--- Eugene Clasby <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Oriens:
>
> I know you will know this, since as a lurker on med-rel list I know
> you
> know almost everything: I need a translation of this hymn. It appears
> at
> the end of
> Puccini's La Suor Angelica, sung by "gli angeli" who are celebrating
> the
> Virgin's rescue of Angelica from damnation. (She has taken poison
> herbs
> in despair at hearing the news from her wicked aunt that her
> illegitimate son died two years ago and noone had told her.) Anyway
> it's
> a pretty stunning ending (melodramatic, of course, but still
> stunning.)
> I want to play it for my humanities class and I want to have
> something
> better for a translation than what my rusty Latin can piece together.
> Here is the text:
>
> O gloriosa virginum
> Sublimis inter sidera,
> Qui te creavit, parvulum,
> Lactente nutris ubere.
> Quod Heva tristis abstulit
> Tu reddis almo germine.
> Intrent ut astra flebiles,
> Coeli recludis cardines.
>
> I'm not sure of some of this: it's from a CD liner (Intrent?
> flebiles?)
> I know it's in the alma redemptoris mater family, but anything you
> can
> tell me about it will be most welcome. Thanks very much.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Gene Clasby
> University of Miami
I suspect what you have here is a corrupt text of the hymn 'O gloriosa
Femina', which is the office hymn at Matins for feasts of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. I do not have the correct Latin text to hand, but here is
the translation by Percy Dearmer which is printed as Hymn 215 in 'The
English Hymnal':
O glorious Maid, exalted far Beyond the light of burning star,
>From him who made thee thou hast won Grace to be Mother of his son.
That which was lost in hapless Eve Thy holy Scion did retrieve:
The tear-worn sons of Adam's race Through thee have seen the
heavenly place.
Thou wast the gate of heaven's high Lord, The door through which the
light hath poured. Christians rejoice, for through a Maid To all
mankind is life conveyed.
All honour, laud, and glory be, O Jesu, Virgin-born to thee;
All glory, as is ever meet To Father and to Paraclete.
I shall copy this to the list, in the hope that Fr Anselm or St An
Metheny will supply the correct text from their breviaries.
Oriens.
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