Crux fidelis
The last three stanzas of the 'Pange lingua' seem to me particularly fine,
with an astonishing range of sometimes daring imagery and some very subtle
biblical allusion. See if you agree.
Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis,
nulla talem silva profert flore, fronde, germine,
dulce lignum dulce clavo dulce pondus sustinens.
Neale's translation:
Faithful Cross! above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peer may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.
This is a pretty close translation, but if we want to be yet more literal:
Faithful cross, among all the one noble tree,
No forest produces the like in flower, in foliage, in bud,
Sweet tree with sweet nail, bearing sweet weight.
'germen', a bud or shoot, means literally an embryo, an unborn child. There
is just a suggestion of the cross giving birth to Christ, of being in a
sense his mother. This suggestion will be made much more explicit in the
next stanza.
The cross, the tree of life, is not explicitly compared with the tree in the
Garden of Eden, but such a comparison has already been made in stanza two,
with its mention of poisonous fruit. Christ is the sweet fruit borne on the
tree of the cross. The cross is several times referred to as a tree in the
New Testament, and these references set up the train of thought which leads
to comparison with the tree in Eden: Acts 5:30 and 10:39, 'suspendentes in
ligno', 13:29, 'deponentes eum de ligno', Galatians 3:13, 'Maledictus omnis
qui pendet in ligno', 2 Peter 2:24, 'in corpore suo super lignum'.
There's an interesting one at Revelation 2:7, 'Vincenti dabo edere de ligno
vitae, quod est in paradiso Dei mei.' - To the victor I shall give to eat
of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of my God. I don't have a
Glossa Ordinaria to hand, but if I were a medieval commentator I should
certainly expound this as referring to the Eucharist, Christ's body being
the fruit of the tree of life. Do any of you cyberfolk have medieval
commentaries to hand?
Coincidentally, I'm reading Richard Fletcher's 'The Conversion of Europe' at
the moment, and just now I came across the statement (p.138) 'Venantius
Fortunatus composed two of the most magnificent hymns ever written, Vexilla
Regis and Pange Lingua.' I must say I entirely agree with this judgement.
The supple doctor.
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