Holy Week: ad Officium lectionis: Fortunatus: notanda

The meter, trochaic tetrameter, was used for by the Roman legions celebrating triumphs in Rome.' The hymn very early came into extensive use and is found in most mediaeval Breviaries and Missals. In the older Roman (Venice 1478), Paris of 1643, Sarum, York, Aberdeen, and other Breviaries, it is appointed for use from Passion Sunday to Maundy Thursday’ (Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology: reflecting earlier use).  In the Liturgica Horarum stanzas 1-4 and 6 are used at the Office of Readings  from Sunday to Friday in Holy Week; stanzas 7-10 at Lauds during the same period.

Pange, lingua, gloriósi (1)

prœlium certáminis, (2)

et super crucis tropæo

dic triúmphum nóbilem,

quáliter redémptor orbis (3)

immolátus vícerit. (4)

De paréntis protoplásti

fraude factor cóndolens, (5)

quando pomi noxiális

morte morsu córruit,

ipse lignum tunc notávit,

damna ligni ut sólveret.

Hoc opus nostræ salútis (6)

ordo depopóscerat, (7)

multifórmis perditóris

arte ut artem fálleret, (8)

et medélam ferret inde, (9)

hostis unde læserat.

Quando venit ergo sacri

plenitúdo témporis, (10)

missus est ab arce Patris

Natus, orbis cónditor,

atque ventre virgináli

carne factus pródiit.

Lustra sex qui iam perácta (11)

tempus implens córporis, (12)

se volénte, natus ad hoc,

passióni déditus,

agnus in crucis levátur

immolándus stípite. (13)

Æqua Patri Filióque,

ínclito Paráclito,

sempitérna sit beátæ

Trinitáti glória,

cuius alma nos redémit

atque servat grátia. Amen.

W = A.S. Walpole, Early Latin Hymns

C = Joseph Connelly, Hymns of the Roman Liturgy

WH = Peter G. Walsh and Christopher Husch, One Hundred Latin Hymns

M = Inge B. Milfull, The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church

 1.   C: Pange: tell, relate, sing; 2. W,C: commenting on the Urban VIII text substituting laurem certaminis for proelium certaminis: the poet was thinking of the struggle, not its result; W: quotes John Mason Neale: ‘it is not to the glory of the termination of our Lord’s conflict with the devil that the poet would have us look but to the glory of the struggle itself.”  3.  Super = de, ‘about’  with the ablative tropæo; 3.  C: quáliter = ‘how, in what way’; W: ‘one of Fortunatus’s favorite words;  4. W: immolátus vícerit: ‘placed side by side form a sharp contrast. The victim was the conqueror’; WH: cite Augustine, Confessions 10: 43-69: ideo victor quia victim; also WH: protoplásti fraude: the reference is to Satan’s hoodwinking of [the first  formed] Adam; m 6. W: hoc opus: the reparation by means of the cross of the bane wrought by the tree of knowledge;  7. ordo = plan; depopóscerat = had demanded in the everlasting counsel of the Father;  8. Arte = craft: ‘that by craft He might foil the craft of the many-shaped destroyer.' Satan appeared to Eve as a serpent, and fashioneth himself into an angel of light,' 2 Cor. xi. 14: ipse enim Satanas transfigurat se in angelum lucis; 9. inde…unde: C: cf. Preface of the Cross: ut unde mors oriebatur, inde vita resurgeret; et qui in lingo vincebat, in lingo quoque vinceretur; 10. plenitúdo témporis: Galatian 4.4; Ephesians 1.10; 11. W: ‘when thirty years were now accomplished’; 12. W: tempus corpus = ‘his life on earth’; 13. W: the altar being the Cross, where the Lamb is offered.

Sing, O tongue, of the glorious battle strife, and tell of the noble triumph upon the trophy of the Cross, how the Redeemer of the world was sacrificed and conquered. Because of our first parent’s deceit the Creator mourned, when Adam  bit that baneful apple and fell to death, then he chose the wood that would restore the wood’s harm. The plan of our salvation demanded this work that by craftiness the craftiness of the multiform destroyer be stopped and to healing from where the enemy had struck.  When therefore the fullness of sacred time had come, the Son, the Creator of the world,  was sent from the Father’s fortress and from a virginal womb he, made flesh, went forth. When he had completed thirty years, finishing the time of his body, by his own will, born for this, given to the passion, the Lamb raised up and sacrificed on the tree of the cross. Equal and eternal glory to the Father and the Son, the glorious Paraclete , to the blessed Trinity, whose nourishing grace redeems and preserves us. Amen.