Dies est lætitiæ

For Christmas

Words and Music: From XIII^th - XIV^th Century
Compare: Dies est lætitiæ, with notes, from Woodward, Piæ Cantiones, and R. R. Terry, Old Christmas Carols

Source: J. H. Hopkins, ed., Great Hymns of the Church Compiled by the Late Right Reverend John Freeman Young (New York: James Pott & Company, 1887), #71, pp. 110-1

1. Dies est lætitiæ
In ortu regali,
Nam processit hodie
Ventre virginali
Peur admirabilis,
Totus delectabilis
In humanitate,
Qui inæstimabilis
Est et ineffabilis
In divinitate.

2. Orto Dei filio
Virgine de pura,
Ut rosa de lilio,
Stupescit natura,
Quem parit juvencula
Natum ante sæcula
Creatorem rerum,
Quod uber muniditiae
Lac dat pueritiæ
Antiquo dierum.

3. Ut vitrum non læditur
Sole penetrante,
Sic illæsa creditur
Virgo post et ante.
Felix est puerpera,
Cojus casta viscera
Deum genuerunt,
Et beata ubera
In ætate tenera
Christum lactaverunt.

4. Christe, qui nos manibus
Propriis fecisti,
Et pro nobis omnibus
Nasci voluisti,
Te devote poscimus,
Laxa, quod peccavimus,
Non sinas perire
Post mortem nos miseros,
Sed tecum ad superos
Facias venire.

Sheet Music from J. H. Hopkins, ed., Great Hymns of the Church Compiled by the Late Right Reverend John Freeman Young (New York: James Pott & Company, 1887), #71, pp. 110-1.

"Original Melody.
Harmonized by Hermann R. Schrœder"

Note:  Hopkins includes Royal Day That Chasest Gloom by Rev. John Mason Neale, Carols for Christmas-tide, 1853, from Piae Cantiones, 1582.

Some sources of Latin hymns found in Piae Cantiones:

• Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume, eds., Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Vol. 1.  Cantiones Bohemicae. (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1886).

• Guido Maria Dreves and Clemens Blume, eds., Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, Vol. 45b. Cantiones et Motetten des Mittelalters. (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1904).

• G. E. Klemming, ed., Piae Cantiones. S. Trinitas. Iesus Christus. S. Spiritus. S Maria. (1886). Primary source for many scholars, including Dreves, Woodward and others.

• George Ratcliffe Woodward, Piae Cantiones: A Collection of Church & School Song, chiefly Ancient Swedish, originally published in A.D. 1582 by Theodoric Petri of Hyland. (London: Chiswick Press for the Plainsong & Medieval Music Society, 1910).

• Sheet music for some hymns can be found in George Ratcliffe Woodward, The Cowley Carol Book, First & Second Series. (London: A. R. Mowbray & Co., Ltd., ca. 1902, 1912).

• Translations of some carols can be found in John Mason Neale and Thomas Helmore, eds., Carols for Christmas-tide (London: Novello, 1853). By the same authors was Carols for Easter-tide (1854).

• Translations and sheet music for some hymns can be found in Charles L. Hutchins, ed., Carols Old and Carols New (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916).

• Scans of individual pages from Piæ Cantiones (in the Adobe PDF format) can be downloaded from Facsimiles Piae Cantiones (http://www.spielleut.de/facs_piae_cantiones.htm; accessed June 15, 2009).

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