The Calvinist International
Like many other poets of the sixteenth century, George Buchanan wrote classicizing Latin paraphrases of the Psalter. Here is his version of Psalm 117: Omnes ubique gentium quos solis ambit orbita, rerum parentis optimi laudes libenter pangite. agnoscite indulgentiam benignius nos in dies foventis, et constantiam promissa certam reddere. In rather wooden English:1 Everyone, everywhere […]
Many people are at least passingly familiar with the late fourth century/early fifth century Christian Latin poet Prudentius because of John Mason Neale and Henry Baker’s translation of nine verses from Cathemerinon 9, the Hymnus omnis horae (“Hymn for Every Hour”), titled “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.” (Kevin DeYoung recently wrote about it here.) The Cathemerinon (“Daily Round”) is a […]
In Canto 7 of the Inferno, Dante vividly imagines the fate of those given over to wrath and sullenness in their earthly lives. The wrathful in the end turn their whole bodies into weapons, externalizing, as it were, the rage they had always had within. The sullen, who would not enjoy God’s good gifts, are buried […]
Last month, I posted a translation of a medieval Advent hymn, Verbum supernum prodiens. Its first stanza is closely alluded to in the first stanza of a eucharistic hymn of Thomas Aquinas. VERBUM supernum prodiens, Supernal Word proceeding, nec Patris linquens dexteram, yet not leaving the […]
The anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet of Beowulf reminds us that it is good to know the true God, especially when circumstances are decidedly not good–even if that means passing through death first. When he’s forgotten heaven, man still remembers hell; and it’s Hard Time Killing Floor Blues all around. These were hard times, heartbreaking for the prince of the […]
I am very happy to share that a man named Matthew Pfeifer has versified George Buchanan’s “Morning Hymn to Christ” that I recently posted as “Sprung from Fairest Father.” His translation makes for quite a nice hymn text. I don’t have his permission to post the whole thing, but you can find it here. I’d […]
Gasp! It is well known that the Latin term saeculum, whence our “secular,” etc., has a variety of meanings. Roughly the Latin equivalent of the Greek term αἰών, it sometimes means this passing “age,” in contrast to the age to come; sometimes “age” in a generic sense; sometimes “world.” There is nothing in the word’s […]
I had intended to post this before Christmas, but the theme is never out of season. What follows is a short hymn to Christ by George Buchanan. After having made an unpoetical translation, I discovered that there have been a handful of translations of it over the past couple of centuries. But I’ll warrant I’m […]