Crux Fidelis/Faithful Cross in the Revised Missal
  • WJA
    Posts: 237
    The English translation begins:

    Faithful Cross the Saints rely on,
    Noble tree beyond compare!
    Never was there such a scion,
    Never leaf or flower so rare.
    Sweet the timber, sweet the iron,
    Sweet the burden that they bear!


    How do you get "the Saints rely on" out of

    Crux fidélis, inter omnes arbor una nóbilis,
    Nulla talem silva profert, flore, fronde, gérmine!
    Dulce lignum dulci clavo dulce pondus sústinens!


    Is it implied somehow? I ask because (a) I'm not fluent in Latin and (b) no other translation I've seen has a comparable phrase.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,189
    It looks to me to be a rather artificial (and unfortunate) attempt (unfaithful to the original text, which is the eighth stanza from the hymn "Pange, lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis") to make a rhymed 87. 87. 87 text which has the 8s rhymed as well as the 7s (in the original, only the 7s rhyme).

    Obviously, the translators never consulted our own Kathy Pluth about this!
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    This version is only slightly modified from one that appeared in the proposed Sacramentary from 1998 that never saw the light of day. That version did not begin with the word "Faithful," originally it was "Holy Cross the saints rely on." The idea would seem to be to unpack the concept of "Crux fidelis"--"fidelis" as in the trusty Cross, "fidelis" as in reliable, something someone relies on. It seems to me that editing this by replacing "Holy Cross" with "Faithful Cross" while leaving in the "rely on" part introduces a redundancy.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,189
    I can't resist this, since the following horrors crossed my mind:

    "Adeste fidelis" - "O come all reliable"

    "O vos omnes" - "O all Saints"

    I guess I just don't get it.
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