andists, created medieval Latin and made it a secondary
classic--mother of four anthem languages of Western and Southern Europe.
Its golden age was the 12th and 13th centuries. The new and more
flexible school of speech and music in hymn and tune had perfected
rhythmic beauty and brought in the winsome assonance of rhyme.

[Illustration: Dr. Martin Luther]

The "Dies Irae" was born, it is believed, about the year 1255. Its
authorship has been debated, but competent testimony assures us that the
original draft of the great poem was found in a box among the effects of
Thomas di Celano after his death. Thomas--surnamed Thomas of Celano from
his birthplace, the town of Celano in the province of Aquila, Southern
Italy--was the pupil, friend and co-laborer of St. Francis of Assisi,
and wrote his memoirs. He is supposed to have died near the end of the
13th century. That he wrote the sublime judgment song there is now
practically no question.

The label on the discovered manuscript would suggest that the writer did
not consider it either a hymn or a poem. Like the inspired prophets he
had meditated--and while he was musing the fire burned. The only title
he wrote over it was "_Prosa de mortuis_," Prosa (or prosa oratio)--from
_prorsus_, "straight forward"--appears here in the truly conventional
sense it was beginning to bear, but not yet as the antipode of "poetry."
The modest author, unconscious of the magnitude of his work, called it
simply "Plain speech concerning the dead."[7]

[Footnote 7: "Proses" were original passages introduced into
ecclesiastical chants in the 10th century. During and after the 11th
century they were called "Sequences" (i.e. _following_ the "Gospel" in
the liturgy), and were in metrical form, having a prayerful tone.
"Sequentia pro defunctis" was the later title of the "Dies Irae."]

The hymn is much too long to quote entire, but can be found in _Daniel's
Thesaurus_ in any large public library. As to the translations of it,
they number hundreds--in English and German alone, and Italy, Spain and
Portugal have their vernacular versions--not to mention the Greek and
Russian and even the Hebrew. A few stanzas follow, with their renderings
into English (always imperfect) selected almost at random:

Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando Judex est venturus,
Cuncta stricte discussurus!

Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulcra regionum,
Coget omnes ante thro