a choir song i need help
  • Therese888
    Posts: 1
    Ok hi I'm 15 years old and my choir teacher is given people Ezra credit its we can find what these phases for ding song merrily on high so here they are
    1. E'en here below below let steeple held be swungen
    2. Pray you dutifully prime your nation chime, ye singers
    3. May u beautifully rime your evertime song, ye singers...... last one
    4. And "io io io" by preist and people sungen ... please help thank you
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    This is a great challenge, glad you thought of asking us. Swungen and Sungen appear to be English from a time when it was strongly influenced by the German language. They mean swung and sung. I'm sure others will hop in here to help you, too, Theresa.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    "io" is an exclamation of joy, a word from the Middle Ages. It's pronounced "ee-oh".

    Would you check the lyrics out, Therese? A couple of words look funny to me, as if there might be some typos, and that might be making them unclear for you.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    It seems that your word order is somewhat askew.
    Here is the text as it appears in most versions of this carol -

    Ding dong! merrily on high
    In heav'n the bells are ringing:
    Ding dong! verily the sky
    is riv'n with angel singing.

    Refrain: Gloria in excelsis Deo, etc.

    E'en so here below, below,
    let steeple bells be swungen,
    And io, io, io
    by priest and people sungen.

    Refrain: Gloria...

    Pray you, dutifully prime
    your matin chime, ye ringers;
    May you beautifully rime
    your evetime song, ye singers.

    Refrain: Gloria...

    It has a mediaeval air about it, but the text is actually by GR Woodward, who lived until 1934. The Tune is XVI. century French.

    As is self-evident,1) the 1st stanza describes the joyful pealing of bells in heaven accompanied by the singing of angels; 2) the 2nd stanza urges that bells be rung on earth (here below) and that the joyful exclamation 'io'* be sungen by people & priests; 3) finally, the 3rd stanza bids the bell ringers to signal the time for matins, and that singers may beautifully rime their 'evensong'.

    *io, the Latin exclamation of joy is generally pronounced correctly in Latin as ee-o. However, when in Britain, one will often hear it Anglicised to eye-o... and some American Anglican choirs follow suit.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    ... and it might be helpful to explain that GR Woodward was a priest of the Church of England, whose services of morning and evening prayer, known as Matins and Evensong ('evetime song'), were often sung by choirs (and still are in some places). According to the fount of all knowledge :-) he had a particular interest in bell-ringing.
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 489
    The last verse "pray ye, dutifully prime...' Is about the divine office, now called the Liturgy of the Hours, having prayers assigned to seven times of each day. The most important "hours" are mentioned here: Prime was the portion of the Divine office prayed at 6 am, "matins" the prayer of in the middle of the night, was often sung just before, or combined with "prime" (as it is combined in the same sentence of the text), rather than 3 am, and then evening prayer is mentioned. In this context "prime" is a verb that means prepare your bells or get them swinging, but it is a deliberate ambiguity- a pun, to the prayer also called "Prime."
    "IO,"? I don't think there is a final word on this. Most of these types of sounds are English parodies of mispronounced Latin sounding words like "Hodie" today, or "Deo" God, and gloria. Mispronunciation is an important dramatic device. This gives the song a nice folksy texture. (remeber the word "nice" means cute and ignorant)- not that there's anythig wrong with that.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    There was a lengthy discussion of all this back in 2011, in the thread Io, io, io!, which should answer all (or most of) the questions raised above.
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