Multiple versions of a majority of Office hymns exist. To oversimplify a
long and complex history, those that appear in the Roman Breviary have at
least two because of changes made when the Breviary was edited in the wake
of the Council of Trent. Urban VIII (1623-44) made more changes. (v. the
article "Breviary" in the _Catholic Encyclopedia_ for a very brief synopsis
of the history http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02768b.htm)
In the most recent reforms in 1972 and 1985 the so-called 'medieval' or
'monastic'* versions of the hymns were restored. I am not anywhere near a
library to do the consulting today, but it would be probable that the
differences in your 'most common version' and Durant would be due to the
differing texts in the then current _BR_ and the most common 'medieval' (or
'monastic') version.
IIRC, Bill East led a discussion of Office hymns that referenced _Ut
queant laxis_ on this list within the last couple of years. You may wish to
have a look at the archives to see if that is correct.
[*So called because the monastic orders continued to use their earlier
versions of the Office hymns even after the changes to the ones that
appeared in the _BR_.]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher M. Mislow" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Medieval Religion List" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 9:22 AM
Subject: Hymn to St. John Baptist
> I have two questions concerning the medieval hymn to St. John Baptist from
> which Guido of Arezzo is credited (ca. 1040) with having developed the
> musical DO-RE-MI, etc. musical notation from the first syllable of each
> hemistich ("ut" became "DO"; "RE" from "resonare"; "MI" from "mira"; and
so
> on). My two questions are these:
>
> First, I have found two versions. The most common is
>
> Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
> Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
> Solve polluti labii reatum,
> Sancte Ioannes.
>
> However, in "The Age of Faith" (Simon & Schuster 1950) by Will Durant, at
> p. 898, there appears a version where the last word in line 1 ("fibris")
is
> rendered instead "floris." Is this a typographical error or do two
> versions exist?
>
> Second, can anyone steer me to (or provide) a faithful and fairly literal
> translation into English? Alas, more than three decades of desuetude have
> rendered my Latin less than serviceable. I can reconstruct most of the
> text -- with Latin dictionary in hand -- from which the overall sense is
> evident, but holes remain. (I have seen a few translations, but these
> translations, in an apparent effort to capture the spirit and convey the
> flavor of the original, have taken unjustified liberties with the actual
> text.)
>
> Thank-you in advance.
>
> --Christopher
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