“Virgin of virgins, illustrious, be not now bitter to me, make me mourn with thee, make me carry about the death of Christ, make me a sharer in His passion, adoring His suffering.” And again: “O Christ, when I go hence, give me, through Thy mother, to attain the palm of victory,” etc.
For this reason the Protestant metrical versions of the Stabat Mater are few in number and generally accompanied by disclaimers of one kind or another. Of course the music, on whose wings the hymn has now flown world-wide, will need no word of mine. If the Stabat Mater itself receives commonly the second rank among hymns, it follows that Rossini, Pergolesi, Palestrina and Haydn have not detracted from its glory. And though in the terse language of one of our best hymnologists, we say, “It is simple Mariolatry, most of it,” the human pathos of the verses appeals strongly to those who refuse the added errors of the poem.
Of the Stabat Mater Speciosa I confess to a decided doubt. It is in the nature of a paraphrase, almost of a parody. It is unworthy of the brain that formed the Mater Dolorosa, and the jester must have gone beyond common folly if he descended to this imitation of himself. It is more likely—and there is good ground for the opinion—that it is the work of some later hand. Archbishop Trench, by the way, will not include either of them in his collection.
Of the other writings of Jacoponus it may be interesting to say that he composed hymns and satires in great abundance, both in Latin and in Italian, which were collected by Franciscus Tressatus, a Minorite brother, and published in seven books. The Cur mundus militat (which Wadding quotes at length) meets this editor’s highest praise. Of the Italian poems we can say that they are now regarded by Symonds and others as the fountain-head of Italian literature, and that they contained many of the crude expressions of the common people mixed with an elegance of phraseology to which Dante and Petrarch were accustoming their mother tongue. Indeed, I know no other similar poet, unless it be John Skelton, rector of “gloomy Dis” in England, who about a century later shot the same kind of shafts at the same manner of target and with much the same bitter, gibing wit.
But of all the compositions of our mad monk which I have seen, I am most especially interested in this Cur mundus militat. Its attractiveness consists, first of all, in its dactylic measure and in its singular adaptation to the character of Jacoponus. It is hard, in the translation, to catch that strange jingle of the cap and bells and that tossing of the fool’s bauble which accompany the exhortation. Only in the last stanza does it appear as if he deigned to be serious. All that precedes this is the quaint world-weariness of the man too wise for his time, and who is therefore well pleased to be stultus propter Christum—a “fool for Christ’s sake.”
THE VANITY OF EARTH.
Why should this world of ours strive to be glorious
Since its prosperity is not victorious?
Swiftly its power and its beauty are perishing
Like to frail vases which once we were cherishing.