Friday, September 10
A Free Translation of Two Sacred Songs by St. Hildegarde
Antiphon: O pulchrae facies (De Virginibus)
O beautiful faces:
Ye who behold God and build up in the dawn's light,
O blessed virgins, O how noble are ye!
In ye hath the King contemplated Himself:
And in ye every heavenly ornament hath He prophesized:
And thus, ye art the most sweet of gardens,
Perfumed in all your adornments.
Sequence: O virga ac diadema purpurae Regis (De Sancta Maria)
O Green shoot and purple crown,
Thy purity cloistered like gleaming armor:
Thou didst branch and blossom, changed somehow
From that which Adam produced in the whole human race.
Hail, hail, from Thy womb proceedeth another life,
Stripped forth by Adam from all his sons.
O flower! It was not the dew that made Thee bud,
Nor drops of rain, nor wind on high:
But clearest divine light that brought Thee forth
From that O noblest bough of Jesse.
O branch, Thy flowering
God forsaw on the first Day of creation:
And so, O golden matrix of the Word,
O laudable Virgin, He made Thee thus!
O how great is Man's side, how strong,
From which Woman didst God draw forth
And who He made the mirror of all His ornament,
The embrace of all creation.
And so together the organs of heaven do play,
And all the earth beholds you, O Mary all-praised,
O Thou, so beloved of God.
O what great weeping and wailing it was,
That crime and sorrow, through the Serpent's council
Didst flow into Woman.
For that woman, whom God sent us as mother of all,
Self-vulned her gut with wounds of ignorance:
And gave dolorous birth as inheritance to all her offspring.
But! O aurora, O dawn, from Thy womb,
Rose the new Sun:
Purging every sin of Eve
And through Thee a great blessing doth flow
Overwhealming Eve's sad deed.
And thus, O Mother of Salvation,
Thou hast bourne the New Light
For all Mankind
Knit together then all us,
The members of Thy Son
Into this caelestial harmony.
![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
