I don't know anything about these new English translations. Could you share some info?

There is a partial copy of the new book here. I don't know why it only includes one hymn, Pange lingua, but perhaps the others have not changed? So that gives you the Tantum ergo.

Here: Let Us, Therefore, Bow and Worship

and Here: O Victim Bringing Saving Grace

Maybe the new versions are better as literal translations (my latin isn't good enough to judge). There is no rhyme to them however which just makes them really awkward to sing.

^which I think is also a noble goal. I don’t think that the old translations are necessarily bad. But there are some things that I find nicer about the new ones. It’s nice to not have a dog in the fight.

Indeed, one frustration which I have with Divinum Officium, and many other translations besides that of Bute, is that the poetry is sometimes mediocre at best but the Latin is totally obscured. Which is a problem because there are apparently very few translations meant either for comparison only or where, like in this case, literalism and meter were privileged over rhyme… no, I wish some of these people had said, “No, I don’t think that one more metered and rhyming but not especially literal translation of Conditor (Creator, less often) Alme Siderum is going to be sung at low Mass or in the Anglo-Catholic world.”

Thanks everyone

One of the tactics of modernism is to constantly keep you off balance. Vernacular divides. It puts you in a “camp” and puts a timestamp on your intellect.

This is why they employ vernacular texts. Constantly making it “better” by “studiously revising”. Demonic.

Yes, but although this is vastly easier with vernacular, it did happen with the Latin too. When Urban VIII "fixed" the traditional hymns of the Church, he created variants which still cause some confusion and division to this day.

But overall you are right Francis, the Devil has it much easier now with all these various vernacular translations.

ICEL:

O Victim bringing saving grace
who open wide the gate of heav’n
our foes assail and press us hard;
give us your strength, bring us your aid.

Caswall:

O saving Victim, op'ning wide
The gate of heav'n to us below,
Our foes press on from every side;
Thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.

How does Caswall fail as an accurate rendering of the Latin text? In what way has the new text improved upon it? I would also like to see it demonstrated, since it is really not apparent to me, that the new text does not actually rely upon the Caswall translation. If anything, Caswall takes his greatest liberties in translating ‘bella’ as ‘foes’, which is certainly not an apparent literal sense of the Latin word (although it works very well to convey the meaning), and ICEL seems to have taken that word right from him, as likewise with ‘press’, ‘strength’ and ‘aid’. Not to mention ‘opening wide’ for ‘pandis’.

Speaking of literal sense — where is ‘saving grace’ in the original?

The Latin text never forces rhyme*, so I don't see why the English text should do so. It is really just a carry over from traditional, original English hymns.

*although rhyme does appear often simply due to the inflectional nature of this language

Rhyme does not ‘often appear’ as if by chance in these poems — Aquinas employs a clear ABAB rhyme scheme throughout the text.

Medieval Latin hymnody, beginning very early, originates the use of rhyme as a deliberate systemic device in Latin poetry.

As for truly ‘forced’ rhyme, I quite agree. But that in itself is the poet’s art. A deliberate arrangement of language nevertheless able to sound beautiful, lyrical, and natural.

[EDIT: Ironically, here I tried to use an example of a poetic translation of Dante that I had thought reproduced the original rhyme scheme, but I realized on revisiting it, to make sure that I had remembered correctly, that the poet had omitted the rhyme scheme except in very select spots. Haha, a nice dose of humility for me tonight.]