On Wed, 18 Feb 1998 10:24:51 GMT, Mark Harris wrote:
>Subject: Gallo canente...
>
>>On Tuesday Feb 17 Bill East wrote:
>>
>>Gallo canente spes redit, With the cock-crow hope returns,
>>aegris salus refunditur, health is restored to the sick,
>>mucro latronis conditur, a sword is fashioned for the robber
>>lapsis fides revertitur. faith returns to the lapsed
>
>Am I alone in finding this verse a little puzzling? At first sight
>one can read "cock-crow" as a synonym for "every day": these things
>(both good and evil) happen to someone, somewhere, every day.
Not the writer's viewpoint though. Now moving beyond the allusions to
Peter already noted, the cock is symbolic of both the resurrection
(daybreak is always liturgically linked with the coming again of Christ
the sun, the dayspring, etc.) and also of the preacher, whose words
rouse (et corrigunt) the sinful (lapsis, labantes) the way the cock
awaken the sleeping. And because of the resurrection and its
proclamation (kerygma) by the preacher, spes redit.
>Yet the hymn-writer also seems to be saying that these things happen
>*specifically* at daybreak. Is he saying, then, that faith and hope
>desert us while we sleep, and that we take them up again when we
>awake and see daylight again?
Lapsis = those who have fallen asleep and those who have fallen into sin
(for the writer, that includes all humans). When we are asleep we can't
practice faith and hope (virtues we must practice as well as gifts of
grace) and these must be given to us anew each waking day. Prayers for a
re-newal of faith and hope, as well as for an ability to improve our
practice of them, are common at Lauds.
>What about robbers? Wouldn't we expect them to be active by night
>and to fear the coming of the dawn? I can't read the word "latro"
>without recalling the phrase (?from Seneca), "ut iugulent hominem
>surgent de nocte latrones" ("robbers rise by night that they might
>kill a man"). If they were highwaymen, perhaps that'd put a
>different complexion on it....
Here you are on track. The translation might better read, "the robber's
sword is put away," or, in WJ Copeland's classic English version, "The
robber sheathes his lawless sword." [Of course, it is really put away
for some future use, so we will need to pray Compline fervently as we
prepare for another night of dangerous prowling.]
Hope this helps your confusion and does not add to it.
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