(Bumping)

Thank you, Adam. I think it's what I have to offer. Tho I think it's stilted in some places.

What would you do with "stabbed" in line 5.1, for example?

The blessed virgin Agnes flies
back to her home above the skies.
With love she gave her blood on earth
to gain a new celestial birth.

Mature enough to give her life,
though still too young to be a wife,
what joy she shows when death appears
that one would think: her bridegroom nears!

Her captors lead her to the fire
but she refuses their desire,
"For it is not such smold'ring brands
Christ's virgins take into their hands."

"This flaming fire of pagan rite
extinguishes all faith and light.
Then stab me here, so that the flood
may overcome this hearth in blood."

Courageous underneath the blows,
her death a further witness shows,
for as she falls she bends her knee
and wraps her robes in modesty.

O Virgin-born, all praises be
to You throughout eternity.
and unto everlasting days
to Father and the Spirit, praise.

"Struck"?

I like those revisions a lot. This went from really good to really great.

(bumping, for the feast)

The Anglo-Catholic Fr John Hunwicke at Fr Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes (blog) has an interesting post on this hymn at http://liturgicalnotes.blogspot.com/2009/01/modesty-in-martyrdom.html

the extended Christmas season that lasts till Candlemas

A homeowner in my neighborhood has livingroom corner windows with drapes
open to reveal a large tree and multi-color lights still on every night.
I enjoy seeing it as I drive the street toward my boring apartment complex.
It reminds me of mid-Jan 1985 in Chicago (actually while sightseeing in Wilmette)
where the snow was deep and crisp and even, and many houses were still adorned.
Since then I have thought such behavior a very wise preventative to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Just making this available again prior to the feast. Cheers.

Sadly topical....

Fr. Ron, I have to disagree. Some archaisms are legitimately 18th century - but "thee" and "thou" still hold currency as the more intimate alternative to "you". I believe it makes sense to use that more personal language when referring to God.

I don't count being published as any great signifier of quality. Certain publishers have seen fit to pick up stuff like the Mass of Christ the Saviour Agnus Dei that runs counter to ICEL's own terms of use for MR3, and the kind of people that would recognize "thee" and "thou" as an actual linguistic distinction rather than "ew, old white people language" are not the kind of people writing for mass-market suburban Catholicism anyway. I like much of Perry's work, but I think there are legitimate variations in taste and style. My point was more in counter to yours that it isn't legitimate use in modern English - it absolutely is, even if modern publishers wouldn't pick it up.

Sorta like gendered language, both in general and in reference to God - OCP may not want to pick it up, but it is a legitimately allowable choice on linguistic grounds, and a matter of style and taste.

"No reputable 20th or 21st century hymn writer uses such language."

Of course, "reputable" is not a self-evident qualifier, but I would note for the record that "thee" in particular ("thou" less so) happens to offer far more rhyming possibilities than "you" as a terminal syllable of a line. I don't mind that usage at all for that purpose, even if it means the text is a mild stylistic mash (that is, for example, not employing "wouldst" et cet. - which is awful for singing). I am mindful of Stephen Sondheim's helpful distinction between lyrics and poetry (the latter has a certain inherent musicality, while the former needs music to bring that dimension out) and his explanations of stylistic concessions to rhyme.

Gothic architecture is not a dead language. Latin is not a dead language. Tallis is not a dead language. Old Church English is certainly not a dead language. Etc., etc. From the hands of artists (as opposed to run-of-the-mill hacks and copy cats) these antique creative vocabularies may produce works of art that have as much cultural validity and artistic integrity as was had by them in the historical periods in which they originated (but to which they are not bound). We have on this forum and in the CMAA gifted composers who can and do give us renaissance-like polyphony that is true art, not the ridiculous warmed-over-Palestrina that was pawned off on the Church a century ago (which the Church swallowed, hook, line, and sinker). I should not want to live in a world in which antique language was thought of as inappropriate for modern creative endeavour. Why should language be any different from other creative vocabularies? Many of us pass Gothic or classical, or romanesque churches or museums, libraries or court houses every day. Some are indisputably fine art, some are the work of hacks. The problem is the artist or the hack, not the antique vocabulary. The same is true of language. If someone is inspired to write a literary work in Elizabethan or Chaucerian language hoorah for him or her. Let us judge the merits, or lack thereof, of the work, not the artist's choice of vocabulary.

In my judgment the two most profoundly holy sacred spaces in Houston are Walsingham and St Basil's Chapel at UST. One, Gothic in inspiration (an accomplishment of the successors of Ralph Adams Cram), the other a bare minimalist chapel (the work of none other than Philip Johnson). I am thankful that we have both and that there is no one telling us that we can only avail ourselves of a 'modern' architectural, musical, or literary vocabulary. We would be drastically impoverished were this so.

I do not want to be seen as denigrating modern English, or any of our modern arts. I hope that it is clear that all art, old and new, is on an equal, and timeless, plane. We are its heirs and may use any or all of it for our creative endeavours. As for Fr Krisman's list of contemporary literati, I can only say that we are unfortunate indeed that none of them was asked to give us the translation of the missal.

*bumping* for the Feast of St Agnes & St Joachim.
Oops, my bad!! This should have been for January 21st, but here's the sound file anyway.

Also, here (at last) is an .mp3 sound file of the tune.

Oh, and I forgot to say that the Akathist Hymn line, "o bride unwedded," is also a quote from Euripides' Hecuba, as Hecuba laments Polyxena. The difference is that the Akathist line exhorts rejoicing instead of mourning, which is a nice turnaround.

Here's a translation from ICEL:

The virgin Agnes shed her blood
on this her day of heav’nly birth;
she paid her holy debt with love
and poured her spirit back to God.

Mature enough for martyrdom,
though still too young for marriage vows,
yet as a bride she comes, led forth
with joy upon her countenance.

Urged on to light with flaming torch
the altars of a heinous god,
she says “No virgin vowed to Christ,
shall take up torches meant for this.

“This fire stuffs out all faith in Christ,
these flames obscure and steal the light.
Strike here, yes here, that I may quench
these altars with my flowing blood.”

How nobly she endured the blow,
for as she wrapped her clothing round
she sank to earth on bended knee,
so pure and modest as she fell.

To you, Lord Jesus, glory be,
who are the Virgin Mary’s Son,
with God the Father, ever blest,
and loving Spirit, ever one. Amen.

I am just never going to warm up to unrhymed hymn texts. Why is why Kathy's text, the first in this post and subsequently revised by her, is to be preferred over others.

The Roman office is extraordinarily conservative and adopted hymns late.

Also I am also surprised that a hymn for a virgin martyr used the Incarnation doxology and the Urban version at that. It is almost certainly not the authentic doxology, and lo and behold the hymn is in the 1983 Liber Hymnarius. But Lentini just says what he omitted and something about the legend and her modesty. :(

Rhyming texts are memorable in a way non-rhyming texts are not. Think of the Pange Lingua. The rhymes help keep the words in memory.

It's not just a matter of taste but a matter of goals.

Rhyming texts are memorable in a way non-rhyming texts are not. Think of the Pange Lingua. The rhymes help keep the words in memory.

I agree wholeheartedly. Consequently, I judge the recent ICEL translation of Office hymns to be a colossal failure to lead those who pray the Hours to love and appreciate these hymn texts. On occasions when I pray morning or evening prayer with other priests, we always use the eBreviary app on our cell phones as our common resource. (Many priests no longer pray the Liturgy of the Hours from a book.) And the new ICEL-translated hymns are included in the eBreviary text for the particular hour we are praying. But the hebdomedary invariably announces that we will sing the alternate hymn (because, I guess, no one cares for the non-rhyming ICEL text).

I cannot understand why ICEL made this decision to commission non-rhyming English-language hymn texts. Certainly the ICEL executives must have told the translators that a rhyme scheme in their translations was not necessary. Why? If ICEL's goal was to make a "more literal" translation than texts previously translated by Caswall, Neale, and other divines, why wasn't the fact that there was a rhyme scheme in the Latin text considered to be an element that needed to be included in the translation?

In English LM hymns, rhyme is expected by the ear and mind, regardless of the Latin use of rhyme in the original text.

But even in Latin, rhyme is a great help to memory. Aren't these thoughts worth memorizing?

By the time Aquinas came to town they rhymed, the master teacher who wrote the Summa Theologiae for beginners.

Can your congregation sing O Salutaris and Tantum Ergo?

Msgr. Knox excelled at acrostics (his translation of Psalm 118/119 is amazing).

Aquinas said the Summa was for beginners.

Can your congregation sing the Tantum Ergo from memory?