My God I love thee

There is a hymn that begins "My God I love thee not because" which has always been something of a source of amusement, because so far as the words themselves go, you can't exactly tell, by the end of the first line, whether you are about to explain to God what exactly is the reason why you don't love him, or what exactly is not the reason why you love him. Indeed the text remains unclear about which is your intention, even when you've added that it is because you hope for heaven thereby—obviously we all know that it would be odd to not love him because that way you hope to get to heaven, so we can make sense of the hymn by bringing our own knowledge to the interpretation. But the words themselves, in the translation we are accustomed to, do not manage to get the sense clear.

There is nothing to choose between the NEH and the EH as regards authenticity of the words of this hymn. Both give the same words and attribute them to Edward Caswall (1506-1552), as a translation of a Latin original beginning "O Deus ego amo te".

1. O Deus, ego amo te,
   Nec amo te, ut salves me,
   Aut, quia non amantes te
   Æterno punis igne.
2. Tu, tu, mi Jesu, totum me
   Amplexus es in cruce;
   Tuliste clavos, lanceam,
   Multamque ignominiam,
3. Innumeros dolores,
   Sudores, et angores,
   Et mortem, et hæc propter me,
   Ac pro me peccatore.
4. Cur igitur non amem te,
   O Jesu amantissime,
   Non, ut in cœlo salves me,
   Aut ne æternum damnes me,
5. Nec præmii ullius spe;
   Sed sicut tu amasti me?
   Sic amo et amabo te,
   Solum quia Rex meus es,
   Et solum, quia Deus es.

Notice that the Latin has the advantage of indicating that the singer declares that he/she does love God, and does not add "not because" in the first line. In English, because "God" and "I" and "love" are monosyllabic in English, you can't complete the line in the same metre by just saying "O God I love thee".

My interest in this hymn is two fold. First it has an interesting history: the Latin is not the original but is a translation of a Spanish original beginning "No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte" (and notice that this line does exactly what the English version does, and starts by saying that I am not moved to love God...)

The author of the Spanish original is not known, but is thought to be St Francis Xavier, who is also credited with the Latin translation, though it seems very doubtful that the Latin is actually by him. Several Latin versions are known (see the account in the Catholic Encyclopedia) starting with one  by Joannes Nadasi in his "Pretiosæ occupationes morientium" (Rome, 1657) which follows the Spanish by beginning "Non me movet, Domine, ad amandum te". The one that begins "O Deus ego amo te" is of unknown authorship and appeared in "Cœleste Palmetum" (Cologne, 1696).

What about Caswall's English translation? I am unsure what the last line of the first verse should be. EH and NEH both make us sing "are lost eternally". This is all very well (a nicely delicate way of describing the fate of those who don't love God) but the rhyme between "eternally in line 4, and "thereby" in line two is not great.

Oremus Hymnal agrees with EH and co. The Nethymnal (aka Cyberhymnal) gives "may eternally die" which rhymes with "thereby" but doesn't scan. This seems implausible.

The Catholic Cornucopia (along with a few other sources I've checked) gives "must burn eternally" which appears to be closer to the Latin, and plausibly what Caswall wrote, though it still suffers from the half rhyme. I can imagine that some editors thought "lost" was a more comfortable phrasing for modern sensibilities. My guess would be that Caswall wrote that, and that it's been altered due to the fashions of theological squeamishness, because we don't much dwell these days on the hell fires that are supposed to torment those who are "lost eternally".

Conquering Kings their titles take

A year ago I promised that I would one day write a bit about "Conquering Kings their Titles Take" which is one of the two hymns for the circumcision/naming of Jesus that is missing from the New English Hymnal. Today seems a suitable day to do so (since I did the other one last year).

Here's how it goes in the Latin (Anonymous Latin of the eighteenth century, from the Paris Breviary of 1736, now easily found in the Penguin Book of Latin Verse, ed. Frederick Brittain, page 345) and, in parallel, the English translation by John Chandler which is number 37 in the English Hymnal:

Victis sibi cognomina Sumant tyranni gentibus; Tu, Christe, quanto dignius Ab his capis quos liberas.	Conquering kings their titles take, From the lands they captive make; Jesu, thine was given thee For a world thou madest free.
Non alterum mortalibus Aegris quod invocent datum Resurgerent quo mortui, Perenne per quod viverent.	Not another name is given Power possessing under heaven, Strong to call dead souls to rise And exalt them to the skies.
Tanti quod illi constitit, Toto quod emptum sanguine, Nostrone rursum crimine Insana gens delebimus?	That which Christ so hardly wrought, That which he so dearly bought, That salvation, mortals say, Will ye madly cast away?
Sacro pati pro nomine Summi sit instar muneris: Amara non mors amplius, Fit mors per hoc amabilis.	Rather gladly for that Name Bear the Cross, endure the shame; Joyfully for Him to die Is not death but victory.
Tu, qui vocari sustines, Jesu, salus mortalium, Audi vocantes nos, tuo Qui gloriamur nomine.	Jesu, if thou condescend To be called the sinner's Friend, Ours the joy and glory be Thus to make our boast of thee.
Qui natus es de Virgine, Jesu, tibi sit gloria, Cum Patre, cumque Spiritu, In sempiterna saecula.	Glory to the Father be, Glory, Virgin-born, to thee, Glory to the Holy Ghost, Ever from the heavenly host.

I don't want to say much about it since it stands very well on its own. But I would like to observe that there seems to be a great deal of sound theology there. The motif of being given a name, because of the power that one holds, is a good one. The idea that mortal kings try to exercise their power by enslaving others is nicely contrasted with Jesus who exercises his power by setting the enslaved people free, and earning his title for that act.
This is then developed in the idea that in fact there is only one name that carries any power so the supposedly powerful names given to earthly kings are in fact not powerful names at all. There is no other name that possesses power. But we invoke the power of Jesus's name and it does indeed have an effect. This is so powerful that it can effect the resurrection of the dead.

Why have the editors of the New English Hymnal chosen to cut this splendid hymn, and its lovely tune "Innocents", out of the Hymn book? Well one can look for evidence of ideological censorship. In this case, I suppose it may be one of those cases where the hymn is condemned because it appears to indicate that we go happily to death for Christ's sake. You'll see that, in verse 4, we say "Joyfully for him to die is not death but victory". Now you might think that it was clear that this was not a death wish, but rather a denial that death is death, an affirmation that it is a way to life. But still, the thought is vaguely reminiscent of the one in Children of the Heavenly King, where we used to say "Lord obediently we go, gladly leaving all below". And, as we noticed with that hymn, it seems that such sentiments were eliminated by the twentieth century thought police, who wanted to clean up the Church of England of any hint of other-worldliness or enthusiasm for death.

So I fear that this wonderful Latin hymn and its gorgeous English counterpart (did you notice how neatly the English translation tracks the Latin sentiments?) has been eliminated not just because the editors didn't recognise its merits, but perhaps because they were afraid of its sentiments. They couldn't stomach it, perhaps?

PS I should add here the comment relating to this hymn supplied this time last year by Tiger. He reported this: Apparently the only spoonerism that Spooner himself admitted was to announce this hymn in New College Chapel as "Kinquering kongs their tikles tate".

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....

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."

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"?

What is rigid gently bend

Yet another preacher after my own heart!

Today we had a sermon from the Revd Canon Donald Gray (Canon Emeritus of Westminster and former Speaker's Chaplain).

It being Whitsun we'd been singing the Whitsun hymns, including Veni Sancte Spiritus, aka the Golden Sequence, which appears in the New English Hymnal at 139 and also at 520 where it has its proper plainsong tune (pity we didn't sing that if you ask me).

But to get to the point.

Canon Gray observed that the New English Hymnal has (alas) substituted for J.M. Neale's much loved translation (familiarly known by its first line "Come thou Holy Paraclete"), a translation said to be by J.M. Neale and EDITORS. Bad news, that "and EDITORS" you might say, and indeed Canon Gray was lamenting parts of J.M. Neale's translation that have gone missing, lost in a quagmire of editorial "improvements" in verse 4. Since I'd just been contemplating (during the first hymn) writing on the loss of J.M. Neale's verse 4 in this blog this afternoon (as indeed, here I am doing so), my heart warmed to Canon Gray at once.

Here's what he was lamenting. The first three lines of verse 4 used to go like this in the English Hymnal:

What is soilèd, make thou pure;
What is wounded, work its cure;
What is parchèd fructify.

It was the word 'fructify' in particular that seemed to Canon Gray so rich, and so evocative, and not adequately captured in the new version ("bring to life the arid soul") that has been substituted in the NEH. The sermon was, effectively, on how important it is that we be fructified by the Holy Spirit when parched.

But let's look a little more closely at what's happened here.

Here's what the Latin says:

Lava quod est sordidum,
riga quod est aridum,
sana quod est saucium

Literally: "wash what is dirty, irrigate what is dry, heal what is wounded" The rhythm of the short lines with "quod est" in each of them is captured by Neale in the repeated structure "what is ... " which is an exact translation of the phrases. The original Latin leaves open what these items that are dirty, dry or wounded might be. Our imagination can, of course, easily supply possible examples, but I assume that the Holy Spirit is free to apply this treatment to anything and everything that fits the description "what is dirty, what is dry, what is wounded."

Getting rid of the heavy handed repetition of "what is ..." at the beginning of Neale's lines may seem initially attractive. But it does not make for an accurate nor a memorable series of thoughts. For one thing, the NEH editors have seen fit to specify what items the Spirit is to apply his attentions to:

Sinful hearts (not what is dirty) do thou make whole (not clean)
Bring to life (not water) the arid soul (not what is dry)

And (later, postponed to the end of the verse)

Wounded souls (not what is wounded) their hurt allay (not heal).

So instead of a general prayer to the Holy Spirit to treat whatever can respond to these treatments, we now identify that the items are sinful hearts, arid souls, wounded souls. Does this matter? Well, yes, first because it's prosaic, pedantic, boring and dull. And also because it prescribes thoughts, rather than inviting them. The original left us to think theologically and to see applications in all aspects of our lives.

The Golden Sequence comes in sets of three lines. There are three more lines that have gone into verse 4 in the English version. Here they are in Latin:

Flecte quod est rigidum,
fove quod est frigidum,
rege quod est devium.

Literally, "Bend what is rigid, warm what is cold, correct what is wayward."

J.M. Neale continued his rather heavyhanded lines that begin with the "what is..." phrase as follows for these lines:

What is rigid gently bend;
what is frozen warmly tend;
Straighten what goes erringly.

Now it has to be said that these lines have been a source of much mirth in their day. Many a Pentecost have I seen the King's Choral Scholars crippled with the giggles, even though Neale did not, as he might have done, choose to write "what is frigid warmly tend". But still, I do feel that the substitute in the NEH is not really fit for the job. Here it is:

Make the stubborn heart unbend,
To the faint, new hope extend,

And (going back to the middle line of the verse, because they've done them out of order)

Guide the feet that go astray.

Once again, the editors have seen fit to specify what the object to be treated by the Spirit is: the stubborn heart (for "what is rigid"), the faint, presumably faint people (for what is cold, but why and how is faint a good translation for cold?), and the feet that go astray (for what is wayward).

But "feet"?

Why "feet"?

It's not literally feet that the Spirit is interested in, surely? I mean we're not talking about redirecting us when we've taken a wrong turning on the roads. We're talking about redirecting us when we've taken a wrong turning in life. But it's not our feet that do that, is it? What is it? Wouldn't it be better not to try to cash out the metaphor? Wouldn't it be better to leave the work to the imaginiation?

I presume we couldn't have hearts or souls again because we'd already had those twice each in the wretched new translation, so for the sake of variatio they chose "feet" as the kind of thing that could go astray?

And now again,

Why did they transpose the third and sixth lines of the verse?

I'm mystified.

Since the two lines rhyme with each other and make perfectly good sense in their proper position, this seem a completely random and unmotivated decision. Why? I don't know why.

This week's competition:

Rewrite J.M. Neale's lines for verse 4 in such a way as to avoid using "what is..." as the first words of each line, avoiding the awkward invertion of object and verb, and avoiding the artificial articulation of -éd on past tenses that are normally pronounced as one syllable.
Do that without stipulating what the items that are to be treated are.

The prize: glory everlasting.

PANGE LINGUA

Ian Robins observed to me today that the New English Hymnal has a mistake in the Latin at the headings of both the Pange Lingua hymns.

That is

Hymn 78 (Sing my tongue the glorious battle) is headed pangue lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis


and

hymn 268 (Of the glorious body telling) is headed pangue lingua gloriosi corporis mysterium.

Since when was the verb pangere (to compose or write verses) written with a u? Or since when was its second person imperative form written with a u? I am not aware of any verb that has such a form.

The title of the tune is correctly written PANGE LINGUA in both cases.

Does any detective have a way of discovering how this new corruption arrived in the NEH?