The same poet was heard to quote portions of the hymn on his deathbed, and the last words of the Earl of Roscommon, author of one of the well-known versions, were a rendering of line 51:
My God, my Father, and my Friend,
Do not forsake me in my end!
Hundreds of metrical translations of this hymn exist. A good selection will be found in Nott, _Seven Great Hymns).
1. Dies irae, dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiae, dies calamitatis et miseriae, etc.—Zephaniah 1. 16. Cf. dies magnus irae, Revelation 6. 17. 2. Shall lay the world in glowing ashes. Cf. 2 Peter 3. 10-12, especially 'The elements shall melt with fervent heat.' 3. Teste David cum Sibylla: Jew and Gentile both testify that the Day of Judgment shall come. As Vergil in his fourth Eclogue was believed to have foretold Christ, so the Sibyl was thought to have prophesied the Day of Judgment. This was due to the still extant 'Sibylline Oracles,' a collection of twelve books in Greek hexameters supposed to have emanated from the Sibyl, but really pretended prophesies composed in the interest of their respective religions partly by Alexandrian Jews, partly by Christians. For the witness of David see Psalms 11. 5, 6; 96. 13; 97. 2, 3. Cf. Trench, pp. 303, 304. Teste David is ablative absolute. 6. Discussurus: investigate, a meaning not classic in the literary language. 7. Tuba: 'the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised.'—1 Corinthians 15. 52. Cf. 1 Thessalonians 4. 16. 11. creatura: every creature. 13. Liber scriptus: Daniel 1. 10; Revelation 20. 12. 16. Matthew 25. 31. 17. Luke 12. 2. 20. patronum: advocate, 1 John 2. 1. 21. vix iustus: 'if the righteous is scarcely saved.'—1 Peter 4. 18. 22-24.
King of awful majesty,
Saving sinners graciously,
Fount of mercy, save Thou me!
23. gratis: freely, Revelation 21. 6. 28-30. Dr. Johnson frequently quoted this stanza with tears. 28. 'Jesus, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well.'—John 4. 6. 33. 'After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and maketh a reckoning with them.'— Matthew 25. 19. 37. The writer identifies Mary Magdalene with 'the woman which was a sinner' to whom Jesus said, 'Thy sins are forgiven thee.' 38. latronem: the penitent thief, Luke 23. 39 ff. 43-48. Matthew 25. 31 ff. 49. acclinis: bowing before Thee. 50. A heart bruised even as ashes. The literal meaning of contritum, 'separated into small pieces,' is strongly in mind. Cf. cor contritum; Psalms 51. 17. Cor is in apposition with the subject of oro. 52-57. These lines adapt the hymn to the service. 56, 57. Note the wonderful sweetness of these lines, like calm after storm.
BERNARD OF CLUNY.
DE PATRIAE CAELESTIS LAUDE.
This writer, born in Brittany of English parents and a contemporary of St. Bernard, was a monk in the monastery of Cluny under Peter the Venerable. The verses here given form the opening of his De Contemptu Mundi, a bitter satire about three thousand lines long upon the corruptions of the time. The passage is described by Neale as 'the most lovely of mediaeval poems.'
The metre is dactylic hexameter with the leonine and tailed rhyme, each line being broken up into three parts. This measure is so difficult that the composer was enabled to master it only, as he believed, by a special inspiration; but two translators into English, Moultrie and Duffield, have attempted to reproduce it, as: