Ecce quod Natura

Words & Music: Latin, Unknown Author
English, 14th or 15th Century.

Source: Edith Rickert, Ancient English Christmas Carols: 1400-1700 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1914), pp. 131-2.

Ecce quod natura
Mutat sua jura,
Virgo parit pura
    Dei Filium.

Ecce novum gaudium,
    Ecce novum mirum,
Virgo parit filium,
    Que non novit virum;
    Sed ut pirus pirum
    Gleba fert saphirum,
        Dei Filium.

Mundum Deus flebilem
    Videns in ruina,
Rosam dilectabilem
    Produxit de spina,
    Produxit de spina,
    Que cele regina
    Nostra medicina
Et salus hominum.

Nequivit Divinitas
    Plus humilimi;
Nec nostra fragilitas
    Magis exaltari,
    Magis exaltari,
    Quam celo locari,
    Deo coequari,
    Per conjugina.

Editor's Note:

A Clerk of Oxford has, again, provided an excellent translation of this Latin carol. See: Behold and See, http://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/an-advent-carol-behold-and-see.html. This post includes both the text from Richard Greene and her own modern translation.

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