Dies Irae

(Kenny, with major assist from R.I.)

I liked this enormously. R.I. tells me I need to go buy this version of Verdi's Requiem Mass, which incorporates the poem "Dies Irae," which he sent to me earlier today.

My level of cultural sophistication may be inferred from the fact that I only recognized the last two lines -- and in my best Pavlovian manner thwacked myself on the forehead in between them. (Monty Python, Holy Grail, the chanting monks.)

One mark of the skilled poet, by the way: the trochaic tetrameter never varies until the final two lines, each of are catalectic -- that is, they each come up a syllable short, forcing the reader to feel a strong pause, as the poem dies away. Or, alternatively, the reader could supply the missing final syllable in each line nonverbally...say, by thwacking himself on the forehead:

...pie Jesu Domine (thwack)
dona eis requiem (thwack).

(Does it make the Python parody funnier to know that the self-chastisement is thrown in amidst lines that mean, roughly, "Compassionate Lord Jesus [thwack], grant them rest [thwack]"? I think so, but maybe that's just me.)

And of course the rhyme scheme is a steady stream of three-line rhyming stanzas until suddenly at the end you get a six-line stanza that you could divide into two three-line sentences grammatically, or else you can treat the first four lines as two rhyming couplets, and in either case you end with the two short lines that don't rhyme at all. Furthermore the sense shifts away from the individual's prayer for himself, to a wider perspective embracing all humanity (I may not have the translation exactly right because my medieval Latin is very rusty indeed):

"I pray, kneeling, supplicant,
my heart broken like ashes;
care for me in my final hour.

O, that day of tears
on which man will rise from the dust
to face the judgment!
Therefore spare him, O God:
Compassionate Lord Jesus,
give them rest.

Amen."

A very nice way of signaling that the poem is in its final stages, of slowing the reader down and bringing him gracefully to a stop just in time for the final Amen. And made to order for a composer who is setting the piece to music; the poem itself comes with a ready-made coda, so to speak. Can't wait to see what Verdi does with it.

But my favorite stanza, by a very wide margin, is this one, which (unless my translation is way off, admittedly a definite possibility) captures in twenty-four syllables the Christian's entire defense before the throne of judgment:

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

"In seeking me, you exhausted yourself [lit. "seeking me, you sat exhausted"];
suffering the Cross, you redeemed me --
let not so great a labor be in vain."

That is to say, it's not that I deserve saving -- it's that Jesus' sacrifice demands great honor, and for me to be left unsaved would dishonor His sacrifice.

Anyway, here's the poem:

Dies irae, dies illa
solvet saeclum in favilla:
teste David cum Sibylla.

Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulcra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.

Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.

Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.

Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?

Rex tremendae majestatis,
qui salvandos salvas gratis,
salva me fons pietatis.

Recordare, Jesu pie,
quod sum causa tuae viae:
ne me perdas illa die.

Quaerens me, sedisti lassus:
redemisti Crucem passus:
tantus labor non sit cassus.

Juste judex ultionis,
donum fac remissionis
ante diem rationis.

Ingemisco, tamquam reus:
culpa rubet vultus meus:
supplicanti parce, Deus.

Qui Mariam absolvisti,
et latronem exaudisti,
mihi quoque spem dedisti.

Preces meae non sunt dignae:
sed tu bonus fac benigne,
ne perenni cremer igne.

Inter oves locum praesta,
et ab haedis me sequestra,
statuens in parte dextra.

Confutatis maledictis,
flammis acribus addictis:
voca me cum benedictis.

Oro supplex et acclinis,
cor contritum quasi cinis:
gere curam mei finis.

Lacrimosa dies illa,
qua resurget ex favilla
judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
pie Jesu Domine,
dona eis requiem.

Amen.