Words and Music: English Traditional, Fifteenth Century

Source: Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), p. 53.

Compare: Make we jow in this fest (Thomas Wright, 1847)
Make We Joy Now In This Fest (From George Ratcliffe Woodward, 1902)

Make we joy in this feast, in quo Christus natus est,
A Patre Unigenitus, to a maiden is come to us;
Sing we of Him and say we, "Welcome, veni, Redemptor gencium."
Agnoscat omne seculum, a bright star kings made come;
For to us with their presents, verbum superum prodiens.
A solis ortus cardine, so mighty a lord is none as He.
                        . . . And¹ to our Lord He hath grith.²
Marya ventre concepit, the Holy Ghost was aye her with;
Of her in Bethlehem now born He is, Consors Paterni luminis,
Alma beata Trinitas, that lay between an ox and ass,
By His mother maiden free, gloria Tibi Domine.

Notes:

1. The Latin half of this line is missing. Return

2. Peace. Return

Rickert's note from page 150:

This carol might better be printed in the form of short couplets, alternately English and Latin. Its sole interest lies in its macaronic character. It is evidently with intention that a Latin line follows a Latin, and an English an English, while the rhyme is between one of each.