Friday, March 30, 2018

The blood that laves the stars

"mite corpus perforatur, sanguis unde profluit;
terra, pontus, astra, mundus quo lavantur flumine!"

gently [his] body is pierced through,
     whence blood flows forth;
in which stream the earth, the sea, the stars,
     the universe [(or human race)] are washed.

     Venantius Fortunatus, "Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis" (Poems 4.2), stanza 7 (in part), as reproduced (but not translated) in the current Roman missal, at Good Friday.  In the critical edition in MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi 4 (1881-1885), pp. 27-28, this comes out as

"mite corpus perforatur, sanguis unda profluit;
terra, pontus, astra, mundus quo lavantur flumine."

gently [his] body is pierced through,
     [and] blood, a wave [of it (or blood, rising in waves)], flows forth;
in which stream the earth, the sea, the stars
     the universe [(or human race)] are washed.

See also the modern critical edition:  Poèmes, ed. Reydellet, Collection des Universités de France, vol. 1 (Paris:  Les Belles Lettres, 1994), p. 51:

"Mite corpus perforatur, sanguis unda profluit,
terra pontus astra mundus quo lauantur flumine."

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