What is it about Latin hymns that is so attractive, indeed addictive? I think it is at least in part the majestic tramp of the trochaic tetrameter, that so suits the sculptured Latin language. Most of them are in medieval Latin, which makes them easier for us to understand as it has a simpler syntax that is closer to European vernaculars.
Reading volume V of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s astonishing The Glory of the Lord, I came upon a chapter dealing with “Holy Fools” – and there was the seriously weird Jacopone da Todi (†1303), a Franciscan brother who was reputed mad and wrote fine poetry. He had been a lawyer, and when his wife was killed by the collapse of a theatre stand, he discovered on her body that she had been wearing a penitential hair shirt or cilice. This shocked him into a serious devotion that also gave him strange visions; obedient to one of these he was seen crawling around Todi’s main square on all fours, wearing a saddle, while on another occasion he turned up at a wedding in his brother’s house tarred and feathered from top to toe. He eventually became a Franciscan friar of the strictest sort, a mystic and a poet who wrote one of Christianity’s most famous hymns, the Stabat Mater.
It is a meditation on Mary the mother of Christ, standing at the foot of the Cross on which her son is dying a hideous death. In the true manner of meditation, the poet imagines: he imagines her feelings in this frightful moment, the feelings of any human mother who not only has her child die, but sees him undergoing the truly shocking horror of a crucifixion before her eyes; the whole exacerbated and made still more pungent by the paradox that he who is undergoing this is the Son of God, is God Himself. This imagination is developed for 10 3-line stanzas; then, for the second half of the hymn, the poet places himself beside her and begs her, the model for all the faithful, by her intercession to procure for him participation in Jesus’ suffering: that he may suffer the same pain, bear the same wounds, feel the same near-despair; and that through this he may, at the Last Judgement, be allowed to join his Lord in paradise.
Read with what von Balthasar would call the eye of faith, it is a searingly moving and beautiful work. The tension between the love and horror on the one hand, and the stately measure (in every sense) of the Latin on the other, makes it as disciplined and monumental as liturgy; as such it has been set to music by many great composers. Nevertheless, to me the finest vocal version is the simple Gregorian, chanted here by Benedictine monks. Below I give the Latin with my own translation. If your Latin is not all you would wish it to be, read the translation, and then the Latin, aloud for the rhythm and authority.
1. Stabat mater dolorosa
juxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.
2. Cuius animam gementem,
contristantem et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.
3. O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta,
mater Unigeniti!
4. Quae mœrebat et dolebat,
pia Mater, dum videbat
nati pœnas inclyti.
5. Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?
6. Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?
7. Pro peccatis suæ gentis
vidit Jesum in tormentis,
et flagellis subditum.
8. Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.
9. Eja, Mater, fons amoris
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam.
10. Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
in amando Christum Deum
ut sibi complaceam.
11. Sancta Mater, istud agas,
crucifixi fige plagas
cordi meo valide.
12. Tui Nati vulnerati,
tam dignati pro me pati,
pœnas mecum divide.
13. Fac me tecum pie flere,
crucifixo condolere,
donec ego vixero.
14. Juxta Crucem tecum stare,
et me tibi sociare
in planctu desidero.
15. Virgo virginum præclara,
mihi iam non sis amara,
fac me tecum plangere.
16. Fac ut portem Christi mortem,
passionis fac consortem,
et plagas recolere.
17. Fac me plagis vulnerari,
fac me Cruce inebriari,
et cruore Filii.
18. Flammis ne urar succensus,
per te, Virgo, sim defensus
in die iudicii.
19. Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
da per Matrem me venire
ad palmam victoriæ.
20. Quando corpus morietur,
fac, ut animæ donetur
paradisi gloria.
Amen.[9]
There the mother, full of sorrow,
stood beside the Cross-tree weeping
as her Son upon it hung.
Through her soul in sadness sighing,
Sympathetically dying,
Struck and pierced a killing sword.
O how sad and sore afflicted
was that dear and blessed woman,
mother of the Only Son!
How she grieved and sorrowed inly,
Mother reverent, as she witnessed
tortured there her glorious son.
Is there man who’d not be weeping
if he saw Christ’s loving mother
in such pain and suffering?
Who could not with her feel sorrow
as he saw Christ’s holy Mother
grieving with her ravaged Son?
For the sins of all her people
saw she Jesus in his torment
helpless under lashing whip.
There she saw her dearest firstborn
dying and of all abandoned
and at last give up the ghost.
Ah, dear Mother, love’s own wellspring,
make me feel the force of sorrow
that I too may mourn with thee.
Make my heart burn brightly, flaming
in the love of Christ the Saviour,
that he may be pleased with me.
Holy Mother, do this for me,
of the crucified the lesions
print upon my living heart.
Let me share with thee the anguish
of thy Son who in his mercy
deigned to suffer this for me.
Let me join with thee in weeping
grieving for the one there hanging
for as long as I may live.
Stand beside the Cross together
you and I, this now I ask for,
Closely joined in this our grief.
Virgin high above all virgins,
do not now refuse, I beg thee,
let me weep along with thee.
Let me bear Christ’s death within me,
be the consort of His passion,
and His wounds in me receive.
Let me with his wounds be wounded,
with the Cross inebriated,
drunken with the Son’s dear blood.
Lest I burn with flames eternal,
let me by thee be defended,
Lady, in the Judgement Day.
Christ, when comes my day of parting,
through thy Mother grant me access
to the palm of victory.
When the body falls to dying
let my soul receive the glory
of thy Father’s paradise.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment