Help Help!
It is late at night, I am way behind on getting this Readings Book done
(a year?), and I can't seem to write an intelligible blurb to preface a section
on one of the 7 great hymns. I need a short intro for undergrads who know
nothing of Latin or music, but who will now have the opportunity to read Veni
Sancte Spiritus in Latin with a parallel literal English translation. But as a
historian (of the early Middle Ages) who has more love for Latin hymns than
knowledge of them, I can't quite figure out what wonderful things to say about
them. I want them to see how the Latin works (but is my explanation of inflected
languages intelligible?), and to understand just how famous these hymns become
(like who are all the great composers who have set Veni Sance Spiritus to
music?). Most of all, I don't have the resources at hand here in my office that
would help me, filled as it is with medieval history and Anglo-Saxon stuff.
So...what follows is a ROUGH DRAFT (ie, I just wrote it...) of my intro which
sounds exceedingly blah and flat to me. Any helpful hints from liturgists,
musicologists, Latinists...? Thanks in advance.
[Note: the title of this book is _Tradition and Diversity: European Christianity
in a World Context to 1500_, and yes, it is way too long already).
[BTW: an earlier chapter has one of Hildegard's songs, so this is not the first
instance of Latin lyric in the book].
Music played a central role in the services of the church. The
Divine Office of the monks was chanted and sung, with the Psalms
as a central component. The mass and other liturgical services
included chants, antiphons, as well as lyrics especially written
for the services. Of the many hymns written in the medieval
period, a group of seven are considered classics. One of the
seven great hymns is reprinted below, with a literal translation.
All of these hymns were composed in Latin. Latin, like Greek, is
an inflected language: it uses endings on words to indicate
grammatical function (subject, direct object, indirect object)
rather than position in the sentence, as with modern English (Man
bites dog? or Dog bites man? It makes a big difference where you
put the words). Consequently, Latin sentences are leaner and can
get by with less helper words (such as "by" and "with"). Latin
poetry then has a clean simplicity in its appearance, in which
each word bears a great deal of weight and often multiple
meanings. The structure of the sentences are
aesthetically satisfying and can serve to enhance meaning.
Although no translation does justice to another language, it is
possible to examine the original side-by-side with a literal
translation and see how the poetry works. No effort has been made
in the translation on the right to invent English rhyming or
meter. To hear the patterning of this poem, read the Latin on the
left side. This hymn, and the other classic hymns, are also available
in innumerable versions by later composers, including....
Karen Jolly
History
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
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