"What Child Is This?" is a popular Christmas carol written in 1865. At the age of twenty-nine, English writer William Chatterton Dix was struck with a sudden near-fatal illness and confined to bedrest for several months, during which he went into a deep depression. Yet out of his near-death experience, Dix wrote many hymns, including "What Child is This?", later set to the traditional English tune "Greensleeves."
What child is this?
Who meant to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping
Who angels greet with anthem sweet
While shepherds watch our keeping
This, this is Christ, the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the Son of Mary
So bring him incense, gold and myrrh
Come peasant King to own him
The King of kings, salvation brings
Let loving hearts enthrone Him
This, this is Christ, the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the Son of Mary
Nails fierce shall pierce him through
The cross be borne for me, for you
Hail, hail, the word made flesh
Obeyed the Son of Mary
This, this is Christ, the King
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the Son of Mary
Praise Him, Son of joy
Joy to the risen Lord
Praise Him, Son of joy
Joy to the risen Lord
This, this is Christ the king
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing
Haste, haste to bring Him laud
The babe, the Son of Mary
Listened to this in the evenings before Christmas:
O come, O come, Emmanuel is a Christian hymn for Advent. While it is most commonly known by that English title, it is in fact a translation of the original Latin, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel; translations into other modern languages (particularly German) are also in widespread use. The 1861 translation from Hymns Ancient and Modern is the most prominent by far in the English-speaking world, but other English translations also exist.
The hymn is a metrical paraphrase of the O Antiphons, a series of plainchant antiphons attached to the Magnificat at Vespers over the final days before Christmas.
Original Five-Stanza Text from Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum (1710)
Veni, veni Emmanuel!
Captivum solve Israel!
Qui gemit in exilio,
Privatus Dei Filio,
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
nascetur per te, Israel. [7]
Veni o Jesse virgula!
Ex hostis tuos ungula,
De specu tuos tartari
Educ, et antro barathri.
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
nascetur per te, Israel. [3]
Veni, veni o oriens!
Solare nos adveniens,
Noctis depelle nebulas,
Dirasque noctis tenebras.
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
nascetur per te, Israel. [5]
Veni clavis Davidica!
Regna reclude coelica,
Fac iter Tutum superum,
Et claude vias Inferum.
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
nascetur per te, Israel. [4]
Veni, veni Adonai![16]
Qui populo in Sinai
Legem dedisti vertice,
In maiestate gloriae.
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
nascetur per te, Israel. [2]
Additional Stanzas from Cantiones Sacrae (1878)
Veni, O Sapientia,
Quae hic disponis omnia,
Veni, viam prudentiae
Ut doceas et gloriae. [1]
Veni, Veni, Rex Gentium,
Veni, Redemptor omnium,
Ut salves tuos famulos
Peccati sibi conscios. [6]
Some English Translations
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan's tyranny ;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory o'er the grave.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come
And open wide our heav'nly home ;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Adonai, Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
And order all things, far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Desire of nations, bind
All peoples in one heart and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease;
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
A lament that centers me at this time of year:
The Coventry Carol is a Christmas carol dating from the 16th Century. The carol was performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from chapter two in the Gospel of Matthew. The carol refers to the Massacre of the Innocents, in which Herod orders all male infants under the age of two in Bethlehem to be killed. The lyrics of this haunting carol represent a mother's lament for her doomed child. It is the only carol that has survived from this play.
It is notable as a well-known example of a Picardy third. The author is unknown. The oldest known text was written down by Robert Croo in 1534, and the oldest known printing of the melody dates from 1591. The carol is traditionally sung a cappella. There is an alternative setting of the carol by Kenneth Leighton.
The only manuscript copy to have survived into recent times was burnt in 1875. Our knowledge of the lyrics is therefore based on two very poor quality transcriptions from the early nineteenth century, and there is considerable doubt about many of the words. Some of the transcribed words are difficult to make sense of: for example, in the last verse "And ever morne and may For thi parting Neither say nor singe" is not clear. Various modern editors have made different attempts to make sense of the words, so that you may find such variations as "ever mourn and say", "every morn and day", "ever mourn and sigh".
The Coventry Mystery Plays, or Coventry Corpus Christi Pageants, are a cycle of medieval mystery plays from Coventry, West Midlands, England, and are perhaps best known as the source of the "Coventry Carol". They should not be confused (though they often are) with the quite separate N-Town plays, sometimes called the Ludus Coventriae cycle from a former mistaken belief that the N-Town was Coventry.
Performances of the Coventry Plays are first recorded in a document of 1392 - 3, and continued for nearly two centuries; the young Shakespeare almost certainly witnessed them before they were finally suppressed in 1579. In its fullest form the cycle comprised at least ten plays, though only two have survived to the present day. Of these two, the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant was a nativity play portraying events from the Annunciation to the Massacre of the Innocents, and the Weavers' Pageant dealt with the Purification and the Doctors in the Temple.
The only ancient manuscript of the Shearmen and Tailors' Pageant was destroyed by fire in 1879, but fortunately it had previously been transcribed and published by Thomas Sharp. The plays were most recently edited by Pamela M. King and Clifford Davidson in The Coventry Corpus Christi Plays (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000).
.html][IMG]
[/IMG][/URL]
= new reply since forum marked as read
