Hymns of Holy Week: Vespers: notanda

Both this hymn and the hymn for the Officium lectionis, Pange, lingua, gloriósi, were written to mark the arrival in Poitiers of a relic of the true cross from Constantinople. The Thuringian princess and Frankish queen, who founded the Abbey of the Holy Cross at Poitiers,  Radegundis, had received the relic  from the Emperor Justin II and Fortunatus was asked to compose an ode to celebrate the arrival of the relic. Stanzas 1, 3, 5-6, & 8 of the original are used at Vespers during Holy Week. Cf. M for a different selection of stanzas and arrangement.

Vexílla regis pródeunt, (1)

fulget crucis mystérium,

quo carne carnis cónditor (2)

suspénsus est patíbulo; (3)

Quo, vulnerátus ínsuper (4)

mucróne diro lánceæ, (5)

ut nos laváret crímine, (6)

manávit unda et sánguine.

Arbor decóra et fúlgida, (7)

ornáta regis púrpura, (8)

elécta digno stípite

tam sancta membra tángere!

Beáta, cuius brácchiis (9)

sæcli pepéndit prétium; (10)

statéra facta est córporis (11)

prædam tulítque tártari. (12)

Salve, ara, salve, víctima,

de passiónis glória,

qua Vita mortem pértulit

et morte vitam réddidit!

O crux, ave, spes única! (13)

hoc passiónis témpore

piis adáuge grátiam

reísque dele crímina.

Te, fons salútis, Trínitas, (14)

colláudet omnis spíritus;

quos per crucis mystérium

salvas, fove per sæcula. 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. W & WH: vexilla = the military standards of the Roman army, which are seen as accompanying the relic; pródeunt/fulget: the procession advances with the relic in a shining reliquary, shining physically and spiritually;  2. “by virtue of the flesh the Creator of flesh, i.e., by virtue of the Incarnation the Creator can be hung on the Cross.  3. C: patíbulo = literally a ‘yoke’ used here for the Cross; W: a yoke shaped somewhat like the letter ‘Y’ placed on the back of criminals, to the arms of which their arms were tied to carry it to the place of execution;  4. W & C: quo = ‘whereon’ and refers to patíbulo;  5. mucróne = sharp point; 6. W: ‘to cleanse us from guilt He shed forth water and blood’-John 19:34: sed unus militum lancea latus ejus aperuit, et continuo exivit sanguis et aqua; 7. W: ‘The Creator grieving at the harm wrought to (or ' by ') the first man, when by the bite of the fatal apple he fell in death. He even then marked a tree, in order to undo the damage caused by a tree.'  “A legend, … told how that the cross came from the tree in the Garden of Eden, a shoot of which was brought out by Adam and planted by Seth. The tree which grew from this was destroyed in the deluge, but a twig of it was saved by Noah”; 8. WH: “the purple of the king is the blood of Christ”; W: The purple is that of the blood which consecrated the tree as a throne ; It is not of the purple hangings of the processional cross (as Kayser suggests) that the poet is thinking” ; Cf. Paulinus of Nola: Poem 27: 89: “He renews all things under the guidance of the Word, who mounting aloft from the gleaming cross with the purple of His precious blood reached the heights’; 9. W: ' O blessed tree, on whose arms hung the ransom of the world !  It was made a balance for His body and bore away the prey of hell.' 10. WH: “the Crucifixion as the ransom paid for freeing the world from sin”; 11. C: statéra facta est córporis: “The Cross was the scales on which the weight of human sin was counterbalanced by the weight of Christ’s body on the other side, i.e. the Passion of Christ restored the balance between God and man”; 12. Tártari: W: “Fortunatus freely uses the nomenclature of classical mythology’; 13. This stanza was added in the 10^th Century and then revised in the Liturgica Horarum. 14. Doxology: novus

The banners of the King advance, the mystery of the Cross shines forth, wherein the Creator of flesh in the flesh is suspended from the gibbet.  Where, wounded he hangs pierced by the harsh spear, that he might wash us from sin by the shedding of his blood. O beautiful and glimmering tree adorned with the purple of the King, tree trunk worthily chosen to bear such holy limbs. Blessed tree from whose branches hung the price of the world; His body weighed upon the scale took away the booty of hell. Hail, O altar, hail, O sacrifice, from the glory of the passion, by which life is carried away from death and by death returned us to life. O Cross, hail, our only hope, in this Passiontide, grant to the holy grace and wash away sins of the guilty.  You, O Trinity, source of salvation, may every spirit praise, whom through the mystery of the Cross, may you save and cherish through the ages. Amen.