ero cras

One of my favourite Christmas hymns (it's too good to be simply a carol) has always been O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I discovered a couple of years ago that it's based on a Latin original which dates back (possibly) as far as the 8th century.

I thought that was pretty cool, but last weekend I mentioned to a friend how much I liked it, and she started telling me about the seven O Antiphons. I'd never even heard of the word, so she explained to me that an antiphon is simply a verse or a stanza, particularly of a religious song. The seven O Antiphons are the seven verses of the hymn (there are a few different versions around; most of the English ones have just five verses I think), which each start with an appeal to the awaited Messiah, using a different title or image. The seven titles are:

• O Sapientia (Wisdom)
• O Adonai (Lord)
• O Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
• O Clavis David (Key of David)
• O Oriens (Dawn - often 'Day-Spring' in English versions)
• O Rex Gentium (King of the nations)
• O Emmanuel (Emmanuel - God with us)

salve caput cruentatum

Here's a Latin hymn for Easter, dating from the 14th century:

Salve, caput cruentatum,
Totum spinis coronatum,
Conquassatum, vulneratum,
Arundine sic verberatum
Facie sputis illita,

Hail, head covered in blood,
all crowned with thorns,
battered, wounded,
beaten so with a reed,
your face smeared with spit,

Salve, cuius dulcis vultus,
Immutatus et incultus
Immutavit suum florem
Totus versus in pallorem
Quem coeli tremit curia.

Hail, you whose sweet face,
changed and disfigured,
has lost its bloom,
turned completely pale,
-that face at which the court of heaven trembles.