Salva me, fons pietatis!!!’”
Justus Kerner, in his [Wahnsinnige Brüder], depicts the overwhelming power of the hymn upon minds hardened by long continuance in sin, but suddenly awakened to reflection by its thunders of the Day of Reckoning. Daniel well compares it to the picture of the Day of Judgment, which was the means of converting the King of the Bulgars to Christianity.
The translations of our hymn into modern languages, especially into German and English, have been numbered by the hundred. Partly no doubt this is due to the entirely Evangelical type of its doctrine, its freedom from Mariolatry, its exaltation of divine mercy above human merit, and its picture of the soul’s free access to God without the intervention of Church and priest. Lisco (1840 and 1843) was able to specify eighty-seven German versions. Michael (1866) brought this number up to ninety, of which sixty-two are both complete and exact; and Dr. Philip Schaff says he can increase the list beyond a hundred without exhausting the number. Among the German translators are Andreas Gryphius (1650), A. W. Schlegel (1802), J. G. Fichte (1813), A. L. Follen (1819), J. F. von Meyer (1824), Claus Harms (1828), J. Emmanuel Veith (1829), C. J. C. Bunsen (1833), H. A. Daniel (1839), F. G. Lisco (1840), besides partial versions by J. G. von Herder (1802) and J. H. von Wessenberg (1820).
The translations into English begin with one by Joshua Sylvester in 1621, that of Richard Crashaw in 1646 coming second. There are four of that century and two of the next, the most notable being the Earl of Roscommon’s in 1717. In the first thirty years of the nineteenth century there are but four, the notable being the partial version by Sir Walter Scott in 1805, and Macaulay’s in 1826. Since Isaac Williams published his in 1831, there has been a steady succession of versions, bringing the number for the United Kingdom in this century up to fifty-one. Of these the most noteworthy are by John Chandler (1837), Henry Alford (1844), Richard C. Trench (1844), William J. Irons (1848), Edward Caswall (1849), Frederick G. Lee (1851), John Mason Neale (1851), William Bright (1858), Elizabeth R. Charles (1858), Herbert Kynaston (1862), Richard H. Hutton (1868), Dean Stanley (1868), William C. Dix (1871), and Hamilton McGill (1876).
In point of numbers at least America surpasses England and approaches Germany. Since 1841, when two anonymous versions appeared in this country, there have been at least ninety-six complete versions by American translators, bringing the total of enumerated versions in the language up to one hundred and fifty-four. Of American translators may be named William R. Williams (1843), H. H. Brownell (1847), Abraham Coles (1847 and later), William G. Dix (1852), S. Dryden Phelps (1855), John A. Dix (1863 and 1875), Marshall H. Bright (1866), Edward Slosson (1866), E. C. Benedict (1867), Margaret J. Preston (1868), Philip Schaff (1868), Samuel W. Duffield (1870 and later), John Anketell (1873), Charles W. Elliot (1881), Henry C. Lea (1882), M. W. Stryker (1883), H. L. Hastings (1886), and W. S. McKenzie (1887). This certainly, both by the length of the list and the weight of many of the names, constitutes a tribute to the power of the Dies Irae such as never has been offered to any other hymn! Only Luther’s Ein’ feste Burg, of which there are eighty-one versions in English alone, can compare with it.[13]
Of these English versions, those by Rev. W. J. Irons and Dean Stanley in England, and those of General John A. Dix and Mr. Edward Slosson in America, have enjoyed the most popularity. They certainly are excellent, but every translator seems somewhere to fail of complete success. Nor do those who have returned again and again to the attempt seem to accomplish their own ideal of a perfect translation. Dr. Abraham Coles, who has made some sixteen or seventeen renderings, is no better off than when he began. Nor do I think my own sixth version has carried me one inch beyond my first. The truth is that not even the Pange lingua gloriosi, which Dr. Neale calls the most difficult of poems, is in this respect the equal of this alluring and baffling hymn. But the reader, who has had no access to the hymn except through the poorest version, has the means to discern the fact that in it a great mind utters itself worthily on one of the greatest of themes.
It happened to me once to enter a crowded church, where presently a distinguished German divine arose to speak. Others had addressed the audience in English; but he, turning to his fellow-countrymen, began to pour forth a trumpet-strain of lofty eloquence in his native tongue. He spoke of the “better valley,” of a happy and peaceful land. He seemed to see its broad and gentle river and to hear the chiming of its Sabbath bells. He peopled the air with its lovely citizens and created about us the presence of its glorious joy. Faintly and brokenly, as now and then he uttered some familiar words, I could catch glimpses of that besseres Thal, and its brightness and beauty, and the awe of its holy calmness came upon me—upon me, the stranger and the foreigner, in whose speech no word was said.
But they who were of the lip and lineage of the land, they whose country was brought so near and whose hopes were raised on such strong and familiar wings—they truly were moved to the soul. I saw tears in their eyes; I heard their suppressed and laboring breath; I beheld their eager faces; and the glory of that land fell on them even as I gazed. So, though we cannot here perceive the fulness of the Franciscan’s hymn, yet do we discern the stately splendor of Messiah’s throne, and
“Catch betimes, with wakeful eyes and clear
Some radiant vista of the realm before us.”