FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   >>  
tched arms embraced him from the cross.' Again we read, 'The image on the cross bowed itself and embraced him with its wounded arms as a sure token that to it this prayer was most pleasing.' Julian refers to eight English metrical versions. One of the finest forms in which it has come into the language (through P. Gerhardt's free German version 'O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden') is _O sacred Head! now wounded_. 3. Conquassatum: mangled. 7. Immutatus: 'His visage was so marred more than any man.'--Isaiah 52. 14. 10. All heaven shudders. The curia is the centre of government. 11. viror: Late Latin for viriditas, vigor; we might freely render brightness. 14. Expressing the extremity of weakness, hanging all in faintness. 19. intersigno: proof, Late Latin. 23-25. From whose mouth I have taken honey with the sweetness of milk, beyond all delights. A figurative use of the story of Samson, who found a honeycomb in the mouth of the carcass of the lion which he had slain, Judges 14. 8, 9. Milk is religiously associated with honey because of the description of Canaan in Deuteronomy 31. 20, terram lacte et melle manantem. 28-30. Now that death is near Thee, lay here Thine head, rest in my arms. 32. gauderem: I would rejoice, were I associated with Thy holy passion; present contrary to fact condition. 40. absque: without, ante- and post-classic preposition. 46. emigrare: depart from life. Cf. qui e vita emigravit, Cicero, _De Legibus_, 2. 48. 49. Temetipsum: Thine own self. An emphatic -met is suffixed to Te. 'JESUS, THE VERY THOUGHT OF THEE.' The author is probably St. Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux and the great preacher of the Second Crusade. Few men in Christendom have ever exercised a personal influence equal to his. These quartrains are selected from a hymn composed of fifty such, and familiar to English-speaking Christians from Caswall's translation, _Jesus, the very Thought of Thee_, and Ray Palmer's _Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts_. It was a favorite of Livingstone who quotes from it in his _African Diary_. 'No other poem in any language,' says Julian, 'has furnished to English and American hymn-books so many hymns of sterling worth and well-deserved popularity.' Subject, Jesus. 1-4. Iesu: vocative. We would expect das instead of dans and tui instead of eius. Supply est with praesentia. 13-16. Thou bliss of souls in bitter need, Water to lip and light to eye, All joy thou dost how far exceed,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   >>  



Top keywords:

English

 

language

 

embraced

 
Julian
 
wounded
 

author

 

Bernard

 
THOUGHT
 

influence

 

personal


Clairvaux

 

Christendom

 

Crusade

 
exercised
 

preacher

 

Second

 

preposition

 
emigrare
 

depart

 
classic

exceed

 
condition
 

absque

 

Temetipsum

 
emphatic
 

emigravit

 

Cicero

 

Legibus

 

suffixed

 

quartrains


sterling

 

deserved

 

American

 

furnished

 
popularity
 

Subject

 
praesentia
 
Supply
 
expect
 

vocative


African

 

familiar

 

speaking

 
Christians
 

translation

 

Caswall

 

composed

 
selected
 

Hearts

 
favorite