I just printed two versions of Tallis' "Third Tune" with the text "Why fum'th is sight..." (from CPDL). Bothe containe the first verse only. Does anyone have the other verses? (I've heard performances with four verses.)
The time has come, Archbishop said, to sing of my many things of shoes and ships and sealing wax and God, our Sovereign King. And why a Psalter ought to rhyme, and whether Words have Wings.
The often very low literary quality of a lot of these metrical psalms makes one realize why the hymns of Charles Wesley (and, somewhat, Dr. Watts) so revolutionized sung religious poetry in English.
Does anyone know of a text that would fit this tune, or would want to write one? Something suitable for Tempus per annum. Its a lovely piece, a shame to just let it languish.
How shall I sing that Majesty Which angels do admire? Let dust in dust and silence lie; Sing, sing, ye heavenly choir. Thousands of thousands stand around Thy throne, O God most high; Ten thousand times ten thousand sound Thy praise; but who am I?
"I heard the voice of Jesus say" was traditionally set to the Third Tune, although some might consider it an offense against religion to swap out Kingsfold.
Here are some others, from Hymnary.org, which has a useful search engine for this purpose.
I am no scholar but, for what it is worth, the word ´fight´ seems appropriate for ´fremuerunt´, since one of the meanings of fremere' is ´to roar´. It is only speculation on my part, but a printer setting type from a handwritten document, unaware of the context, might have mistaken an ´f´ for the long ´s´, which was still in use in English at the time of Thomas Tallis. In Latin, ´quare fremuerunt gentes´ is, of course, third person plural, whilst the English -´(e)th´ inflexion is more commonly thought of as third person singular. It could also be plural. At an earlier stage of English, the inflexion -´(e)th (´ð´/´þ´ - the difference in pronunciation is, broadly, the difference between ´thin and ´the´, although it varied with position) was a third person singular or an all plural inflexion.
Moreover, alliteration in the first verse, with ´fight´ adds weight to its use, I think:
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