J.M.Neale: The Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix
Title Page, and Prefaces to the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 7th editions (1858-1865) transcribed from a copy in St Deiniol's Library, Hawarden
(Title-page)
In the xii. century, the Abbey of Cluny, under its celebrated head, Peter the Venerable, - (he held that dignity from 1122 to 1156,) - was at the very height of monastic reputation. Its glorious church, the most magnificent in France, the fulness and exactness of its ritual, and the multitude of its brethren, raised it to a pitch of fame which, perhaps, no other house ever attained.
At that time, one of its children was Bernard, born at Morlaix, in Bretagne; but of English parents. He occupied a portion of his leisure by the composition of a poem, De Contemptu Mundi, in about three thousand lines. The greater part is a bitter satire on the fearful corruptions of the age; and hence it was for the first time edited by Flacius Illyricus, the red-hot Reformer, in his Varia poemata de Corruptio Ecclesiae Statu," Basle, 1556. It has been reprinted, at least six times: by Chytraeus, at Bremen, 1597; at Rostock, 1610; at Leipsic, 1626; by Lubinus, at Lunenburg, 1640; in Wachler's New Theological Annals, December, 1820; and in Mohnike's Studien, I.18. There is a short notice of the author in Leyser (Hist.Poet., p.412). Bernard has in some parts the energy of a second Juvenal; and the abyss of moral corruption which he exposes cannot be looked into without a shudder.
But, as a contrast to the misery and pollution of earth, the poem opens with a description of the peace and glory of heaven, of such rare beauty, as not easily to be matched by any mediaeval composition on the same subject. Dean Trench, in his Sacred Latin Poetry, has given a very beautiful cento of ninety-five lines from the work. Yet it is a mere patchwork - much being transposed as well as cancelled; so that the editor's own admission that he has adopted "some prudent omissions," would scarcely give a fair idea of the liberties which have in reality been taken with it.
From that cento I translated the larger part, in my "Mediaeval Hymns," the first edition of the present book, following the arrangement of Dean Trench, not of Bernard. The great popularity which my translation, however inferior to the original, attained, is evinced by the very numerous hymns compiled from it, which have found their way into modern collections; so that, in some shape or other, the Cluniac's verses have become, as it were, naturalized among us. This led me to think that a fuller extract from the Latin, and a further translation into English, might not be unacceptable to the lovers of sacred poetry.
My own translation is so free, as to be little more than an imitation. "The poet," observes the Dean of Westminster, "instead of advancing, eddies round and round his object, recurring again and again to that which he seemed to have thoroughly treated and dismissed": and this observation may, in itself, plead against a very close translation.
The metre of the original, whatever may be said of my taste, seems to me one of the loveliest of Mediaeval measures. The verses are technically called leonini cristati trilices dactylici - a rhythm of intense difficulty. On this, and some other matters, let us hear the poet himself:
"Often and of long time I had heard the Bridegroom, but had not listened to Him, saying - Thy voice is pleasant in Mine ears. And again the Beloved cried out: Open to Me, My sister. What then? I arose, that I might open to my Beloved. And I said, LORD, to the end that my heart may think, that my pen may write, and that my mouth may set forth Thy praise, pour both into my heart and pen and mouth Thy grace. And the LORD said, Open thy mouth. Which He straightway filled with the SPIRIT of wisdom and understanding: that by one I might speak truly, by the other perspicuously. And I say it in no wise arrogantly, but with all humility, and therefore boldly: that unless that SPIRIT of Wisdom and Understanding had been with me, and flowed in upon so difficult a metre, I could not have composed so long a work. For that kind of metre, continuous dactylic (except the final trochee or spondee), preserving also, as it does, the Leonine sonorousness, had almost, not to say altogether, grown obsolete through its difficulty.
For Hildebert [*1] of Lavadin, who from his immense learning was first raised to the episcopate and then to the Metropolitan dignity; and Vuichard, Canon of Lyons, excellent versifiers, how little they wrote in this metre, is manifest to all."
He gives his own argument in the following terms. "The subject of the author is the Advent of CHRIST to Judgment: the joys of the Saints, the pains of the reprobate. His intention, to persuade to the contempt of the world. The use, to despise the things of the world: to seek the things which be GOD's. He fortifies his exordium with the authority of the Apostle John, saying, `Little children, it is the last time'; where he endeavours to secure aforehand the favour of his readers, by setting the words of the Apostle before his own. At the commencement he treats of the Advent of the Judge, to render them in earnest, and by the description of celestial joy, he makes them docile."
There would be no difficulty in forming several hymns, by way of cento, from the following verses: suitable to any Saint's day, to the season of Advent, or to an ordinary Sunday.
If any of Bernard's verses are thus employed, I shall be thankful indeed that "He, being dead, yet speaketh."
SACKVILLE COLLEGE, Advent, 1858
In this Third Edition, a few verses have been a little polished, and one or two phrases brought nearer to the original. I am deeply thankful that Bernard's lines seem to have spoken to the hearts of so many: I can reckon up at least fourteen new Hymnals in which more or fewer of them have found a place.
I have so often been asked to what Tune the words of Bernard may be sung, that I may here mention that of Mr Ewing, the earliest written, the best known, and with children the most popular; (no small proof, in my estimation, of the goodness of Church-music:) - that of my friend, the Rev.H.L.Jenner, perhaps the most ecclesiastical; - and that of another friend, Mr Edmund Sedding, which, to my mind, best expresses the meaning of the words.
While I would continue to express my most deep thankfulness to Him from Whom all good things come, for the ever increasing favour with which the Cluniac's verses have been received in the most recent Hymnals, I am yet more thankful that they have been permitted to solace the death-beds of so many of His servants, and not seldom to have supplied them with the last earthly language of praise.
(Preface, 7th edn)
Where any cento from the following poem is sung, it would be well to conclude it with the Doxology as given in Hymns Ancient and Modern:
- In mercy, JESU, bring us
- To that dear Land of Rest
- Where Thou art, with the FATHER
- And SPIRIT, ever blest. Amen.
Bernard would have been surprised, could he have foreseen by how many varying sects his poem would be sung. The course of a few days brought me requests to use it from a minister of the Scotch Establishment, a Swedenborgian minister, and a hymn-book for the use of the "American Evangelical Lutheran Church," sanctioned by the "Ministerium of Pennsylvania," which extracts largely from it.
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