The Silent Millenium, #9

Yesterday I posted a literal translation of Thomas of Celano's poem, DIES IRAE. Here Richard Crashaw makes a more musical translation of the same poem. Originally written in Latin in the early thirteenth century, Crashaw made his translation into English about four hundred years later, in 1646. Since then over two hundred other English translations of the poem have been published.

I am struck by how very different the two versions are, not only in word choices, but in the whole structure of the verse. Yet on closer inspection they are clearly working from the same text, and indeed remaining true to it. There is a lesson somewhere in this about how very different the Church looks in different times and cultures, yet still we are working from one text and may even be remaining true to Him.


DIES IRAE

Hear'st thou, my soul, what serious things
Both the Psalm and Sybyl sings