Latin Hymns, English Translations--Advice needed for new project
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    Friends, I've recently taken quite an interest in English translations of Latin hymnody . . . I find the results of different translators to the same texts quite fascinating. Anyway, I'd like to put together a site on which to put as many translations of some well-known (and eventually, lesser-known) Latin hymns as I can find.

    My computer skills are quite limited, so I'm thinking a simple blog would be best, with plenty of tags to help folks find various translations, translators, etc. easily. But if I should go a non-blog route, I'm open to other opinions.

    Any general or specific thoughts? What about my working title "Latin Hymns, English Translations"? Pretty forthright, obviously . . . Is there a more clever title I should consider? Opinions about blogspot.com and wordpress? Others?
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    I would love to see singable English texts to the original Latin hymn tunes. They help singers who are not so familiar with Latin, including children, to remember the meaning of the text, when they learn to sing them in Latin.

    Also, I'd like to have the congregation learn simple Gregorian hymns with English texts before they move on to singing in Latin, but I found those in hymnals are not very good.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,815
    Why not contribute at CPDL? This page needs an English translation and other hymns are listed here.
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    Thanks for the idea, Richard . . . I'll consider it, though my intent is to gather *all* the translations I can find of a given text. I don't think CPDL wants 8 different versions of "Jesu Dulcis Memoria"! : )
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    Check out the Ultimate Stabat Mater Website: http://www.stabatmater.info/
  • lmassery
    Posts: 424
    This would be a great project! A blog sounds fine to me
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    Heath, do you know Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology?

    This is something I wrote after spending an afternoon in Catholic U's library. As far as I'm aware, many of the translations in books like this usually didn't make it into hymnals, and so are otherwise lost. But the books are a rich mine of translations: http://www.hymnographyunbound.blogspot.com/2006/07/pange-lingua-gloriosi-lauream.html
  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    Kathy, I'm so glad this thread has caught your eye, as I am hoping to highlight many of your translations on the blog!

    Julian: Hmm . . . maybe. I have a volume on my shelf that was given to me a few years that may be one volume of this work. Can't remember the exact title and it's collected dust . . . I'll look at it tomorrow.

    And the Pange examples are the *exact* sort of thing I'm hoping to preserve on the blog. I've recently taken quite a shine to Msgr. Ronald Knox's writings and translations, and I found out that he did dozens of Latin hymn translations in the 1939 Westminster Hymnal. You can nary find a one on the web, but I've grabbed a copy of the WH, and, assuming copyright permissions pass muster, I'm hoping to get them online.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    Awesome! A few of mine are out and about fairly widely on the internet or have been used in articles, so certainly feel free to use them: Stabat Mater, Adorna Sion Thalamum, Excelsam Pauli Gloriam.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,790
    There are quite a few books and websites with English translations of the Office Hymns,

    http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni.html

    The Liturgical Year’, Abbot Gueranger, O.S.B.

    Hymns of the Breviary and Missal, Britt, 1922. (this can be downloaded from the Musica Sacra website)

    Hymns of the Roman Liturgy by Fr. Joseph Connelly (republished by the FSSP)

    The following can be downloaded from the Internet Archive (there are many such books!)
    HYMNS and POEMS, Original and Translated By EDWARD CASWALL
    BREVIARY HYMNS AND MISSAL SEQUENCES TRANSLATED BY EDWARD G. BAGSHAWE

    Also Bl John Henry Newman translated the Hymns but I cant find the title of his book

    Hymns of the Dominican Missal and Breviary, Aquinas Burns


  • Heath
    Posts: 966
    OK, got it up and running. Comments welcome!

    http://latinhymnsenglishtranslations.blogspot.com/
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,199
    Heath, thanks a lot. It might help, especially with translations that are metrical, if you would mention the meter.

    For instance, the excellent Caswall translation "Jesu, the very thought of Thee" of "Jesu dulcis memoria" is a Common Metre (C.M.) translation, meaning it is 86. 86 (iambic), while the original Latin is Long Metre (L.M.), 88. 88 (iambic).

    Side note on the Caswall: I've also seen it (and probably learned it) as "Jesus, the very thought of Thee."

    Good luck on your new site and project!
Add a Comment