most lucid lines. Notice that the 'children' that we had in the first verse have now become 'sons'. OK, so we've always been happy to sing 'Fear not, brethren' in verse 6 (which we know as verse 3), for though "brethren" is officially masculine, it's a warmly inclusive term and women brethren are usually happy to be included. But 'sons' is less comfortable: it seems gratuitously exclusive, for men only. What's more, 'sons of light' is not really a very clear idea. I think we know why we believe ourselves to be (by adoption) children of the heavenly king, but I'm not sure on what basis we think we're 'sons of light'. And why are the first two lines of this verse in the second person plural while the last two are in the first person plural? Who's speaking to whom? Part of the problem with the lack of a 'we' in the last line is due to the fact that the verse started by talking about 'you' and then suddenly switched to 'us'. That would be bad enough as Cennick originally wrote it, but by the time the editors have intervened as well, we now have the impossible situation in which the verse has to change the subject from "you" to "us" without ever mentioning 'us'.

So really, the more you think about it, the more it seems that the English Hymnal was wise to omit that verse.

So why did the NEH committee think they needed to bring it back, and rewrite it to boot?

You'd think, wouldn't you, that there must have been something really awful and non-pc about the last verse of Cennick's original, if it's to be amputated in favour of this piece of drivel. For what heinous sin did the NEH thought-police see fit to garble it so?

Here's the last verse that belongs in that place (this one I shall have at my funeral, please):

Lord, obediently we go,
Gladly leaving all below:
Only thou our leader be
And we still will follow thee.

It's about our readiness to follow Christ, without heed for the things of this world, and our readiness to die, gladly, as followers of Jesus. With this verse in place we can see that there is an overall pattern to the hymn: the first verse addresses us "Children... as ye journey, sweetly sing!"; in the second verse we reply "We are travelling home..."; two other verses in the original intervene at this point in which the speaker addresses the children again, before the one which begins "lift your eyes ye sons of light" which we've just looked at. Then in the penultimate verse again the speaker addresses us "Fear not brethren...Jesus Christ your father's son bids you undismayed go on..."; and in the last verse we reply again.

We reply "Lord..." because it is Our Lord who bids us have courage as we stand on the borders of this world and prepare to go on to the next world, as our fathers went before. For, as the penultimate verse insists, "Jesus Christ, your father's son, bids you undismayed go on".

Now it is in response to that bidding that we say "obediently we go".

Jesus bids us go. We go, obediently, gladly.

What exactly is wrong with this? It's evidently not a problem of exclusive language since the editors have replaced a perfectly inclusive verse with an exclusive one.

So is there a theological problem?

Perhaps we're not supposed to be glad to leave the world below?

That seems a possible twentieth century hang up: asceticism and other worldliness weren't perhaps very fashionable in the eighties? But there's hardly anything very negative about readily leaving our earthly attachments when called away by God. After all, I presume that we sang the hymn today precisely because the Gospel reading was about leaving everything without a thought and not looking back when we hear the call to follow. So it's ironic that the relevant verse has been taken out.

Another possibility is that they have a worry about going gladly to death. This could explain the otherwise mystifying attempt to change the words of the verse we discussed above, the one that begins "Lift your eyes". Why did they so desperately want to get rid of "There our Lord we soon shall see" and replace it with "in glory see". Is it because the former suggests (correctly) that we, as believers and followers of Christ, look forward to death being before long, and greet it with some eagerness? That's not fashionable perhaps, living one's life as a preparation for something greater to come, and genuinely affirming the relative unimportance of physical death.

Or is it the idea of obedience? I must say, I rather suspect that the editors do have a sociological horror of obedience. We've already noticed that they bowdlerised 'Once in Royal David's City' to eliminate the idea that children might be supposed to be obedient. It seems clear that the NEH editors don't believe that obedience is a virtue, they don't think that Jesus's obedience to his parents is a proper model for our children, and they don't think it's appropriate for us to obey God when he calls us home.

Why not?

Do I detect, perhaps, a hint of the idea that it would be patronising for God to ask for obedience? The editors want to think that God treats us as grown ups, capable of acting autonomously, not under instructions. They think it is patronising of God to expect us to do things because he tells us. So obedience is a no-no word.

"Patronising." A word we use when we mean that we consider ourselves superior and the person who had the presumption to talk down to us was not (as he/she thought) actually as superior as she or he supposed. It is a word used only by the proud, those too proud to take advice, or to consider that others might have something to say to them. If we use it of God, it is because we are too proud to respond to the Lord's gentle bidding and his words of comfort to the dying.

If I'm right that this is why we don't like obedience any more, then it surely correlates with the attitude of a society that cannot accept death, cannot hear the call to go home singing for joy, and would rather shut its ears to that call and pretend it knows better; a society that seeks everything possible to usurp God's right to call us to die.

That's a sick society, and one that has lost its faith in God.

Boo for pride and hurrah for obedience, I say.

Ut queant laxis

There's a famous hymn for the feast of St John the Baptist, written by Paul the Deacon in the 8th Century A.D., which begins "Ut queant laxis resonare fibris".

It's famous mainly because it is the origin of the names ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la to name the notes of the musical scale (the plainsong tune to this hymn, which, alas, we did not sing this morning, starts on the tonic with the word "ut", and then "re-" of resonare occurs on the second note of the scale, and so on with each new five or six syllable phrase starting one note higher). This way of naming the notes was apparently invented by Guido of Arezzo in the tenth century. "Ut", for the tonic, was changed to "Do" in the sixteenth century by someone called Hubert Waelrant.

Paul the Deacon's hymn came in three parts. "Ut queant laxis" is the first part, five verses, and is set for vespers on the eve of the feast of the birth of St John the Baptist; the second part "Antra deserti teneris sub annis" is set for Matins, and the third part "O nimis felix, meritique celsi" is set for Lauds.

Translations of two of these parts were included in the English Hymnal, with Ut queant laxis set as office hymn for evensong and Antra deserti set as office hymn for matins (Hymns 223 and 224, both to the same tune though, oddly, the plainsong tune given in EH was not ut queant laxis.) The EH version, translated by R. Ellis Roberts, presumably specially for this hymnal, begins with a verse that goes like this

Let thine example, Holy John, remind us
Ere we can meetly sing thy deeds of wonder,
Hearts must be chastened, and the bonds that bind us
Broken asunder.

It's true that this is not entirely effective as a translation of the Latin, which is a plea to Saint John himself to cleanse our polluted lips of the sin (reatum) so that we can sing with loosened vocal cords (laxis fibris) the wonders of his deeds. It's said that this verse was composed by Paul the Deacon after he'd had some trouble intoning the Exsultet at the Easter service, and the verse is a prayer to avert such an affliction. Given how the hymn goes on, he's evidently adverting to the affliction that silenced Zechariah when he doubted the word of the Lord, and he's asking that our vocal cords won't be seized up in the same way; so, pace Ellis, it's not John's example that needs to remind us of this risk, but Zechariah's. Here's the Latin for verse 1.

Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Joannes.

Still, Ellis proceeds to give us the rest of the hymn pretty accurately, with beautifully formed stanzas that rhyme first and third, second and fourth (although Paul the Deacon didn't use rhymes in this hymn). I won't bore you with the details now, but will add them at the foot of the post.

By contrast the New English Hymnal has done some of its dastardly deeds.

First, notice that it no longer claims that this hymn is actually "Ut queant laxis" at all. No Latin is given at the head of the hymn. Yet it does have that metre and it is set to that tune.

Instead they say that it is a hymn by the "EDITORS based on the Latin of Paul the Deacon 730-99".

This is always a bad sign. It means they've decided they can improve on Paul the Deacon's sentiments with some drivel of their own.

So what heinous crimes have they committed on this ancient and famous text?

Well, predictably enough the first and oh-so-famous verse about not having our voices silenced has gone altogether.

Perhaps they didn't see that it is about the story of Zechariah's silence?

Perhaps they couldn't find a way to put it into good English in sapphics?

Anyway, what they've done is invent a kind of introductory verse in the form of one of those abbreviated death announcements in the newspaper:

On this high feast day honour we the Baptist,
Greatest and last of Isreal's line of prophets,
Kinsman of Jesus, herald of salvation,
Chosen forerunner.

Then they give us two verses that are translations of verses 2 and 3 of the Latin original, though of course, in the absence of verse 1, it's now become rather pointless to narrate the story of Zechariah's dumbness.

Verse four in the original was an extremely clever composition recalling the occasion when Mary visited Elizabeth; and John, then still in the womb, recognised the babe in Mary's womb as king, hence acting already as a prophet revealing hidden mysteries to the two mothers even before his birth. This verse has gone entirely from the EDITORS' substitute, even though it was an eminently suitable event to recall on this particular day, celebrating the birth of the Forerunner.

Instead we have what appears to be a set of completely random ramblings about John the Baptist, mostly without foundation, some positively false as far as I can see. On what basis, for example, do they say "Greater art thou than all the sons of Adam"? Presumably this is supposed to reflect Luke 7:28 "For I say unto you, Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist; but he that is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he." Well, first what Jesus says there is nothing at all about sons of Adam, but rather about those born of woman. And since Jesus himself is born of a woman, this has got to be a paradox, since many texts testify to John saying that "He who comes after me is greater than I " and so on. And second, even if we took it straight, that among those born of woman, John is greater than any other prophet, Jesus's next saying undercuts it by saying that that's no big deal since anyone in the kingdom of God is greater than that. I suppose the editors may have been prompted by verse 8 of the complete text (see below) but they haven't really got it right, have they? In fact Ellis Roberts does it better, don't you think? (see verse 7 of the English translation at the end of this post)

The rest of their verse 'Lowly in spirit, faithfully proclaiming Israel's Messiah, Jesus our Redeemer, Thus we exalt thee"— all this is just bubble wrap to fill up the space in the verse. It has no theological import or profundity and adds no spiritual uplift. Rather, downlift.

All hymn books add a trinitarian doxology as the last verse, at the end of part one. The NEH has given us a version that presumably purports to be a translation of the last verse of Paul the Deacon's hymn.

But overall, the result is a very sad hymn, because the two really distinctive verses with some theological stuffing have been cut and replaced with a sorry mess. Oh how sad! How very sad! How twentieth century...

Read to the bottom of the post for this week's competition.

Here, for interest, is first the complete Latin text of all three parts of Paul the Deacon's work:

1.
Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes!

2.
Nuntius celso veniens Olympo
te patri magnum fore nasciturum,
nomen et vitae seriem gerendae
ordine promit.

3.
Ille promissi dubius superni
perdidit promptae modulos loquelae;
sed reformasti genitus peremptae
organa vocis.

4.
Ventris abstruso positus cubili
senseras regem thalamo manentem,
hinc parens nati meritis uterque
abdita pandit.

5.
Antra deserti teneris sub annis
civium turmas fugiens, petisti,
ne levi saltim maculare vitam
famine posses.

6.
Praebuit hirtum tegimen camelus,
artubus sacris strofium bidentis,
cui latex haustum, sociata pastum
mella locustis.

7.
Caeteri tantum cecinere vatum
corde praesago iubar adfuturum;
tu quidem mundi scelus auferentem
indice prodis.

8.
Non fuit vasti spatium per orbis
sanctior quisquam genitus Iohanne,
qui nefas saecli meruit lavantem
tingere limphis.

9.
O nimis felix meritique celsi
nesciens labem nivei pudoris,
prepotens martyr heremique cultor,
maxime vatum!

10.
Serta ter denis alios coronant
aucta crementis, duplicata quosdam;
trina centeno cumulata fructu
te, sacer, ornant.

11.
Nunc potens nostri meritis opimis
pectoris duros lapides repelle
asperum planans iter, et reflexos
dirige calles,

12.
ut pius mundi sator et redemptor
mentibus pulsa luvione puris
rite dignetur veniens sacratos
ponere gressus.

13.
Laudibus cives celebrant superni
te, deus simplex pariterque trine,
supplices ac nos veniam precamur:
parce redemptis!

And now here's the EH translation:

Let thine example, holy John, remind us,
Ere we can meetly sing thy deeds of wonder,
Hearts must be chastened, and the bonds that bind us
Broken asunder!

Lo! a swift angel, from the skies descending,
Tells to thy father what shall be thy naming;
All thy life’s greatness to its bitter ending
Duly proclaiming.

But when he doubted what the angel told him
Came to him dumbness to confirm the story;
At thine appearing, healed again behold him,
Chanting thy glory!

Oh! what a splendour and a revelation
Came to each mother, at thy joyful leaping,
Greeting thy Monarch, King of every nation,
In the womb sleeping.

E'en in they childhood, mid the desert places,
Thou hadst a refuge from the city gainèd,
Far from all slander and its bitter traces
Living unstainèd.

Often had prophets in the distant ages
Sung to announce the Daystar and to name him;
But as the Saviour, last of all the sages,
Thou didst proclaim him.

Than John the Baptist, none of all Eve's daughters,
E'er bore a greater whether high or lowly,
He was thought worthy, washing in the waters
Jesus the holy.

Angels in orders everlasting praise Thee,
God, in Thy triune majesty tremendous,
Hark to the prayers we, penitents, upraise Thee:
Save and defend us.

And finally, this week's competition. Can you produce a better translation of verse 1 of this hymn, retaining the metre of the original, but not necessarily the rhyme scheme introduced by Ellis Roberts? Answers in a comment please....

And guard and bless our fatherland

More on Bishop William Walsham How. Last week was Rogation Sunday and we sang another of WW How's not very how hymns (see last post for the background on Bishop How). It begins 'To thee our God we fly" and according to the New English Hymnal it is for Rogationtide.

According to the English Hymnal it was under the category "National". There it lived with hymns such as Kipling's "God of our fathers known of old, Lord of our far-flung battle-line...", Chesterton's "O God of Earth and Altar", and some others including the National Anthem. The New English Hymnal has moved it out of the National category and into Rogation, but not without some adjustments.

Unacknowledged adjustments: no daggers.

Let's have a look at what the alterations are.

The first thing to note is that the words of the refrain which comes at the end of every verse have been changed.

In the original, it seems, it went

O Lord stretch forth thy mighty hand
And guard and bless our fatherland.

"Fatherland" is evidently not fashionable these days. Too patriotic?

Instead we have "... and guard and bless our native land".

It's not clear what we are to think if we were not born here, but would still like it to be blessed.

The second thing to note is that it has lost a lot of verses. It had nine in the English Hymnal, four of them with stars. Nine seems to be what William Walsham How wrote. Six survive into the New English Hymnal. They've also been presented in a different order.

One splendid one that has gone is this:

Though vile and worthless, still
Thy people, Lord, are we;
And for our God we will
None other have but Thee.

It's evident that this verse troubled others before the New English Hymnal came on the scene. The compilers of the BBC Hymnal in 1951 decided to change the words of that verse (which is the last verse of the hymn) and substituted this instead:

Though all unworthy, still
Thy people, Lord, are we;
And for our God we will
None other have but thee.

But the New English Hymnal Editors clearly didn't really like this sentiment at all (or maybe they couldn't cope with the inverted sentence structure of the last two lines, who knows). Anyway, for whatever reason they cut that verse out.

Two unobjectionable verses about the Church have also gone (verses 6 and 7 from the complete hymn given below). And verse 5 has been put at the end, for reasons that are not apparent.

I suppose that the end result is a list of petitions with no particular structure, and has a mention of the "land" in the refrain, and it therefore counts as a hymn for rogation. But it was never very great even in its complete and untampered form. It now seems to me to be really quite tedious. Surely English hymnody comes rather better than this?

Anyway, here is the complete thing, as written by How, without editorial intervention.

To Thee our God we fly
For mercy and for grace;
O hear our lowly cry,
And hide not Thou Thy face.

Refrain

O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand
And guard and bless our Fatherland.

Arise, O Lord of hosts!
Be jealous of Thy Name,
And drive from out our coasts
The sins that put to shame.

Refrain

Thy best gifts from on high
In rich abundance pour,
That we may magnify
And praise Thee more and more.

Refrain

The powers ordained by Thee
With heavenly wisdom bless;
May they Thy servants be,
And rule in righteousness.

Refrain

The Church of Thy dear Son,
Inflame with love’s pure fire,
Bind her once more in one,
And life and truth inspire.

Refrain

The pastors of Thy fold,
With grace and power endue,
That faithful, pure and bold,
They may be pastors true.

Refrain

O let us love Thy house,
And sanctify Thy day,
Bring unto Thee our vows,
And loyal homage pay.

Refrain

Give peace, Lord, in our time;
O let no foe draw nigh,
Nor lawless deed of crime
Insult Thy majesty.

Refrain

Though vile and worthless, still
Thy people, Lord, are we;
And for our God we will
None other have but Thee.

Refrain

Who is this so weak and helpless?

A while back I did a post on "Who is this with garments gory" wherein I promised to say something about the hymn whose first line is in the title of this post. Here I am, and here I am going to say something.

"Who is this so weak and helpless" is a hymn by Bishop William Walsham How 1823-97. Now I've got nothing against Bishop W. W. How, but he does bear responsibility for a number of fairly awful hymns. Not all of them are awful: his best seems to be "For all the Saints who from their labours rest" and we certainly wouldn't want to live without that. Another good one (I think) is "It is a thing most wonderful" (at least that is good if it's sung to Herongate as in the English Hymnal and New English Hymnal: it has some other terrible tune in Mission Praise, I recall, which turns it into a trite hymn). But alas the other six hymns by How in the English Hymnal are rather less than great (surprisingly, the NEH has kept five out of the eight).

"Who is this so weak and helpless?" was written in 1867. That's 23 years after Coxe wrote "Who is this with garments gory?" and one can't help thinking that there's some intertextuality here. Both hymns are in the same metre and both begin "who is this..." But Coxe's (as we saw) is rich in complex biblical symbolism. How's, by contrast, is rather uninspired. I mean, it's true that How has picked up on the idea that we can't easily recognise the Godhead in the strange and rather powerless circumstances of Jesus's birth and life and death: that's the theme of the hymn. But it lacks the spectacle, and the density of imagery of Coxe's reflections on the one who trod the winepress all alone.

William How constructs his hymn by starting each verse with four lines describing something in the life of Jesus (first his birth, then his homeless wandering, then his trial and passion, then his crucifixion). Then in the second half of each verse, beginning in each case "'Tis the Lord" vel sim, he tells us that this is really God himself (despite appearances), and goes on to say something about the divine power that is so far from apparent in the scene just described. As you will see, the last four lines of each verse are really quite bad:

Who is this so weak and helpless,
Child of lowly Hebrew maid,
rudely in a stable sheltered,
coldly in a manger laid?
'Tis the Lord of all creation,
who this wondrous path hath trod;
he is God from everlasting,
and to everlasting God.

Who is this, a Man of sorrows,
walking sadly life's hard way,
homeless, weary, sighing, weeping,
over sin and Satan's sway?
'Tis our God, our glorious Saviour,
who above the starry sky
now for us a place prepareth,
where no tear can dim the eye.

Who is this? Behold him raining
drops of blood upon the ground!
Who is this, despised, rejected,
mocked, insulted, beaten, bound?
'Tis our God, who gifts and graces
on his Church now poureth down;
who shall smite in holy vengeance
all his foes beneath his throne.

Who is this that hangeth dying
with the thieves on either side?
Nails his hands and feet are tearing,
and the spear hath pierced his side.
'Tis the God who ever liveth,
'mid the shining ones on high,
in the glorious golden city,
reigning everlastingly.

If you think this isn't bad, just look at the rhymes...

Why did this unimaginative string of doggerel survive into the New English Hymnal, while its better predecessor didn't? One may well wonder.

One telling fact is that in the NEH this hymn is set to Ebenezer or Tôn-y-Botel, that fantastic Welsh hymn tune of 1890 that we've talked about before, which used to be set for "Who is this with garments gory" (whereas "Who is this so weak and helpless" had another Welsh tune called Llansannan, or, in other books, Eifionydd).

It makes you wonder whether the EDITORS still wanted to keep that great tune Ebenezer, but had some prejudice against that great hymn, so they put in this weak hymn instead, thinking we'd feel it was similar, or maybe we wouldn't even notice the difference, since it begins with the same words. Certainly it seems that must be what happened at Little St Mary's, where this hymn was set this year for evensong on Palm Sunday, as a sort of lame substitute for the wine-treading hymn that used to belong there.

I wonder what hymn Ebenezer was written for? In 1890 it could have been written for either of these things, but perhaps it was for a Welsh hymn we don't know. I'm beginning to regret that I didn't buy the Welsh Hymn book I found last summer in Hay on Wye (was it Hay on Wye? Can't recall now). It might have settled this question.

Ad cenam Agni providi

Tonight's office hymn was "The lamb's high banquet we await". The translation is by J.M. Neale but has been substantially altered at various points in the New English Hymnal.

I think the one that most annoys me is the fact that they have changed "and tasting of his roseate Blood" to "and tasting of his precious Blood".

Now why do that?

The original in the Latin is

sed et cruorem roseum
gustando, Dei vivimus

Neale's translation renders that exactly, using "roseate" to translate "roseum". "Precious" is not there at all. And the phrase "precious blood" is too common and trite to be striking here. The image is, in any case, not meant to be one of price, but rather of the tasting of red wine. Sometimes these editors seem to be just crass.

The other less serious but apparently unnecessary piece of interference is in verse 4. This is what we have in the Latin:

Iam pascha nostrum Christus est,
agnus occisus innocens;
sinceritatis azyma
qui carnem suam obtulit.

In J. M. Neale's translation this went:

Now Christ, our Paschal Lamb, is slain,
the Lamb of God that knows no stain,
the true Oblation offered here,
our own unleavened Bread sincere.

The NEH editors have (in their wisdom) changed "paschal lamb" to "Passover". They have also changed round the last two lines, rendering them

And he, the true unleavened Bread,
Is truly our oblation made.

I don't think much of the rhyme (Bread and made), nor do I find the lines comprehensible in this approximation to English. Certainly these are no improvement on Neale's. In fact it looks to me as though sinceritatis azyma is a reference to the "unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" from 1 Corinthians 5.8.

So lines 3 and 4 ought to go "Sincerity's unleavened bread, who gave his very flesh instead."

Someone's reading this Blog...

Nice to discover a little appreciative mention of this Blog on the History Carnival hosted this month by Mary Beard. Find it here.

Who is this with garments gory?

Another thing missing from the Palm Sunday experience as I remember it at LSM in Fr James Owen's days is the magnificent hymn "Who is this with garments gory, triumphing on Bozrah's way?". It's surprising it's taken me so long to get round to writing about this one, since it's a special favourite of mine. I've just scoured various old floppy disks and aged computers to see if I could discover where I'd written about it before, since I know I've written on it at least once for a parish magazine. But nothing has shown up, so may be that I wrote it before the days of household computers.

Hymn number 108 in the old English Hymnal, set in the section for Passiontide, this hymn goes to the amazing welsh hymn tune Ebenezer, which makes it especially awesome. More about the tune anon.

Alas the hymn has quite gone from the New English Hymnal. Was it that they thought hardly anyone liked it or sang it? Or was it that they thought that we ought not to be allowed to sing it? Was it redundancy or constructive dismissal that was offered to Bishop A. Cleveland Coxe (1818-96)?

Here are his fine words, written in 1844 (more about what they mean in a minute):

Who is this with garments gory,
Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;
This that weareth robes of glory,
Bright with more than vict'ry’s ray?
Who is this unwearied comer
From his journey’s sultry length,
Trav'lling through Idumè’s summer
In the greatness of his strength?

Wherefore red in thine apparel
Like the conquerors of the earth,
And arrayed like those who carol
O’er the reeking vineyard’s mirth?
Who art thou, the valleys seeking
Where our peaceful harvests wave?
“I, in righteous anger speaking,
I, the mighty One to save.”

“I, that of the raging heathen
Trod the winepress all alone,
Now in victor garlands wreathen
Coming to redeem Mine own:
I am He with sprinkled raiment,
Glorious for My vengeance hour,
Ransoming, with priceless payment,
And delivering with power.”

Hail! All hail! Thou Lord of Glory!
Thee, our Father, Thee we own;
Abram heard not of our story,
Israel ne’er our Name hath known.
But, Redeemer, Thou hast sought us,
Thou hast heard Thy children’s wail,
Thou with Thy dear blood hast bought us:
Hail! Thou mighty Victor, hail!

I don't know what it would be like to read these lines without hearing the tune Ebenezer in your head. If you don't know it you'll need to go here.

Now, what on earth is it all about? Well the reference is to Isaiah 63.1-4 (which is a dialogue so I'm going to set it out as a dialogue here):

——Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?
——I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
——Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?
——I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.

Isaiah's vision is of meeting a solitary traveller in robes stained with blood, who compares the trampling of the heathen (in Edom) with treading the grapes in a winepress and becoming sprinkled with the red of the wine. The same chapter of Isaiah goes on to speak of the need for redemption and the idea of God's mercy as well as his righteous anger. Our hymn particularly picks up again on a later passage of the chapter, namely at verses 16:

Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting.

This passage is picked up in the last verse of the hymn, with

Hail! All hail! Thou Lord of Glory!
Thee, our Father, Thee we own;
Abram heard not of our story,
Israel ne’er our Name hath known.

Now it is true that the imagery of the traveller dressed in scarlet robes soaked in blood, and of the one who treads the winepress all alone is evocative of all sorts of Christian themes. By using these motifs on Palm Sunday we evoke the image of Christ riding into Jerusalem in triumph. By using them at passiontide we evoke the imagery of Christ clothed in a purple robe and spattered with his own blood during the trial and crucifixion, the use of wine to stand in for blood recalls the famous words at the last supper when Christ presents his own blood in the form of wine, and the idea that he trod the winepress all alone is evocative of the salvation that he wrought in solitary agony on the cross. But in my view Cleveland Coxe's hymn picks up another aspect of the Isaiah imagery: I think the hymn is really written with a view to the last judgement, and not to the passiontide imagery that is so vivid in the Isaiah reading itself. Isn't this really an Advent hymn, and isn't it supposed to be about the second coming of Christ in glory?

Take a look at verse one:

Who is this with garments gory,
Triumphing from Bozrah’s way;
This that weareth robes of glory,
Bright with more than vict'ry’s ray?
Who is this unwearied comer
From his journey’s sultry length,
Trav'lling through Idumè’s summer
In the greatness of his strength?

Imagine we are encountering Christ returning at the second coming. How do we tell that this is really the Christ we are to expect? His robes of glory are bright with more than victory's ray: the stranger at the second coming has something divine about him. This is more than just a human traveller. It is an unwearied comer, one who is not worn down by the long and sultry journey. He has a superhuman strength.
But why is he on Bozrah's way, and why has he travelled through Idumè's summer? Bozrah is a city of Edom, and Idume, alias Idumaea, is another word for Edom. Edom is the place where the Gentiles live, and it is upon them that the wrath of the stranger has been falling. He has been trampling them under his feet, and it is with their blood that he is spattered. This is an image of a judgemental God dealing out just punishment to those who are not his own chosen people.
But then as the hymn proceeds (picking up all the time motifs from Isaiah's chapter) the image of a vengeful God is transformed into the image of a merciful God whose robe is soaked in his own blood as he pays the priceless ransom for those who did not deserve to be saved. First he says he is returning to redeem his own people after treading the winepress of the heathen; from this we would think that his sprinkled raiment is sprinkled with the blood of the heathen, but the "priceless payment" begins to make us think again:

“I, that of the raging heathen
Trod the winepress all alone,
Now in victor garlands wreathen
Coming to redeem Mine own:
I am He with sprinkled raiment,
Glorious for My vengeance hour,
Ransoming, with priceless payment,
And delivering with power.”

Now, using Isaiah's words, we respond to the fact that we find ourselves unexpectedly included in Christ's priceless redemption: so Abraham had never heard of our story (what story is that: the Christian story?) and Israel never knew our name. We are not of the tribe of Israel, but suddenly we see that God is our father all the same, and that we have been redeemed by this strange man in the blood-soaked garment. Now we wonder, what was that act of treading the winepress all alone? Was it vengeful destruction? No: it turns out that Christ had gone out to the heathen to redeem them with his own blood not theirs. Thou with thy dear blood hast bought us... That is the victory we hail, not a victory over the heathen, not judgement upon them, but redemption for them by the shedding of the victor's own blood. Christ returns from his lonely journey, but the blood with which he is stained is actually his own, and the people he has redeemed are not the ones we expected, but include even those of us who did not belong to the chosen tribes of Israel and who have done nothing to deserve it.

Now why has this extraordinarily well-written and evocative hymn gone from the hymn book? One possibility is that it had fallen into disuse, perhaps through misunderstanding. Another is that we are not allowed to have hymns that repay study and cannot be fully understood without quite a lot of biblical knowledge and theological sophistication. A third is that the editors of the hymn book themselves couldn't understand what this was about and thought that it was gruesome and/or offensive to the heathen. They have (as we have previously noticed) an aversion to the notion of the 'heathen' so I guess they read (or misread) verse 3 of this hymn as expressing some kind of prejudice.

I was going to say something about the hymn "Who is this so weak and helpless?" here as well, but the entry seems rather long. so I'll make that another one.

Come, faithful people, come away

Many years ago when I was a student and later when I was a research fellow and a young mum in Cambridge, we used to go to LSM when not at King's Chapel or wherever else, and every year on Palm Sunday there was a procession from Laundress Green to LSM. That's still true, but what are no longer there are some hymns of which I have particularly fond memories.

Today's subject is "Come Faithful People Come Away". It's classified as a carol by the English Hymnal, which says (in its Palm Sunday Procession section) "If required, the following carol may also be sung". But the words are by G. Moultrie (1829-85) and the music, a jolly skipping melody written as three crotchets in a bar, is "Come Faithful People" by C. Bicknell, 1842-1918. The hymn recounts the story of Christ's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey and all that palm waving stuff.

It's a good hymn to process to. Now that might seem surprising because of the tune being in three time. For many years after we moved to Oxford we tried to persuade our Oxford Vicar to put "Come, faithful people, come away" into the Cowley St John street procession for Palm Sunday, but he wouldn't have it (there we had "Onward Christian Soldiers" and other traditional marching hymns, nothing seasonal at all, except maybe "Ride On Ride On"). The trouble is, you could never persuade anyone who didn't already know it that it could be a marching hymn.

The reason why it works so well for marching is that it really goes at one in a bar, or, if you like, in 6:8 so it's like two sets of triplets, dum de de, dum de de. So if it's taken quickly it's very easy to march to because you stride out on the first beat of each bar and the skipping triplets give you plenty of time to move at a stately pace without the tune become plodding or boring. Brilliant really.

What's tragic is that it's gone altogether from the NEH.

What a loss. Here (from the Oremus Hymnal, but converted to English spelling) are the words:

Come, faithful people, come away
your homage to your Monarch pay;
it is the feast of palms today:
Hosanna in the highest!

When Christ, the Lord of all, drew nigh
on Sunday morn to Bethany,
he called two loved ones standing by:
Hosanna in the highest!

"To yonder village go," said he,
"An ass and foal tied shall ye see,
loose them and bring them unto me:"
Hosanna in the highest!

"If any man dispute your word,
say, 'They are needed by the Lord,'
and he permission will accord:"
Hosanna in the highest!

The two upon their errand sped,
and found the ass as he had said,
and on the colt their clothes they spread:
Hosanna in the highest!

They set him on his throne so rude;
before him went the multitude,
and in their way their garments strewed:
Hosanna in the highest!

Go, Saviour, thus to triumph borne,
thy crown shall be the wreath of thorn,
thy royal garb the robe of scorn:
Hosanna in the highest!

They thronged before, behind, around,
they cast palm-branches on the ground,
and still rose up the joyful sound:
Hosanna in the highest!

"Blessèd is Israel's King," they cry;
"Blessed is he that cometh nigh
in name of God the Lord most high."
Hosanna in the highest!

Thus, Saviour, to thy passion go,
arrayed in royalty of woe,
assumed for sinners here below:
Hosanna in the highest!

---

Vexilla regis prodeunt

When we went to sing evensong at Bury St Edmunds one of the hymns prescribed for the service was "The Royal Banners Forward Go". There was a great to-do among us the visiting choir "because," (said some) "they've added two verses which aren't normally there."

Well I think the truth is this (though I've lost the service sheet so I'm not absolutely sure). It's not that they'd added two verses. It's that the New English Hymnal has left one out, and also that the photocopy of the words and melody that we had in our choir folders was incomplete and had the last verse left off, due presumably to the fact that the last verse was over the page in the hymn books.

The New English Hymnal supplies seven verses of vexilla regis. The old English Hymnal supplied the same seven. They are given in J.M. Neale's translation but the NEH has made one change to the translation ("The universal Lord is he who reigns and triumphs from the tree" has now replaced "Amidst the nations, God, saith he, hath reigned and triumphed from the tree" in verse 3).

But what is the eighth verse that is missing?

Eight verses are given in Frederick Brittain's Penguin Book of Latin Verse attributed to Venantius Fortunatus. You don't have to go far to find one that's missing in our hymnals: here is verse 2 of the original:

Confixa clavis viscera
Tendens manus, vestigia,
Redemptionis gratia
Hic immolata est hostia.

Roughly this means "His innards were pierced through with the nails, stretching out his hands, his feet, for the sake of redemption he here was sacrificed as victim."

However if we thought that was the missing verse we're going too fast, because the last two verses of the Latin text are also not in the translation. In fact what we get in the EH and the NEH is only five of eight verses written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609), with two extra verses that form the doxology which were apparently added (in Latin) by someone else a bit later. You can find the whole of it (ten verses, including the two that are not by VF) here along with the translation (of selected verses) by Walter Kirkham Blount (d 1717), which Michael Martin there suggests is considered to be the best one ever done. As you'll see, the three unfamiliar verses don't appear in Blount's translation either. So what we got in Bury St Edmunds was a bit more of what Venantius F wrote. However, since I don't have the service sheet with me I can't tell you exactly which other verse we got (but probably one of the last two judging by where it came in the hymn).

Not something to complain about, it seems to me. The more the merrier, I say.

O lux beata Trinitas

Last Sunday I was a bit surprised to find that the office hymn set for Evensong was O Lux beata Trinitas (O Trinity of Blessed Light). It appears in the New English Hymnal as the office hymn for the period from Epiphany to Lent. This struck me as odd, since I felt sure that we used to sing it in the summer, in Trinity season; but the book said so, so I didn't complain.

I was also troubled to see that four verses were given in The New English Hymnal, not the three that I knew from of old, and that the hymn was said to be "From the Latin, translated by J.M. Neale 1818-66 and EDITORS". It was unclear whether that meant that the Editors had done some more translating from the Latin, or that they had done some more writing.

Well, I'm sure you've guessed. They'd done some more writing...

And they say "From the Latin" perhaps because they hadn't the heart to say that the original, from which they had borrowed some words and ideas, had once been by St Ambrose, that it was originally written in the fourth century A.D. and that it had been loved and preserved, and sung by generations of devout believers, for sixteen pious centuries before they saw fit to mess it up.

But wait. First, before we take a look at that, we need to do some detective work to settle the question what season this hymn should be proper to. Is it really the office hymn for Sunday evenings from Epiphany to Lent as the NEH suggests? Is it really the office hymn for Saturdays from Trinity Sunday to Advent, as the English Hymnal suggests? Or is it neither?

This is what we learn from the website Thesaurus Precum Latinarum
"This hymn is ascribed to St. Ambrose (340-397) and is used for Sunday Vespers for the second and fourth weeks of the Psalter in the Liturgy of the Hours. The hymn appears in the Roman Breviary under the title of Iam sol recedit igneus, where it is the Vespers hymn for the ferial office on Saturdays and Trinity Sunday."

Now I'm not entirely sure I understand that. It seems to me that the ferial office on Saturdays means Saturdays that are not a feast day and not in any special season of the year. This could explain the English Hymnal which says Saturday evensong from Trinity to Advent: that is the green season, so to speak. But does it also apply to the green season from Epiphany to Lent? Not according to the English Hymnal which provides Deus Creator Omnium for the Saturday evenings from the Octave of Epiphany to Lent. Even if it does apply to the Epiphany to Lent period, it seems it would not, pace the NEH, be for Sunday evening (other than the evening of Trinity Sunday), but for Saturday.

I also don't understand the bit that says it is used for the second and fourth weeks of the psalter in the Liturgy of the Hours. Perhaps someone can explain that claim to me.

Now for the text. Here (sourced from Michael Martin's Thesaurus Precum Latinarum) is what St Ambrose wrote (if, as we understand, it was indeed he).

O LUX beata Trinitas, et principalis Unitas, iam sol recedit igneus, infunde lumen cordibus.

Te mane laudum carmine, te deprecemur vespere: te nostra supplex gloria per cuncta laudet saecula.

Deo Patri sit gloria, eiusque soli Filio, cum Spiritu Paraclito, et nunc, et in perpetuum.

Here, about as precise as they come, is what J.M. Neale produced as a translation:

O Trinity of blessed light,
O Unity of princely might,
The fiery sun now goes his way;
Shed thou within our hearts thy ray.

To thee our morning song of praise,
To thee our evening prayer we raise;
Thy glory suppliant we adore
For ever and for evermore.

All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son to thee;
All glory as is ever meet,
To God the holy Paraclete.

It is not only a verbatim translation, but of course it also fits the original metre so you can sing it to the correct plainsong tune. Hooray for JMN.

The EDITORS evidently thought some improvement was needed. "Princely" in line 2 has become "primal". I guess that this is supposed to render "principalis" (principal) in the sense of 'original' instead of Neale's 'princely' which tries to render the regal sense of 'principal'. Which is more appropriate? The idea is that as the sun goes down we need another light to shine in our hearts instead, namely the light of the Trinity that is also a unity. Is the thought that the light of the trinity is older than the light of the sun? That is presumably what the NEH Editors have taken to be the thought expressed by 'principalis'. Or is the thought that the light of God is superior, a more powerful guide? That is presumably what Neale thought. And it was for that reason that he used the word "might" which is not in the Latin but comes from the "princely" sense of principalis. The NEH Editors have kept the "might" but linked it with "primal" instead of "princely". I suppose that is intended to capture the ambiguity of "principalis", by retaining something of each sense. I'm not entirely convinced that the end result is comprehensible, however.

The second verse is unchanged.

The last verse has been rewritten to get rid of the 'Paraclete' word. Sad.

And between the second and the last verse, the EDITORS have added this piece of new doggerel:

O Trinity, O Unity,
Thou help of man's infirmity,
Protect us through the hours of night,
Who art our everlasting light.

I've been trying to discover whether the editors found this verse in some other latin hymn and decided to nick it. But I'm pretty sure it's entirely of their own making. For one thing it just says the same again as was said more neatly above, that the Trinity is our light, only that it then adds some waffle about protection which does not belong to the theme of the hymn (which is the thought that we want enlightenment). The EDITORS have gone off point, as though what we wanted was light to protect us from nasty things that creep up on us in the dark.

One thing that extra verse does add is a completely pointless bit of man speak ("man's infirmity"). Not clear what that is, but if you are going to compose new words in the twentieth century, you might at least try to make clear whether the word is translating homo or vir. In this case, of course, neither. So why "man"?

Praise to the Lord the Almighty

I thought it worth observing, briefly, that the hymn "Praise to the Lord the Almighty" has seven verses in the English Hymnal (three of them starred) and only six verses in the New English Hymnal (two of them starred) and that the origin of the starred verses is something of a mystery.

The hymn is (purports to be) a translation of Lobe den Herren, a German hymn published in 1680 in A und Ω Glaub- und Lieb­es­ü­bung by Joachim Neander (1650-80). The English version that we know is said to be translated by "Catherine Winkworth and others". The minimal bit of research I've done on the matter so far suggests that four verses were translated by Winkworth, that is the four that are unstarred in the hymn books. However, the Cyberhymnal gives seven verses and implies that all of them are by Winkworth. Still it seems that the EH and NEH concur in believing that some of their verses at least are not by Winkworth (and since those in the NEH are all, without exception, in the Cyberhymnal's version, it seems that it cannot be true both that everything in the Cyberhymnal entry is by Winkworth and that some of what is in the NEH entry is by "others".)

However, the plot thickens, for I have so far been unable to find more than five verses in the German. Indeed, Frank Colquhoun affirms that the original was of five stanzas (A Hymn Companion, page 22). This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the Cyberhymnal and several other sites provide five verses of the German text, the same five in all cases. This is what they have:

Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren!
Meine geliebte Seele, das ist mein Begehren.
Kommet zu Hauf! Psalter und Harfe, wacht auf!
Lasset den Lobgesang hören!

Lobe den Herren, der alles so herrlich regieret,
Der dich auf Flügeln des Adelers sicher geführet,
Der dich erhält, wie es dir selber gefällt.
Hast du nicht dieses verspüret?

Lobe den Herren, der künstlich und fein dich bereitet,
Der dir Gesundheit verliehen, dich freundlich geleitet.
In wieviel Not hat dich der gnädige Gott
Über dir Flügel gebreitet.

Lobe den Herren, der deinen Stand sichtbar gesegnet,
Der aus dem Himmel mit Strömen der Liebe geregnet.
Denke daran, was der Allmächtige kann,
Der dir mit Liebe begegnet.

Lobe den Herren; was in mir ist, lobe den Namen.
Alles was Odem hat, lobe mit Abrahams Samen.
Er ist dein Licht; Seele, vergiß es ja nicht;
Lob ihn und schließe mit Amen!

The five verses in the German appear to be verses 1 to 4 and verse 7 of the seven provided in the Cyberhymnal, that is these ones:

Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.

Praise to the Lord, Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings, yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen how thy desires ever have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?

Praise to the Lord, Who hath fearfully, wondrously, made thee;
Health hath vouchsafed and, when heedlessly falling, hath stayed thee.
What need or grief ever hath failed of relief?
Wings of His mercy did shade thee.

Praise to the Lord, Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.

Praise to the Lord, O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Of these you will notice, perhaps, that verse 3 is unfamiliar. It doesn't appear in any of the hymn books that I own. So four of the verses we normally sing are from Neander's original, and there is a fifth that we do not normally sing (and which, perhaps, Winkworth did not translate?).

So where do the rest come from? There seem to be a total of eight verses in circulation, those five and three more. The English Hymnal had all three of the additional ones which it marked as "Part 2", all of which were starred. They went like this:

Praise to the Lord, Who, when tempests their warfare are waging,
Who, when the elements madly around thee are raging,
Biddeth them cease, turneth their fury to peace,
Whirlwinds and waters assuaging.

Praise to the Lord, who when sickness with terror uniting,
Deaf to entreaties of mortals, its victims is smiting,
Pestilence quells, Sickness and fever dispels,
Grateful thanksgiving inviting.

Praise to the Lord, Who, when darkness of sin is abounding,
Who, when the godless do triumph, all virtue confounding,
Sheddeth His light, chaseth the horrors of night,
Saints with His mercy surrounding.

Of these the first and third survive into the NEH but the second has been cut. None of them seems to be based on anything written by Neander.

Now it seems to me that the correct description of this hymn as it currently appears in the NEH is that it is part of a hymn by Neander, that part being translated by Winkworth, with some additional interpolated verses, perhaps composed in English not German, by someone else we know not whom. In this, the EH was if anything slightly less close to authenticity than the NEH because it had added three of those interpolated verses, not just two. Why they made it look as though they were translations of Neander's original we shall perhaps never know. But one wonders whether the NEH editors just copied the EH in pretending that it was all a translation from Neander.

Disposer Supreme

A hymn by Jean Baptiste de Santeuil (1630-97):

Supreme quales arbiter
Tibi ministros eligis,
Tuas opes qui vilibus
Vasis amas committere.

Haec nempe plena lumine
Tu vasa frangi praecipis;
Lux inde magna rumpitur,
Ceu nube scissa fulgura.

Totum per orbem nuntii
Nubes velut citi volant:
Verbo graves, Verbo Deo
Tonant, soruscant, perpluunt.

Christum sonant: versae ruunt
Arces superbae daemonum;
Circum tubis clangentibus
Sic versa quondam moenia.

Fac, Christe, coelestes tubae
Somno graves nos excitent:
Accensa de te lumina
Pellant tenebras mentium.

Uni sit et trino Deo
Supremam laus, summum decus,
De nocte qui nos ad suae,
Lumen vocavit gloriae.

I've copied out the whole of the Latin here, partly because it doesn't seem to be included anywhere on existing web sites that I can discover. And also because the point I want to make about this hymn is that there is a sequence of thought to it.

The first verse, "Disposer supreme and judge of the earth" remarks on the fact that God chooses "frail earthen vessels" as his ministers. "Frail earthen vessels" (vilibus vasis) means unprepossessing pots. That is a reference to us (or rather, to the saints).

The second verse remarks on the fact that these pots soon break. In fact God breaks them, even the ones that are full of light. Tu vasa frangi praecipis: at thy decree they are broken. But out of them bursts a great light, a kind of lightning bolt. That is, on the death of the saints the light that was concealed in the unprepossessing pots bursts forth and fills our world with a new blast of light, like lightning breaking out of a cloud.

The third and fourth verses pick up on this idea and suggest that once it's been released from the unprepossessing pots, the light of the saints becomes God's messengers. These fly round the world thundering the sound of God's word. Christum sonant: they trumpet out Christ, and immediately the devil's citadels fall like the walls of Jericho which fell at the sound of the trumpet.

Verse five asks that Christ should ensure that these heavenly trumpets should wake us from our sleep. And verse six concludes with a doxology, which praises God for calling us out of night to his glory.

Now apart from the fact that the New English Hymnal has (for reasons that are not apparent) re-written the perfectly good translation by Isaac Williams to which we were accustomed, what you might not have noticed is that they have cut out verse 2. You might not have noticed because the sequence of thought has become so disjoined that you'd be forgiven for thinking that there was none, and that trying to work out how verse 3 followed from verse 1 was a wasted effort. Well indeed it would be a wasted effort, because alas without verse 2 it would be impossible to see the connection.

The point is this: verse 1 sees the saints from the outside, their vile pots. Verse 2 explains why God breaks the pots, to let the light out. Verse 3, with its image of lightning blasts and the thundering sound that they make, only makes sense if you know where the lightning blasts have come from and how they connect with the vile pots mentioned in verse 1. And then, once you know why the lightning is sounding like a trumpet, you can understand what the imagery of the fall of Jericho has got to do with it, and also why we ask to be wakened from our sleep by those trumpets.

But without verse 2? Bad case of lost coherence.

O happy day!

Some hymns just get left out of the new hymn books, not always with justice.

There's a hymn set in the English Hymnal for the feast of the Circumcision, which I don't think I've ever sung in Church. Its first line is "O happy day when first was poured..."

The fact that I've never sung it in Church might have something to do with the fact that no one used to go to Church on New Year's Day until the Church got all confused by the so-called Millennium in 2000 (and 2001), at which time the C of E tried to invent some connection between Christianity and the practice of counting of years starting afresh from January. Now I was always brought up as a child strictly to understand that the Church had no interest in secular years, because the new year for the Church was Advent Sunday. And even if we count years of Our Lord, we should surely think that they begin on the day we mark his birthday, no? So I'm not sure why the feast of the circumcision should be the first day of anyone's year. But anyway, that's by the by.

In any case, for whatever reason, at LSM we do make an attempt at a Sung Mass for the feast which they now prefer to call the Naming of Jesus on the 1st of January. Not that the New English Hymnal provides any useful hymns for such a festival. There's a fairly tedious New Year hymn, number 258, written by Timothy Dudley Smith (born 1926, now retired ex Bishop of Thetford) which is set to the Londonderry Air—it goes "O Christ the same through all our story's pages"—a nice idea until you realise that the Londonderry Air has a range of a twelfth, which means that even if it is set in the key of D flat major, your congregation has to negotiate a top F and a bottom B flat. Now when did you last have a large enough congregation on the feast of the circumcision to make that sound really strong and lusty? Fortunately we don't attempt that one, though I remember a previous vicar at another church trying to implement it on the 1st of January in the year 2000.

Besides that hymn, the NEH provides an office hymn for the 1st January, number 153, "O let the heart beat high with praise". I've never sung that either. It has a plainsong tune and an alternative tune, both unknown.

The English Hymnal provided two little known but perfectly nice hymns for New Year, numbers 285 and 286. "Another year is dawning" went to the tune of the Cherry Tree carol and was probably quite fun, and "For thy mercy and thy grace faithful through another year" went to a simple 1657 chorale called Culbach. Both eminently suitable, though I'm quite certain I've never sung either of them in any Church.

But for the feast of the circumcision two wonderful hymns were provided in the English Hymnal. One is a perfectly lovely hymn, originally in Latin (victis sibi cognomina) but translated as "Conquering Kings their titles take" which goes to a merry little tune called Innocents which is also know to our family as the tune for the birthday song "Comes a birthday once a year, happy day, O happy day!" which was sung at the SS Mary and John First School (to which our children went in the 1990s). I could write a Blog entry about Conquering Kings, which, as I say, is an extremely fine hymn. But it's the other one I wanted to mention now.

The other one is "O happy day, when first was poured..." Also originally in Latin (Felix dies quem proprio) this was written by Abbé Sebastian Besnault (the source named by Cyberhymnal, Revised Paris Breviary 1736, can't be the original since Besnault died in 1724). It too, like the other, is translated by J. Chandler. This is how it goes:

O happy day, when first was poured
The blood of our redeeming Lord!
O happy day, when first began
His sufferings for sinful man!

Just entered on this world of woe,
His blood already learned to flow;
His future death was thus expressed,
And thus His early love confessed.

From heaven descending to fulfill
The mandates of His Father’s will,
E’en now behold the victim lie,
The Lamb of God, prepared to die!

Lord, circumcise our hearts, we pray,
Our fleshly natures purge away;
Thy Name, Thy likeness may they bear:
Yea, stamp Thy holy image there!

O Lord, the virgin born, to Thee
Eternal praise and glory be,
Whom with the Father we adore,
And Holy Ghost for evermore.

Well it is a little gruesome perhaps. I suppose it wouldn't seem so bad in Latin, so the mistake was to translate it into the vernacular. But the imagery—the idea that the circumcision is a foretaste of the future suffering, and that the child undergoing circumcision is like the sacrifical lamb on the altar—all that is quite evocative, as is the idea that we might "circumcise" our hearts to purge away fleshly preoccupations.

But the interesting thing to ask is this: why don't we say very much about how gruesome circumcision must have been? Why don't we make much of the fact that Jesus went through it? Why do we talk more about the naming of Jesus than about his circumcision? And why have they eliminated that hymn from the Hymn Books? Are we too squeamish? Or are we too embarrassed? Or what exactly? I sometimes wonder.

For he is our childhood's pattern

In the English Hymnal, in the children's section called At catechism, there is a hymn that begins "Once in Royal David's City...". It's become rather well known as a result of the fact that it's sung at the beginning of the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's on Christmas Eve every year [prompt for another rant, about the fraudulent service put out on TV on Christmas Eve under the description "Carols from King's", but I'll save that for another day, or perhaps another venue].

My rant here is about the hymn in the New English Hymnal, number 34, which pretends to be Mrs C.F. Alexander's hymn "Once in Royal David's City". It only has one dagger, which implies that very little damage has been done to it. But I suggest we take a look at it and you can see what you think. Is it minor damage? Or is it interference of a political nature? My view is that it is politically and theologically motivated bowdlerisation of a rather severe sort.

We should start by noticing that the hymn is no longer prescribed for children. This might be because the NEH doesn't have a section for children. Or it might be because the Editors have got something against recommending hymns as suitable for children, especially when they describe the childhood of Christ in terms that might suggest he was a role model for Christians to aspire to in their youth.

Certainly, Mrs Alexander had chosen that motif as the key theme for her hymn. The point of the central verses of the hymn is that Jesus came to earth in a very lowly and unpretentious form, and that though he came to "Royal David's City" it was not as a royal child that he grew up, but rather as one just like us. And, furthermore, he did not issue the commands but obeyed them: he was mild, loving and obedient. It was, on the one hand a "wondrous childhood" and on the other hand it was one just like ours. Indeed it was wondrous perhaps only in how extremely ordinary it was; how Jesus too grew up loving and watching his mother and doing what she told him to do, even though he was in fact something much greater than that behaviour would suggest. This theme picks up on the idea of kenosis: Christ emptied himself of all that power and superiority, and became as if he were subservient first to his parents and ultimately to those who put him to death. The theme is especially appropriate to the reading of the passage about Jesus staying behind in Jerusalem at the temple (the Gospel reading we had today), which finishes with that oh-so-resonant sentence "And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." (Luke 2:51).

Mrs Alexander combines that motif of kenosis with the idea that the childhood of Christ is also a pattern for us to follow. It is at the same time startling that one who is God and Lord of all should be obedient to his human parents, and also inspiring. For because he was a child like us, we can see how it is possible for us to follow in his footsteps, accepting our limitations and being as sanguine about it as he was. For he is our childhood's pattern. Day by day like us he grew. It is that fact, the fact that he was genuinely human and had to grow up as human children do, that makes him not just a Deus ex machina saviour, but one who shows us the way to become like God ourselves. We do this by learning to model our lives on his from our earliest days.

Those were the themes of Mrs Alexander's excellent and theologically sophisticated hymn.

Unfortunately most of that has been removed or lost in the current version in the New English Hymnal.

Here's what we used to get (two verses following on from "with the poor and mean and lowly, lived on earth our saviour holy"):

And, through all His wondrous childhood,
He would honour and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.

For He is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us He grew;
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us He knew;
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.

And here instead is what we get in the NEH:

And, through all His wondrous childhood,
Day by day, like us He grew;
He was little, weak and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us He knew;
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.

Obedience has gone (so it's not at all clear why we continue to sing this hymn on the Sunday when we get that wonderful reading from Luke about the boy Jesus). So has all the imagery of him loving and admiring his virgin mother: this is a sad loss not only in terms of Christology but also in terms of the theology of our devotion to the Mother of God (for which this idea that we are modelling ourselves on Christ's own childhood devotion to his mother is aetiologically helpful). And we have also lost the motif of Christ's childhood as an archetype of what a Christian childhood might be like.

Instead we get a focus only on the fact that Christ grew up like us and experienced tears and smiles as we do too. These observations were useful in the original context, when what was important was that in emptying himself of his godhead Christ had become weak like us and submitted to human authority.

In the absence of verse 3, however, these thoughts become simply sentimental. The kenotic theology has all but gone. We tend not to see anything here in the bowdlerised version except a soft-centred attempt to domesticate the wonder of the Incarnation. All the tough thoughts have gone (both the tough thoughts about how far the God of heaven had to submit to weaknesses and obligations quite alien to his powerful nature, and the tough thoughts about the necessity of obedience in our own lives, which can sometimes be required even when in theory we might be in a position to know better than those whose authority we are asked to accept, as Christ's example tellingly shows).

Why did they commit this iconoclasm on a hymn that is a classic part of the nation's residual Christian heritage, and which many of us know by heart? Could it be that the editors were afflicted with some kind of ideological anxt? My suspicion is this: that they are very much against the idea that christian children should be told to be mild, obedient or meek. This is not politically correct is it? There are two things that make them afraid to say that. One is that meekness and mildness has a bad press (at least as a message to give to children). We are not allowed to say that because it is supposed to be a Victorian ideal that has been grafted onto a Christian theology that didn't extol the virtues of meekness and mildness. So all whiffs of Victorian values must be cut mustn't they?

Must they? Funnily enough, of course, we are still allowed to see that Jesus told his disciples to put up their swords when he was taken in the Garden, and gave his back to the smiters. As Mrs Alexander shows so deftly, that is all part and parcel of the same obedience with which he returned to Nazareth, and with which he accepted the bitter cup in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is not an easy obedience, nor a comfortable mildness. It is done in the hardest of places and in the hardest of ways. I do not see why our children should not be brought up to respect, to admire, and to try to imitate that open-eyed and sacrificial obedience.

There's another fear as well I think: the second thing that drives the political correction of this hymn. This is the assumption that children will grow up into nice human beings if they are left to be themselves, and should not be told by adults how to behave or what it is to be a Christian. In fact, even adult theology should not be delivered to them, because their innate spirituality will lead them to become more authentic believers if we don't tell them what to think or how to lead their lives.

So (according to that kind of political correctness) we mustn't say that the ideal childhood is one in which children listen to adults and respect their authority. No: children must be left to wander and experiment in the darkness, until by some chance they stumble across the things that make sense of Christianity (the things that it has taken educated Christians twenty centuries of philosophical theology to work out).

Well, we'll see if that's a sound way to build up intelligent believers who can maintain the great traditions of the Church and teach their flocks in the next generation.

Personally, I'd prefer to give the children the resources to engage in intelligent critique from a position of understanding.

And I also think that a degree of obedience and discipline is an enormous advantage (not just in the imitation of Christ, but also for achieving one's potential as a thinker and as a devout believer).

So we shouldn't be so coy about obedience. A child who has no one to respect and obey is a deprived child. Surely Mrs Alexander is right that part of what Jesus did in taking our manhood was to become like a child, and part of being like a child is needing someone to tell you what to do, and then finding sometimes that it is a struggle to obey. Was Gethsemane the first and only time that Jesus found he was obliged to do something that was uncomfortable, and even perhaps not obviously helpful? I think not. In fact, one could start by investigating the story of the wedding at Cana.

Hills of the North Rejoice

The English Hymnal didn't have Charles Edward Oakley's hymn "Hills of the North Rejoice" in it.

Nor does the New English Hymnal have it.

But the New English Hymnal has a kind of fraudulent version that is apt to catch you unawares. There's a hymn in that book that begins "Hills of the North Rejoice" and if you're not on your guard, you'll think you're going to be lucky, when hymn 7 is announced, and that you're going to be treated to those lovely bits about "river and mountain spring", "deep in your coral caves", "lulled be your restless waves", "soon shall your sons be free", and "Shout while ye journey home!".

But look out! Don't let them sell you a counterfeit. The version you'll get if you're in a NEH church won't give you any of that. All those lines have been torn out (and not just those). In fact what you'll get from the NEH is not Oakley's hymn at all, but a kind of low grade pastiche, written by the EDITORS. (According to the book it's based on something by Oakley, and indeed the first line of every verse is plagiarised from Oakley's "Hills of the North", but nothing else remains of that hymn, apart from a very badly distorted version of the last verse).

Let's do a few comparisons:
Verse 1. Here's what we should get:

Hills of the North, rejoice;
River and mountain spring,
Hark to the advent voice;
Valley and lowland, sing;
Though absent long, your Lord is nigh;
He judgment brings and victory.

Here's what we get instead from the EDITORS:

Hills of the North Rejoice
Echoing songs arise,
Hail with united voice
Him who made earth and skies:
He comes in righteousness and love,
He brings salvation from above.

Now why do that? The point of "river and mountain spring" was that it was supposed to be something typical of the northern lands (as the rest of the verses had something typical of the other corners of the compass). Cut that out and the whole point of the hymn is lost. Well, guess what? The editors have cut all those out. So why, I ask you, are we singing about hills of the north and so on? Why?

And here's another puzzle. Why have they cut out the reference to the advent voice? And why have they cut out the reference to the "absent long" and to the judgement? Don't they understand that advent is about the Lord coming in judgement? Why do we substitute righteousness, love and salvation for judgement and victory? Is it that the editors, doubtless themselves inhabitants of these northern hills, don't much fancy having the Lord come in judgement? No, I should think they don't...

Now take a look at verse 2. Here's what it should say:

Isles of the southern seas,
Deep in your coral caves
Pent be each warring breeze,
Lulled be your restless waves:
He comes to reign with boundless sway,
And makes your wastes His great highway.

Here's the Editors' rather sad pastiche in place of verse 2:

Isles of the Southern seas,
Sing to the listening earth,
Carry on every breeze
Hope of a world's new birth:
In Christ shall all be made anew,
His word is sure, his promise true.

Gone are the coral caves. But what does it mean "sing to the listening earth"? What? And what has happened to the idea that Christ at his coming in judgement will still the waves and stop the winds? Wasn't that rather a picturesque and imaginative motif? And notice the loss of that biblical image of making the waste places plain and the highway for the coming of the Lord.

Well, I could go through verse by verse. Let's just observe that Oakley's authentic verses about the East ("on your dark hills, long cold and grey...") and the West ("ye that have waited long, unvisited unblest") get their delicate beauty partly from the neat way in which they sum up something of the history of Christianity and its transmission to lands that had a prior history before the arrival of Christianity. They get their beauty from the combination of that senstivity to the history of these lands, combined with a sense that the Second Coming will be to all, and that all will be gathered into the City of God without prejudice concerning their origin or how late they came to Christianity. All of that is, of course lost, in the new version, and no doubt those features have been deliberately lost, probably because the editors couldn't understand the meaning and thought it expressed a kind of racism.

Yet it wasn't Oakley who was racist. It's the NEH editors. Just take a look at the last verse.

Here's verse 5 in the NEH version:

Shout, as you journey on,
Songs be in every mouth,
Lo, from the North they come,
From East and West and South.
In Jesus all shall find their rest,
In him the sons of earth be blest.

Aside from the sexist language "sons of earth" which was not there in Oakley's original, and the fact that they can't do punctuation, you'll see that in this verse the words are spoken by a third party observer. As we sing this hymn we do not identify with the people coming from the four corners of the earth: rather we stand apart and comment that "they" are coming from funny far away places. And we order them to shout. But we, we are somehow out of it. Superior? People from the ancient lands that got there first? Or what?

Not so in Oakley's. No, for Oakley we belong to a great fellowship of members from all corners of the globe and we are all summoned together into God's kingdom, despite the fact that we were (all of us) so late receiving the gospel. In Oakley's version it is "we" who journey home, not "they", and the you in "shout while ye journey home" is us addressing each other; it is thus "we" who have songs in our mouth, not "you" or "they". We are all arriving together; we are drawn from all corners into Christ's undivided kingdom. "Lo from the North we come, from East and West and South". This is precisely not racist: we are all in it together and we all become free from having been bondsman:

Shout, while ye journey home;
Songs be in every mouth;
Lo, from the North we come,
From East, and West, and South.
City of God, the bond are free,
We come to live and reign in thee!

I have to say that I can't really imagine why this bizarre surgery has been carried out on an innocent hymn, which was very much a favourite with many ordinary sound and upright Christians. But this much is clear: the finished product is not only entirely lacking in the poetic imagery of its superior model, and in any theological significance or content, but has also introduced a quite offensive selection of racist and sexist thinking, that was entirely lacking from its predecessor's rather elegant egalitarianism.

And I should say that although Little St Mary's is a church that generally uses the NEH, we have now resorted to supplying a printed sheet with the real words for "Hills of the North Rejoice", on the relevant Sunday in Advent. There are limits to the rubbish we are prepared to sing. Some day we'll get rid of it all, but this one is so bad we've scrapped it already.

For the real thing, you need only go here: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/h/i/hillsnor.htm

Ye servants of the Lord, each in his office wait

Last week we sang "Ye servants of the Lord". It's number 18, in the advent section of the NEH.

Double dagger, however.

That's because the words which were written by Philip Doddridge in the eighteenth century are no longer presented in their original form.

"Each in his office wait" has been changed to "Each for your master wait". I guess there are two reasons. One is that it sounds as if we all work in an office block and we have to wait in our offices for the Lord to come round and see if we're hard at work at the computer. The other is that "his" changes from meaning "the servant's" (the servant waits in his office) to meaning "the Lord's" (Observant of his heavenly word and watchful at his gate). That's a trifle confusing.

OED definitions of "office": 1 something done toward anyone: a service, kindness, attention (first occurrence 1382); 2 that which one ought or has to do in the way of service; that which is required or expected: (a) duty towards others, moral obligation; (b) duty attaching ot one's position or station (first occurrence 1300); 3 that which is done or is intended to be done by a particular thing; that which anything is fitted to perform or performs customarily (first occurrence 1340); 4 a position or place to which certain duties are attached; a position of trust, authority or service under constituted authority (first occurrence 1250); 5 Ceremonial duty or service (first occurrence 1387); 6 an authorised form of divine worship (first occurrence 1387); 7 an official inquest (first occurrence 1430); 8 a place for the transaction of or public private business, often including the staff (first occurrence 1386, in Chaucer); 9 the kitchen and other domestic parts of the house (first occurrence 1386 in Chaucer), plus three further meanings I won't bore you with.

So it's an old word and the ambiguity goes right back to Chaucer. I take it the supposed problem that leads the editors to interfere is the perceived risk of confusing meaning 4 with meaning 8. But clearly these meanings have always been around, and it's not quite clear why people have become so incapable of reading English and understanding the ambiguity of office just now.

Perhaps because they don't get to sing hymns with real words often enough to ensure that the words stay in comon usage and remain understanded of the people.

Mocked, imprisoned, stoned, tormented, sawn asunder, slain with sword

Ah lovely words, how they capture the true agony and all the gory details of the lives and deaths of the saints we celebrate around this time!

How could anyone think that the hymn "Hark the sound of holy voices" is better without these graphic images? It beats me.

But these are, I am afraid, among the many wonderful things that we have lost in the so-called "progess" of changing to the New English Hymnal.

Here's what we used to sing:

They have come from tribulation and have washed their robes in blood,
Washed them in the blood of Jesus; tried they were, and firm they stood;
Mocked, imprisoned, stoned, tormented, sawn asunder, slain with sword,
They have conquered death and Satan by the might of Christ the Lord.

Marching with thy Cross their banner, they have triumphed following
Thee, the captain of salvation, thee, their Saviour and their King;
Gladly, Lord, with thee they suffered; gladly, Lord, with thee they died,
And by death to life immortal they were born and glorified.

Fine words, written by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), author of Songs of Thankfulness and praise, and Gracious Spirit Holy Ghost among others. They're important words too. Partly they are important because they remind us that being a saint is not all fun, and that it requires a certain degree of courage and, indeed, determination. But also important poetically and for the sense because, look, "Gladly Lord with thee they suffered, gladly, Lord, with thee they died" is meant to alert us to the fact that despite the terrible sufferings and terrifying kinds of death they endured (about which we have just sung in the previous verse) nevertheless they were, in a curious way, doing so gladly, and that was because they did it "with thee", following the banner of Christ who had suffered just such a gruesome and terrifying death and thus provided the leadership. But really, we lose the sense of how miraculous this is, how it constitutes a triumph, if we don't actually mention the terrible things they were afflicted with.

For we don't really mention them—not so as to conjure up what they were really like—in the New English Hymnal. That's because we sing this (with four lines missing, two from verse 3 and two from verse 4):

They have come from tribulation and have washed their robes in blood,
Washed them in the blood of Jesus; tried they were, and firm they stood;

Gladly, Lord, with thee they suffered; gladly, Lord, with thee they died,
And by death to life immortal they were born and glorified.

We don't mention the details because they are too gruesome? We want our saints cleaned up? We'd rather not remember how the Church was built upon the blood of the martyrs? And, presumably, we don't like the military imagery of "marching with thy cross their banner". (Let's throw out all the traditional imagery shall we? rid Christianity of all its fervour and imagination....? and then wonder why the pews are empty and everyone is going to the evangelical churches where fervour and commitment is allowed?)

And anyway, even if those lines were not vital to the sense, what is this Hymnal doing eliminating all the most entertaining bits of poetry, that bring a smile of wonder to the face as one sings? I mean could anyone in the world beat that magnificent line "Mocked, imprisoned, stoned, tormented, sawn asunder, slain with sword"? If we never get to sing that any more, won't we have lost one of the greatest bits of tragi-comedy in the hymn book?

The hornèd moon to shine by night

Today was what passes for Harvest Thanksgiving at Little St Mary's. Thankfully not too much of it.

We did sing some of those jolly hymns about how we plough the fields and scatter the seed (singing this hymn is the nearest I've ever got to actually ploughing any fields, and I don't suppose many of the rest of the congregation do these things very often either, but I'm sure the 'we' there is collective for the human race in general and how we as a race gather our food by toiling on the land).

One of those hymns that belongs to this season of praise and thanksgiving is "Let us with a gladsome mind, praise the Lord for he is kind".

There's a verse in that hymn (which is by John Milton, yes I mean the real one) which goes

"The hornèd moon to shine by night, Mid her spangled sisters bright."

The expression "to shine" follows on from the previous verse where we were told "He the golden-tressed sun caused all day his course to run." So we understand that (He caused) the horned moon to shine by night, as he caused the sun to run his course by day.

Unfortunately the editors of the NEH didn't like Milton's poetry. They have tried to improve it.
Here is what they have decided to offer for verse 5:

And the hornèd moon by night
Mid her spangled sisters bright.

Well, you know why they did that... because they thought they needed to "make a minor adjustment to secure a better musical accentuation." In other words we used to have to squeeze in an extra quaver before the first beat of the first bar for the word "the" on that verse, so as to sing 'horn' on the first crotchet. A feat we all learned quite early in life, as I recall. No great effort.

Well, you might say. Perhaps there is a virtue in a line that fits the rhythm of the music? Well no. Not if it is gibberish and ungrammatical. Just take a look at that verse they've constructed. It has no verb. Not only does it have no subject, but it has no verb either. Now the subject can be supplied from the verse before; it is "He", namely God. And we also supply a verb, namely "caused" from the previous verse. But now what did he cause the moon to do? That is no longer specified (according to Milton she was to shine, but according to these editors, what is she to do?). Well, what is she to do? I ask you.

Perhaps we are to supply yet another verb from the previous verse? If so, then what she is to do is to run her course (by night, as the sun ran his by day). But now we have lost the essence of this beautiful motif of the horned moon shining amidst her spangled sisters the stars. For the motif is not supposed to be of running a course, but of giving out light. And even if it did mean run her course, it's ungrammatical without supplying "her course", because you can't supply "his course" and not change the gender for the female moon.

Bad grammar and an acute loss of pictorial imagery. No no no.... Just don't do it, see?

Milton, he wrote poetry. Editors, you write rubbish. Got it?

Thus conspire we to adore him

Friday was Michaelmas day. At the sung mass we had a number of wonderful angelic hymns, lots of my favourites.

Among them was NEH 343, Bright the Vision that Delighted.

This hymn is by Richard Mant (or at least it once was). The NEH hasn't put a dagger on it, but it's not as it should be.

The problem is in verse 5. Here's what it should say:

With his seraph train before him,
With his holy Church below,
Thus conspire we to adore him,
Bid we thus our anthem flow:

It is interesting that the vicar preached that evening about 'conspiracy' and the meaning of the word 'conspire' (along with some other words about doing things together). He pointed out that to conspire is to breathe together and to be inspired together, and that we can be in a holy conspiracy in this sense.

It's almost as if he was preaching about the words we'd just sung in this hymn. Only, funnily enough we hadn't just sung them (except those of us who insist on singing the right words regardless of what's written in the hymn book).

No, funnily enough we'd sung this trite and awkward drivel:

With his seraph train before him,
With his holy Church below,
Thus unite we to adore him,
Bid we thus our anthem flow:

Too bad. Don't you think?