Here's my ten minute take:

I'm assuming you mean using the exact English text you gave above. If adjustments were allowed (like starting it "O Lord my God") I might have done things differently.

My rationale is basically as follows:
Identify how the English text divides into phrases and the phrases in the original melody, and assign text to phrases accordingly. For each phrase, try to line up the text with melody so that the emphasis of the text lines up with the emphasis of the melody as much as possible. Expand or truncate melody in each phrase to fit text. Sing it and see what parts sound bad and if I can think of any alternatives, revise accordingly.

For the record, I think English chant is a bad idea. But whatever floats your boat, especially if it's just for personal devotion. It's a fun little exercise if nothing else.

[off topic?] I don't see sufficient similarity of structure, quantity and rhythm. I wouldn't adapt.

My little tirade out of the way, here are two versions; the only difference is the second line, where one version feels (to me) a little more natural in english, whereas the other is more faithful to the original neume groupings in the gregorian model:

English Emphasis:


Gregorian neume grouping:

@gneus
Is the Vulgate the inerrant Word of God? Asking for a friend.

Thanks to all who have contributed.

As promised, here is my own adaptation from several years ago:


On the off-topic topic of how the translation matches, the antiphon as it appears in the Latin Liturgia Horarum is "In die clamávi et nocte coram te, Dómine." With no antiphon melody in existence for that exact text, the Ordo Cantus Officii gives this antiphon instead. Ironically, the English Divine Office, instead of directly translating this text, just uses the initial verse of Psalm 87(88) from the Grail Psalter as the antiphon, and thereby accidentally ends out closer to this Gregorian antiphon, which is the exact same verse in Latin (here the Vulgate and Neo-Vulgate agree). I don't believe there is any allowance in the rubrics for deviation from the official texts in public celebration, so I'm going to work with the text I already have.

Back to the music, you can see my early adaptation follows the neumes closely in the second phrase but disregards placement of word stress.

I'm very pleased with the last phrase, except for a twinge of guilt about combining two notes into one neume on "-fore" - if anyone would like to alleviate my guilt with examples of this practice from within the Gregorian repertory, I'd be very thankful! I would also consider adapting the last phrase as @ServiamScores has done.

In the first phrase, from memory, I just broadly outlined the tessitura of the original. It's my least-favourite bit, and as @smvanroode points out, the melodic stresses should go on so and not la. With so little text to work with, perhaps Steven's approach of disregarding the asterisk and barline is the better.

I have, however, found my adaptation to be very singable; it is a frequent earworm of mine.

I'll follow up with a new (improved?) adaption soon.

The official Catholic text of the Bible is currently the Nova Vulgata, second edition.

@tomjaw I would not set my private judgement about the Word of God above that of Holy Mother Church.

Here’s my compulsive contribution. Essentially trying to match the high points / directionality of the melodic elements in the original to flow and quantitative needs of the given English text.

a_f_hawkins wrote: In private recitation of the Roman Breviary it was customary to omit the antiphons

Uh … citation, please? I've never heard this; like _ever_

And another version.
— "Domine" had three notes in the original, so I stretched out the word "Lord" to obtain a similar feeling.
— I gave the word "God" just one note because that felt like a good, solid way to sing it at the end of a phrase.
— In the second phrase, the Latin feels like a duple meter (in DI-i-e cla-MA-a-vi), so I tried to mirror that with the English (I call for help by day-ay)
— I'm glad that several of us came to the same conclusion about adapting the last measure.

I'm glad that several of us came to the same conclusion about adapting the last measure.

I had the same thought. :)

Yeah, I don't understand why people got hung up on the Scriptural parts when they could just translate the Latin regardless if it's the (Clementine) Vulgate, NV, a pre-Vulgate or other Vulgate variant…

Antiphons made of Bible quotes usually aren't translated directly from Latin.

That's a problem because of the above.

Antiphons which are scriptural quotes should normally be recognizable as such also in the vernacular. Therefore they are usually taken from a corresponding place of the underlying Bible translation - which doesn't always exactly match the Latin, for various reasons (including matters of textual criticism, as in the discussed example).

Liturgiam authenticam 37 addresses this, but it came too late.

Finally got to revisit this. In my research, I found Samuel Weber assigns this variant of Mode 4 (which he calls 4. g) to a handful of chants in each of his volumes. Singing his compositions a few times helped me to further internalise the modal centres of Mi and So, and not overemphasise La.

Here is the result:

If I were to edit in rhythmic markings a la Old Solesmes, plus ictuses to demarcate the stresses, you can see how the emphases fall on Mi and So. (The ictus plus episema isn't displaying correctly, but I wouldn't leave any ictuses in anyway)

I am still a bit attached to my original ending with a clivis on "-fore", but consensus seems to be as notated, and I think this final result has more symmetry with my second phrase.

Thoughts? I think it ends out most similar to @CGM's.

My mind works faster than my fingers. I left out key words In the first sentence of the fourth paragraph above I intended to write:

"...I don't think think that in syllabic chant like this one, setting the final of an incise TO A LONG CLIVIS is idiomatic. "

In the fifth paragraph I intended to write "...set to a punctum on THE FINAL OF the mode..."

Sorry