Good King Wenceslas
Encyclopedia
"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol
about a king who goes out to give alms
to a poor peasant
on the Feast of Stephen
(the second day of Christmas
, December 26). During the journey, his page
is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
(907–935), known in the Czech language
as Svatý Václav.
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale
wrote the "Wenceslas" lyrics, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore
, and the carol
first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, 1853. Neales' lyrics were set to a tune based on a 13th century spring
carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("The time is near for flowering") first published in the 1582 Finnish
song collection Piae Cantiones
.
and a saint
immediately after his death, when a cult of Wenceslas grew up in Bohemia
and in England
. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies
had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages
conceptualization of the rex justus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch
whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, the chronicler Cosmas of Prague
, writing in about the year 1119, states:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II
, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I
posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
first published in the Finnish
song book Piae Cantiones
in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jaakko Suomalainen, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of secular (as opposed to sacred), children's songs of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana
as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the game of Venus in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, Her Majesty's envoy and minister in Stockholm
, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to English
hymnwriter John Mason Neale
, Warden of Sackville College
, East Grinstead
, Sussex
and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore
(Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea
). The book was entirely unknown in England
at that time. Neale translated some of the carols and hymn
s, and in 1853, he and Helmore published twelve carols in Carols for Christmas-tide (with music from Piae Cantiones). In 1854, they published a dozen more in Carols for Easter-tide and it was in these collections that Neale's original hymn was first published.
traditions. According to older Czech sources, Neale's lyrics are a translation of a poem by Czech poet Václav Alois Svoboda, written in Czech
, German
and Latin.
The hymn consists of five quatrains in the meter
trochaic
heptameter
. Each quatrain has the scheme
ABABCDCD with feminine rhyme
and internal rhyme
. The unstressed syllable
of the fourth foot
is abated in each line in favor of a caesura
, forming the line into two hemistich
s.
In the accompanying common time
musical score, the caesura is attained by rendering the fourth foot as a half note
(or minim), while the last foot of the line effectively becomes a spondee
by being realized as two half notes. Each line is thus sung in four measures
. Neale's words are now in the public domain
.* MIDI recording of the melody "Tempus Adest Floridum".
Academics tend to be critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer
, Martin Shaw
and Ralph Vaughan Williams
) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols
, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
Elizabeth Poston
, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to detail how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words".
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general and which are traditionally sung in the period before Christmas.-History:...
about a king who goes out to give alms
Alms
Alms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine Regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...
to a poor peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
on the Feast of Stephen
St. Stephen's Day
St. Stephen's Day, or the Feast of St. Stephen, is a Christian saint's day celebrated on 26 December in the Western Church and 27 December in the Eastern Church. Many Eastern Orthodox churches adhere to the Julian calendar and mark St. Stephen's Day on 27 December according to that calendar, which...
(the second day of Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
, December 26). During the journey, his page
Page (servant)
A page or page boy is a traditionally young male servant, a messenger at the service of a nobleman or royal.-The medieval page:In medieval times, a page was an attendant to a knight; an apprentice squire...
is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by following the king's footprints, step for step, through the deep snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia
Wenceslaus I , or Wenceslas I, was the duke of Bohemia from 921 until his assassination in 935, purportedly in a plot by his own brother, Boleslav the Cruel....
(907–935), known in the Czech language
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
as Svatý Václav.
In 1853, English hymnwriter John Mason Neale
John Mason Neale
John Mason Neale was an Anglican priest, scholar and hymn-writer.-Life:Neale was born in London, his parents being the Revd Cornelius Neale and Susanna Neale, daughter of John Mason Good...
wrote the "Wenceslas" lyrics, in collaboration with his music editor Thomas Helmore
Thomas Helmore
Thomas Helmore was a choirmaster, writer about singing and author and editor of hymns and carols.Helmore's father was a congregationalist minister...
, and the carol
Carol (music)
A carol is a festive song, generally religious but not necessarily connected with church worship, and often with a dance-like or popular character....
first appeared in Carols for Christmas-Tide, 1853. Neales' lyrics were set to a tune based on a 13th century spring
Spring (season)
Spring is one of the four temperate seasons, the transition period between winter and summer. Spring and "springtime" refer to the season, and broadly to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth. The specific definition of the exact timing of "spring" varies according to local climate, cultures and...
carol "Tempus adest floridum" ("The time is near for flowering") first published in the 1582 Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
song collection Piae Cantiones
Piae Cantiones
Piae Cantiones ecclesiasticae et scholasticae veterum episcoporum is a collection of late medieval Latin songs first published in 1582. It was compiled by Jacobus Finno or Jaakko Suomalainen , a clergyman who was headmaster of the cathedral school at Turku...
.
Source legend
Wenceslas was considered a martyrMartyr
A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...
and a saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
immediately after his death, when a cult of Wenceslas grew up in Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
and in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. Within a few decades of Wenceslas's death four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies
Hagiography
Hagiography is the study of saints.From the Greek and , it refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically to the biographies of saints and ecclesiastical leaders. The term hagiology, the study of hagiography, is also current in English, though less common...
had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
conceptualization of the rex justus, or "righteous king"—that is, a monarch
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
whose power stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor.
Referring approvingly to these hagiographies, the chronicler Cosmas of Prague
Cosmas of Prague
Cosmas of Prague was a Bohemian priest, writer and historian born in a noble family in Bohemia. Between 1075 and 1081, he studied in Liège. After his return to Bohemia, he became a priest and married Božetěcha, with whom he probably had a son. In 1086 Cosmas was appointed prebendary of Prague, a...
, writing in about the year 1119, states:
Several centuries later the legend was claimed as fact by Pope Pius II
Pope Pius II
Pope Pius II, born Enea Silvio Piccolomini was Pope from August 19, 1458 until his death in 1464. Pius II was born at Corsignano in the Sienese territory of a noble but decayed family...
, who himself also walked ten miles barefoot in the ice and snow as an act of pious thanksgiving.
Although Wenceslas was, during his lifetime, only a duke, Holy Roman Emperor Otto I
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor
Otto I the Great , son of Henry I the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim, was Duke of Saxony, King of Germany, King of Italy, and "the first of the Germans to be called the emperor of Italy" according to Arnulf of Milan...
posthumously "conferred on [Wenceslas] the regal dignity and title" and that is why, in the legend and song, he is referred to as a "king". The usual English spelling of Duke Wenceslas's name, Wenceslaus, is occasionally encountered in later textual variants of the carol, although it was not used by Neale in his version. Wenceslas is not to be confused with King Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (Wenceslaus I Premyslid), who lived more than three centuries later.
Tempus adest floridum
The tune is that of "Tempus adest floridum" ("It is time for flowering"), a 13th-century spring carolCarol (music)
A carol is a festive song, generally religious but not necessarily connected with church worship, and often with a dance-like or popular character....
first published in the Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
song book Piae Cantiones
Piae Cantiones
Piae Cantiones ecclesiasticae et scholasticae veterum episcoporum is a collection of late medieval Latin songs first published in 1582. It was compiled by Jacobus Finno or Jaakko Suomalainen , a clergyman who was headmaster of the cathedral school at Turku...
in 1582. Piae Cantiones is a collection of seventy-four songs compiled by Jaakko Suomalainen, the Protestant headmaster of Turku Cathedral School, and published by Theodoric Petri, a young Catholic printer. The book is a unique document of European songs intended not only for use in church, but also schools, thus making the collection a unique record of secular (as opposed to sacred), children's songs of the late medieval period.
A text beginning substantially the same as the 1582 "Piae" version is also found in the German manuscript collection Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana
Carmina Burana , Latin for "Songs from Beuern" , is the name given to a manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts mostly from the 11th or 12th century, although some are from the 13th century. The pieces were written principally in Medieval Latin; a few in Middle High German, and some with traces...
as CB 142, where it is substantially more carnal; CB 142 has clerics and virgins playing the game of Venus in the meadows, while in the Piae version they are praising the Lord from the bottom of their hearts.
The text of Neale's carol bears no relationship to the words of "Tempus Adest Floridum". In or around 1853, G. J. R. Gordon, Her Majesty's envoy and minister in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, gave a rare copy of the 1582 edition of Piae Cantiones to English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
hymnwriter John Mason Neale
John Mason Neale
John Mason Neale was an Anglican priest, scholar and hymn-writer.-Life:Neale was born in London, his parents being the Revd Cornelius Neale and Susanna Neale, daughter of John Mason Good...
, Warden of Sackville College
Sackville College
Sackville College is a Jacobean almshouse in town of East Grinstead, West Sussex, England.It was founded in 1609 with money left by Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset...
, East Grinstead
East Grinstead
East Grinstead is a town and civil parish in the northeastern corner of Mid Sussex, West Sussex in England near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders. It lies south of London, north northeast of Brighton, and east northeast of the county town of Chichester...
, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
and to the Reverend Thomas Helmore
Thomas Helmore
Thomas Helmore was a choirmaster, writer about singing and author and editor of hymns and carols.Helmore's father was a congregationalist minister...
(Vice-Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea
Chelsea, London
Chelsea is an area of West London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above...
). The book was entirely unknown in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
at that time. Neale translated some of the carols and hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
s, and in 1853, he and Helmore published twelve carols in Carols for Christmas-tide (with music from Piae Cantiones). In 1854, they published a dozen more in Carols for Easter-tide and it was in these collections that Neale's original hymn was first published.
Neale's carol
John Mason Neale published the carol "Good King Wenceslas" in 1853, although he may have written his carol some time earlier, since he carried on the legend of St. Wenceslas (the basis of this story) in his Deeds of Faith (1849). Neale was known for his devotion to High ChurchHigh church
The term "High Church" refers to beliefs and practices of ecclesiology, liturgy and theology, generally with an emphasis on formality, and resistance to "modernization." Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term has traditionally been principally associated with the...
traditions. According to older Czech sources, Neale's lyrics are a translation of a poem by Czech poet Václav Alois Svoboda, written in Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Latin.
The hymn consists of five quatrains in the meter
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
trochaic
Trochee
A trochee or choree, choreus, is a metrical foot used in formal poetry consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one...
heptameter
Heptameter
Heptameter is one or more lines of verse containing seven metrical feet .An example from Lord Byron's Youth and Age:...
. Each quatrain has the scheme
Rhyme scheme
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyme between lines of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines...
ABABCDCD with feminine rhyme
Feminine rhyme
A feminine rhyme is a rhyme that matches two or more syllables, usually at the end of respective lines, in which the final syllable or syllables are unstressed.-English:...
and internal rhyme
Internal rhyme
In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, is rhyme that occurs in a single line of verse.Internal rhyme occurs in the middle of a line, as exemplified by Coleridge, "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud" or "Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white," in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." ...
. The unstressed syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
of the fourth foot
Foot (prosody)
The foot is the basic metrical unit that generates a line of verse in most Western traditions of poetry, including English accentual-syllabic verse and the quantitative meter of classical ancient Greek and Latin poetry. The unit is composed of syllables, the number of which is limited, with a few...
is abated in each line in favor of a caesura
Caesura
thumb|100px|An example of a caesura in modern western music notation.In meter, a caesura is a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition. The plural form of caesura is caesuras or caesurae...
, forming the line into two hemistich
Hemistich
A hemistich is a half-line of verse, followed and preceded by a caesura, that makes up a single overall prosodic or verse unit. In Classical poetry, the hemistich is generally confined to drama. In Greek tragedy, characters exchanging clipped dialogue to suggest rapidity and drama would speak in...
s.
In the accompanying common time
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
musical score, the caesura is attained by rendering the fourth foot as a half note
Half note
In music, a half note or minim is a note played for half the duration of a whole note and twice the duration of a quarter note...
(or minim), while the last foot of the line effectively becomes a spondee
Spondee
In poetry, a spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two long syllables, as determined by syllable weight in classical meters, or two stressed syllables, as determined by stress in modern meters...
by being realized as two half notes. Each line is thus sung in four measures
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
. Neale's words are now in the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
.* MIDI recording of the melody "Tempus Adest Floridum".
Academics tend to be critical of Neale's textual substitution. H. J. L. J. Massé wrote in 1921:
Why, for instance, do we tolerate such impositions as "Good King Wenceslas?" The original was and is an Easter Hymn...it is marked in carol books as "traditional", a delightful word which often conceals ignorance. There is nothing traditional in it as a carol.
A similar sentiment is expressed by the editors (Percy Dearmer
Percy Dearmer
Percy Dearmer, was an English priest and liturgist best known as the author of The Parson's Handbook, a liturgical manual for Anglican clergy. A lifelong socialist, he was an early advocate of the public ministry of women and concerned with social justice...
, Martin Shaw
Martin Shaw (composer)
Martin Edward Fallas Shaw OBE, FRCM, DMus was an English composer, conductor and theatre producer...
and Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
) in the 1928 Oxford Book of Carols
Oxford Book of Carols
The Oxford Book of Carols was published in 1928 by Oxford University Press. Its influence derives from its anthologists Percy Dearmer, Martin Shaw and Ralph Vaughan Williams and their choice of carol tunes, provision of new words for old tunes and the continuing reinvigoration of English church...
, which is even more critical of Neale's carol.
This rather confused narrative owes its popularity to the delightful tune, which is that of a Spring carol...Unfortunately Neale in 1853 substituted for the Spring carol this Good King Wenceslas, one of his less happy pieces, which E. Duncan goes so far as to call "doggerel", and Bullen condemns as "poor and commonplace to the last degree". The time has not yet come for a comprehensive book to discard it; but we reprint the tune in its proper setting...not without hope that, with the present wealth of carols for Christmas, Good King Wenceslas may gradually pass into disuse, and the tune be restored to spring-time.
Elizabeth Poston
Elizabeth Poston
Elizabeth Poston was an English composer, pianist, and writer. She studied at Queen Margaret's School, York and then the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she was encouraged by both Peter Warlock and Ralph Vaughan Williams. She won a prize from RAM for her violin sonata, which was...
, in the Penguin Book of Christmas Carols, referred to it as the "product of an unnatural marriage between Victorian whimsy and the thirteenth-century dance carol". She goes on to detail how Neale's "ponderous moral doggerel" does not fit the light-hearted dance measure of the original tune, and that if performed in the correct manner "sounds ridiculous to pseudo-religious words".
Textual comparison
| Neale's Good King Wenceslas (1853) | Tempus adest floridum (Piae Cantiones) | English translation by Percy Dearmer Percy Dearmer Percy Dearmer, was an English priest and liturgist best known as the author of The Parson's Handbook, a liturgical manual for Anglican clergy. A lifelong socialist, he was an early advocate of the public ministry of women and concerned with social justice... (1867-1936) |
|---|---|---|
| Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen, When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even; Brightly shone the moon that night, tho' the frost was cruel, When a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel. |
Tempus adest floridum, surgent namque flores Vernales in omnibus, imitantur mores Hoc quod frigus laeserat, reparant calores Cernimus hoc fieri, per multos labores |
Spring has now unwrapped the flowers, day is fast reviving, Life in all her growing powers towards the light is striving: Gone the iron touch of cold, winter time and frost time, Seedlings, working through the mould, now make up for lost time. |
| "Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know'st it, telling, Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?" "Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain; Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes' fountain." |
Sunt prata plena floribus, iucunda aspectu Ubi iuvat cernere, herbas cum delectu Gramina et plantae hyeme quiescunt Vernali in tempore virent et accrescunt. |
Herb and plant that, winter long, slumbered at their leisure, Now bestirring, green and strong, find in growth their pleasure; All the world with beauty fills, gold the green enhancing, Flowers make glee among the hills, set the meadows dancing |
| "Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither: Thou and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither." Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together; Through the rude wind's wild lament and the bitter weather. |
Haec vobis pulchre monstrant Deum creatorem Quem quoque nos credimus omnium factorem O tempus ergo hilare, quo laetari libet Renovato nam mundo, nos novari decet. |
Through each wonder of fair days God Himself expresses; Beauty follows all His ways, as the world He blesses: So, as He renews the earth, Artist without rival, In His grace of glad new birth we must seek revival. |
| "Sire, the night is darker now, and the wind blows stronger; Fails my heart, I know not how; I can go no longer." "Mark my footsteps, good my page. Tread thou in them boldly Thou shalt find the winter's rage freeze thy blood less coldly." |
Terra ornatur floribus et multo decore Nos honestis moribus et vero amore Gaudeamus igitur tempore iucundo Laudemusque Dominum pectoris ex fundo |
Earth puts on her dress of glee; flowers and grasses hide her; We go forth in charity—brothers all beside her; For, as man this glory sees in th’awakening season, Reason learns the heart’s decrees, hearts are led by reason |
| In his master's steps he trod, where the snow lay dinted; Heat was in the very sod which the saint had printed. Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing. |
External links
- Free arrangements for piano and voice from Cantorion.org
- Gumpoldus Mantuanus Episcopus [0967-0985]: Vita Vencezlavi Ducis Bohemiae. 'The Life of King Wenceslas' Latin text by MigneMignéMigné is a commune in the Indre department in central France.-References:*...
Patrologia LatinaPatrologia LatinaThe Patrologia Latina is an enormous collection of the writings of the Church Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers published by Jacques-Paul Migne between 1844 and 1855, with indices published between 1862 and 1865....
, Vol. 135, col. 0919 - 0942C. - King Wenceslas: Life & Story of the Carol