Hymn to St. Philomena: please critique!
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    Hello all, I have made a rather loose translation of "Astra quae terram" in 87.87.87 metre which I was thinking could be sung to LAUDA ANIMA. Please critique. With thanks to forum user aldrich, on whose work this is based (see below).

    1. Philomena, in the heavens,
    See our earth below the stars:
    Here, for Christ, thy blood was given
    Here thy mercies now impart!
    Show thy favour to our people,
    We beseech thee from our hearts.

    2. Many centuries passed in silence,
    Unknown was thy glorious name;
    Now with flowers, candles, incense,
    Philomena we acclaim!
    Heavenly princess, royal healer,
    All the world shall hear thy fame.

    3. No imperial rage could sway thee,
    Who didst pledge thy love to Christ;
    In a dungeon though they chained thee,
    Promises nor threats sufficed.
    Heaven’s Queen her princess strengthened,
    Gave her grace to pay the price.

    4. Scourged and left to die, sweet princess,
    Mary’s angels healed thee.
    Then the tyrant, growing furious,
    Thought to drown thee in the sea
    But the angels cut the anchor
    From thy neck and rescued thee.

    5. "Shoot her, then!" cried Diocletian.
    First the arrows would not fly,
    Then they sprang back at the bowmen:
    They, not Philomena, died.
    Those who saw, in sheer amazement,
    Knelt in fear of God most high.

    6. Not the tyrant, though, whose anger
    God would use to set thee free,
    By his two-edged axe, thy Saviour
    Gave thee immortality.
    Past the stars, O Philomena,
    In thy prayers remember me.

    7. Shed thy light, O holy maiden
    On this earth of pain and sin,
    Heal the wounded, cure the failing,
    Help the sinner, troubles mend,
    Through thy prayers, with Mary Virgin,
    Ever to our God. Amen.

    I based this on the text and rough translation provided by forum user aldrich, in this thread (edit, I had pasted all of it here, but am deleting so people don't have to scroll past a wall of text): https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/8588/hymn-to-st.-philomena-translation#Item_17

    Thanked by 3OMagnumMysterium CHGiffen GerardH
  • GerardH
    Posts: 620
    This is excellent - so dramatic!
    Mary’s angels healed thee.

    I presume you intend for 'healed' to be two syllables? It doesn't feel right to me - 'we are healèd' is fine, by 'healèd me' seems off, not sure why. Could I suggest 'Mary’s angels succoured thee' instead?
    Unknown was thy glorious name;
    doesn't quite fit the meter, but it can probably slide, depending on the tune.
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • CGM
    Posts: 781
    Alternatives to Gerard’s two minor quibbles:

    V4. Mary’s angels mended thee

    V2. Undiscovered wast thy name
    — or —
    Hidden wast thy glorious name
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    Thank you, GerardH and CGM, this is very helpful!
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    I set the lyrics to LAUDA ANIMA in MuseScore. It's my first attempt at using notation software. Please let me know if you see any problems!

    GerardH, I thought perhaps I could use "he-aled" for a two-syllable slot, splitting in the middle of the diphthong. I would be glad for further opinions on this, or any other aspect of the text/metre/layout.
    Hymn to St Philomena - LAUDA ANIMA.pdf
    54K
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,212
    SA and TB are redundant.

    You can click on the fancy braces or whatever they’re actually called and delete if you wish. Just a bar line between the staves is standard for hymns.

    End of verse 2: shall is missing an « l »

    You need curly quotes. This is a truly mystifying omission in the lyrics fonts because in lyrics a prime mark should not be used ever. It can be rectified with a plugin which you run when you finish typing.

    MS Studio spacing is weird for hymns. The text is hard to read. I don’t know the conventions for hymns, but on my Mac, I use option + space or otherwise I change the syllable alignment to left, right, or center in the Properties tab.

    Thanked by 2GerardH Quaerens
  • GerardH
    Posts: 620
    @MatthewRoth what a great plugin! I'll look forward to trying it out.

    By the way, Juicio Brennan's hyphenator tool is indispensable when typesetting hymns in MuseScore. Copy the entire text once hyphenated, and Musescore will auto-advance the cursor note to note with each hyphen and space after each Ctrl+V.

    @Quaerens, to be charitably honest, I think he-aled is even worse. How about 'Healing angels succoured thee' or 'Mary's angels aided thee'?
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,212
    Also I should clarify: I don’t mind if people use the MuseScore name still, but officially that’s the company and its dot com site, but the forums, on the dot org site, are for the app now known as MuseScoreStudio. (This was a dumb move: they should have rebranded the dot com site to avoid diluting the app’s value further.)
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,913
    "Heal-èd" Is the standard anglican solution and won't surprise anyone who's ever sung Messiah. I get the impression you're going for "hee-ulld" rather than "he a lead", but "he-aled" just seems a recipe for confusion. Why not "healed___"?
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    Thank you all for these helpful comments, and GerardH, I appreciate the charitable honesty :-) ! Will work on this some more and share the results.
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    Here's my updated effort, with thanks to @MatthewRoth, @GerardH and @Richard Mix. I had a lot of trouble with spacing. Is there a guideline for how syllables ought to be aligned in hymns?

    I tried aligning each column of syllables left--the result seemed hard to read, and pushed some longer syllables out of horizontal alignment (they shifted slightly upwards). I settled on aligning left on the first syllable of the measure, and aligning right on the second (there are only two per measure). In some columns where longer syllables weren't fitting well, I centred.

    @GerardH, I decided to go for your initial suggestion, "Mary's angels succoured thee." I also amended "Unknown was thy glorious name" to "No one knew thy glorious name." Thank you.
    Hymn to St. Philomena.pdf
    53K
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,212
    I would adjust « strength-ened ». Use the horizontal feature in the Properties tab (under Appearance). It must be used judiciously, and I mean it. It can cause unexpected problems (including remaining when you change the alignment…I don’t know why this doesn’t also revert to 0. (You can also use the keyboard but you can see the value and change it back to 0 by using Properties.)
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    Thanks Matthew, change made. I also italicized the even-numbered verses to make it easier to read... and chickened out on "succoured", switching to "cared for thee".
    Hymn to St. Philomena.pdf
    65K
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,212
    I would leave all of the text in roman type!

    The convention is to italicize the other language when you print 1-2, 1-2 such as the O Salutaris or Tantum ergo.
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • Quaerens
    Posts: 32
    OK, good to know! Thank you!

    edit: latest version attached.
    Hymn to St. Philomena.pdf
    53K
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,913
    Matthew is quite right. Many singers are trained to start memorizing long hymns and most books underlay only the first five, printing the remainder at the end. It's not unheard of though to underline the middle of 6 or more verses as a point of orientation.
    Thanked by 1Quaerens
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 12,041
    Good to know someone still thinks well of St. Philomena. Devotion to her has unfortunately diminished in recent times.
    Thanked by 5OMagnumMysterium tomjaw CHGiffen Quaerens AgnusDei1989
Add a Comment