We normally sing a stanza of "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" as we light the candles, adding a new stanza each week, only we sing them from TLH because that's the way we memorized them. So just four verses instead of seven. The first candle and week are "O come, O come, Emmanuel." The second candle and week is this verse: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....
It occurred to me that this is actually a reference to the harrowing of hell, and a prayer that Christ would rescue all those who had been held in death's prison. After all, He is the light sent to lighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death! Neat, eh? The sad thing is that LSB totally botched it:
O come, O Branch of Jesse's tree,
Free them from Satan's tyranny
That trust Thy mighty power to save
And give them vict'ry o'er the grave.
The original Latin of the hymn verse was:
Veni, O Iesse Virgula;
Ex hostis tuos ungula,
De specu tuos tartari
Educ, et antro barathri.
I think it's a case of the older translation being superior. Wondrous to think of Advent/Incarnation so intimately tied to the emptying of the grave and Easter. [P.S. - Thanks to Jen B for the great pic!]
13 comments:
Veni, veni Emmanuel won't give you these problems. Sang it all the time back in the day. Well, all the time in Advent. Just be sure you say vay-nee not way-nee so you don't come before God with a foreign accent, speaking Latin like those who killed him rather than his church.
Pastor Weedon, I recall a while back reading on some blog or another that a Lutheran pastor tried to publish a piece on the harrowing of hell in one of the LCMS publications but it was kicked back for failing doctrinal review. Was that your article or was it Father Gregory's?
With that in mind and with the change in the hymn lyrics here...what do you think this means? Is it Lutheran or not to hold to the harrowing of hell or doesn't it matter?
Do you think the harrowing of hell poses a problem for the LCMS because in English there is only one word, hell, which doesn't distinguish between the waiting place for the Old Testament Saints from the Lake of Fire meaning eternal hell? I have heard this kind of argument made and find it intriguing but have never heard it discussed in Lutheran circles.
Anyway...y'all should mix it up and sing it in Latin...then that whole translation thing goes away.
Differing translations are a little pet peeve of mine.
Dixie,
What a memory you have! Both Fr. Gregory and I wrote letters, though we ended up collaborating on one. It was a letter to the Lutheran Witness and it failed "doctrinal review" (a letter to the editor??? And at the time we were BOTH doctrinal reviewers!!!). As I said in the letter, to me I don't think it's at all "anti" Lutheran. Definitely misapprehending the meaning of "hell" complicates matters. But the Formula refers on the Descent further questions to Luther's fine homily on the topic. And twice he speaks in that homily of Christ our Lord "rescuing the prisoners" in His descent.
On the Latin, Amen.
And Pastor Elder, I am NOT a way-nee sort of fellow, you know. I'm vay-nee all the way!!!
Oh, on why the LSB went the way they did, I suspect it was that whoever reviewed the hymn may not have recognized the reference. I've sung it for years and thought of it more metaphorically also - simply that Christ came to rescue us from death, which is also true.
Here's the traditional Catholic English translation of the offending verse:
Draw nigh, O Jesse's Rod, draw nigh,
To free us from the enemy;
From Hell's infernal pit to save,
And give is victory o'er the grave.
(Of course each verse ends with:)
Gaude, gaude, Emmanuel
Nascetur pro te Israel.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall be born for thee O Israel.
Besides the translation thing, as we got into on FH's blog, chant, even in a relatively late hymn like this, is a form of speech-song, not a musical setting of a text, but an interdependence of text and tune, so that the same chant in another language is as much a different thing as the same text in another "setting".
This is interesting . . .
The version in TLH is from Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861), by J.M. Neale, but altered (significantly!) by the compilers of HAM. His original (1851) reads:
O Rod of Jesse's stem, arise,
And free us from our enemies,
And set us loose from Satan's chains,
And from the pit with all its pains!
So what do you make of this thoroughgoing Tractarian's rendering of the Latin? "Set _us_ loose . . . and from the pit." Do you think he also saw the harrowing of hell in the Latin?
FWIW,
Rev. Jon Vieker
St. Louis
You're welcome. I just figured you might need another advent photo in your stash. -jen
Jon,
Do you think it unreasonable that the Tractarians missed the reference? I am not familiar enough with their writings to know.
HAM?? As in Historical Anthology of Music?? OMG, mine's out in the garage in a box, buried deeper than the Dutch Catechism.
I'd say it's a safe bet that if Neale could haul Satan out of Tartarus, he got the rest just fine.
The version I gave is actually Neale's too. For that matter, the LSB version cites Neale as the text source! Huh? Well, the citation does have the dreaded alt. after it.
The other translations all make a clear statement of something clear in the original that the LSB version passes over lightly with "That trust Thy mighty power to save, namely, what his mighty power to save saves us FROM, indeed connecting his birth with why he was born.
So, once again, stick to Latin and TLH and you'll be fine.
Dear Past Elder,
HAM = Hymns Ancient and Modern. If you look in the 1867 version, available at Google books, you'll find that that is where Neale's translation was altered "by the compilers" (this, of HAM). Aufdemberge's commentary on CW provides Neale's 1851 original, which I cited.
Hope this is helpful.
Jon
--
Dear Bill,
I do find it odd that J.M. Neale didn't see what you're seeing. So I guess I'm wondering how you are translating the Latin, not that I have tried to translate it, mind you. :) How would you translate the Latin literally?
Jon
Great Leaping Judas -- I should have picked up on that. The HAM thing as in Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Bad habit from past times: HAM (as in Historical Anthology of Music) and the Harvard Dictionary of Music (aka HDM) were pretty much on the level of Scripture.
I still think it's wild that all of the translations discussed, including the one in LSB, all cite Neale as their source, even given that Neale made more than one.
Here's a literal translation of the Latin:
Come, Rod of Jesse,
From the claw of thy enemy,
From the cave of Thy hell,
March out, and take us from the pit of the grave.
From:
http://catholichosting.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7
FWIW,
Jon
I'll buy that, although I'd like a little more Tartarus in the "tartari".
Re educ: if we speak of deduce, why not educe; if the lead from, why not lead out? And why not "education" as just that, a leading out, an educing from ignorance into knowledge?
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