II. Charaeter and Falw.— The Dies Ira is univer- sally acknowledged to be the sublimest production of sacred Latin poetry,- and the grandest judgment hymn of all tunes and tongues. Daniel (Thes. hymnol. ii, p. 112) justly styles it ** uno omnium consensu sacra po9- seos summum decus et ecclesia latina KtifjiriXiov pretto- sissimum." "It would be difficult,'* says Coles, "to find, in. the whole range of literature, a production to which a profounder interest attaches than to that mag- nificent canticle of the Middle Ages, the Dies Ira. . . . Of Latin hymns it is the best known, and the acknowl- edged masterpiece." The Germans call it the hymn of giants {Gigantenhymnus), In simplicity and faith it fully equals an older anonymous Latin judgment hymn of the seventh or eighth ceptury, commencing Appor- rebit rtpentina magna dies Domini^ while in lyric fervor and effect, as well as in majesty and terror, it far sur- passes it and all the numerous imitations of later times. It stands solitary and alone in its glory, and will prob- ably never be surpassed. It is truly ' * a thing of beau- ty that is a joy forever." Among poetic gems it is the diamond. It breathes, indeed, the mediieval spirit of legalistic rather than of joyous evangelical piety, but otherwise it is quite f^e from every objectionable feature of Romanism, which cannot be said of the two famous Stabat Maters (the Mater dolorosa^ and the re- cently discovered Mater speciosa\ tinctured as these are with Mariolatry. It represents salvation as an act of the free grace of Christ, qui salvandos salvat gratis. Hence it is as much admured by Protestants as by Ro- man Catholics. The secret of its beauty and power lies first in the intensity of Christian feeling with which its great theme is handled. The poet feels, as an awful and overpowering reality, the coining judg- ment of the quick and the dead; he hears the trumpet of the archangel sounding through the open sepul- chres ; he sees the tumult and terror, the devouring flames and final wreck of the universe, the Judge seated in terrific majesty on the throne, with the open book of the deeds of ages, dividing the good from the bad, and pronouncing the irrevocable sentence of eter- nal weal and woe ; and with the spirit of an humble penitent he pleads for mercy, mercy, mercy, at the hands of Him who pardoned the penitent thief in his dying hour. The poem is in the highest degree pa^ thetic, a cry fVom the depth of personal experience, and irresistibly draws every reader into sympathetic excitement. That man is indeed to be pitied who can read it without shaking and quivering with emo- tion. It is pregnant with life, and brings us face to face with the awfUl scenes of the judgment day. ** It is electrically charged, and contact is instantly fol- lowed by a shock and shuddering." The second ele- ment of its power lies in the inimitable form, which commands the admiration of every man of taste. Whatever there is of dignity, majesty, and melody in the old Roman tongue is here brought out and con- centrated as in no other poem, heathen or Christian, and made subservient to the one grand idea of the poem. It is onomatopoetic, and echoes, as well as hu- man language can do, the storm, and wrath, and wail- ing of the judgment day. Every word sounds like the solemn peal of an organ, or like the trumpet of the archangel summoning the dead to everlasting bliss or to everlasting woe. The stately metre, the triple rhyme, the selection of the vowels in striking adapta- tion to the sense and feeling, heighten and complete the effbct upon the ear and the heart of the hearer. The music of the vowel assonances and consonances, e. g. the double u in the 2d and 7th stanzas (Jkaurus^ venturus, diseussurus; dictuntSf rogaiurus^ securus) ; the 0 and n m the 3d stanza (sonum, regUmumy thromm) ^
DIES JRM
V94
DIES IR2&
and the i and e in the 9th stanza, defy the skill of the best translators in any language. We quote the judg- ments of eminent writers. ** Qiwt sunt verba totpondt' ra^ immo UmUruat^* says Daniel. ** Combining some- what of the rhytlmi of classical Latin with the rhymes of the medisval Latin, treating of a theme full of aw- ftil sublimity, and grouping together the most start- ling imagery of Scripture as to the last judgment, and throwing this into yet stronger relief by the barbaric simplicity of the style in which it is set, and adding to all these its full and trumpet-like cadences, and unit- ing with the impa^ioned feelings of the south, whence it emanated, the gravity of the north, whose severer style it adopted, it is well fitted to arouse the hearer" (Dr. W. R. Williams). "The metre so grandly de- vised, of which I remember no other example, fitted though it has here shown itself for bringing out some of the noblest powers of the Latin language — ^the sol- emn effect of the triple rhyme, which has l)een likened to blow following blow of the hammer on the anvil — the confidence of the poet in the universal interest of his theme, a confidence which has made him set out his matter with so majestic and unadorned a plain- ness as at once to be intelligible to all — these merits, with many more, have combined to give the Dies Ires a high place, indeed one of the highest, among the masterpieces of sacred song" (Archbishop Trench). (Dr. Trench is mistaken when he says that there is no other example of this metre. There are some verses of striking resemblance attributed by some to St. Ber- nard, but probably of much later date :