§ 133. HYMNS AND SACRED POETRY.
This solemn poem depicts the dissolution of the world and the trembling fear of the sinner as he looks forward to the awful scene of the last day and appeals for mercy. It has been characterized by Dr. Philip Schaff,1 " as the acknowl edged masterpiece of Latin Church poetry and the greatest judgment hymn of all ages." The poet is the single actor. He realizes the coming judgment of the world, he hears the trumpet of the archangel through the open sepulchre, he expresses this sense of guilt and dismay, and ends with a prayer for the same mercy which the Saviour showed to Mary Magdalene and to the thief on the cross. The stanzas sound like the peals of an organ ; now crashing like a clap of thun der, now stealing softly and tremulously like a whisper through the vacant cathedral spaces. The first words are taken from Zephaniah 1: 15. Like the Fathers and Michael Angelo and the painters of the Renaissance, the author unites the predic tion of the heathen Sibyl with the prophecies of the Old Testament.
The hymn is used on All Souls Day, Nov. 2. Mozart introduced it into his requiem mass. It has been translated more frequently than any other Latin poem.2 Walter Scott introduced it into the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and Goethe made Gretchen tremble in dismay on hearing it in the cathe dral.
The most tender hymn of the Middle Ages is the Stabat mater dolorosa. The first verse runs : —
Stabat mater dolorosa juxta crucem lachrymosa
dum pendebat Jilius ; cujus animam gementem contristatam ac dolentem
pertransivit gladius.
At the cross her station keeping, Stood the mournful mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last ; Through her heart, His sorrow sharing, All His bitter anguish bearing,
Now at length the sword had passed.8
1 Lit. and Poetry, pp. 135-186.
2 Julian, pp. 299 sqq., gives a list of 133 versions, 19 of which are used in hymn books. The London Athenceum, July 26, 1890, gave a still larger list of 87 British and 92 American translations. The first English version is that of Joshua Sylvester, 1621, and one of the best, that of W. J. Irons, 1848.
3 CaswalPs transl. Dr. Schaff gives a number of versions. Lit. and Poe try, pp. 187-218.
868 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
This hymn occupies the leading place among the many mediseval hymns devoted to Mary and, in spite of its mariolatry, it appeals to the deepest emotions of the human heart. Its passion has been transfused into the compositions of Palestrina, Astorga, Pergolesi, Haydn, Bellini, Rossini, and other musical composers.
The poem depicts the agony of Mary at the sight of her dying Son. The first line is taken from John 19 : 25. The poet prays to Mary to be joined with her in her sorrow and to be defended by her on the day of judgment and taken into glory. The hymn passed into all the missals and was sung by the Flagellants in Italy at the close of the fourteenth century.1
Jacopone da Todi, the author of these hymns, called also Jacobus de Benedictis (d. 1306), was converted from a wild career by the sudden death of his wife through the falling of a gallery in a theatre. He gave up the law, both degrees of which he had received from Bologna, and was admitted to the Franciscan order.2 He abandoned himself to the extreme of ascetic austerity, appearing at one time in the public square walking on all fours and harnessed like a horse. He wrote a number of poems in the vulgar tongue, exposing the vices of his age and arraigning Boniface VIII. for avarice. He espoused the cause of the Colonna against that pope. Boniface had him thrown into prison and the story went that when the pope asked him, when he expected to get out, Jacopone replied, " when you get in." Not until Boniface's death, in 1303, was the poet released. He spent his last years in the convent of Collazone. His comfort in his last hours was his own hymn, G-iesu nostra fidanza — Jesus our trust and confidence.
1 The companion hymn, Stabat mater speciosa, "Stands the fair mother," ascribed to the same author, was discovered in 1852. See Lit. and Poetry, pp. 219-230.
2 See Julian, pp. 1080-1084, the art. Jacopone, by Lauxmann-Lempp, in Herzog, VIII. 516-519, and the references to Wadding there given. The Florentine ed. of his works, 1490, contains 100 Italian poems ; the Venetian ed. of 1614, 211.