'Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
What they supplicate to gain'
Is this the most archaically incomprehensible couple of lines in Engish hymnody? As any shipmate a better (or worse) suggestion>
'Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
What they supplicate to gain'
Is this the most archaically incomprehensible couple of lines in Engish hymnody? As any shipmate a better (or worse) suggestion>
I know it as 'What they ask of Thee to gain' which is slightly clearer. But then the rest of the verse is still pretty complicated.
'Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
What they supplicate to gain'
Is this the most archaically incomprehensible couple of lines in Engish hymnody? As any shipmate a better (or worse) suggestion>
Definitely archaic (obviously) but I don’t find it remotely difficult to understand I have to say (but then I am a fellow traveller of the Prayer Book Society)
'Here vouchsafe to all thy servants
What they supplicate to gain'
Is this the most archaically incomprehensible couple of lines in Engish hymnody? As any shipmate a better (or worse) suggestion>
I know it as 'What they ask of Thee to gain' which is slightly clearer. But then the rest of the verse is still pretty complicated.
Yes, I know those lines as
“Here bestow on all your servants,
what they seek from you to gain.”
It’s not a hymn, but I’m not sure anything can beat the traditional translation of Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (“The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God”) from Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (“The Creation”):
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.
Today that is coming speaks it the day,
The night that is gone to following night.
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.
In all the lands resounds the word,
never unperceived, ever understood.
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.
I mean, it would have scanned just fine to say “the firmament displays the wonder of his work.” And that would have avoided the risk of “firm-a-MENT.”
And even after singing this for almost 50 years, I’m at a total loss as to how to parse “Today that is coming speaks it the day/The night that is gone to following night.” The original German would be better translated as “the day tells it to the coming day, and the night that is disappeared/gone to the following night.”
There are better translations out there, but I rarely hear them used.
'Come, ye faithful, raise the anthem,
Sweep the string and poor the lay.'
Clean up those dirty bits of old rope and make a nice milky drink?
I can't parse what "poor the lay" is supposed to mean at all. I thought a "lay" was a hymn or song, but "poor" as a verb?
We have one in our hymnal (I don't think it's common in other denominations) that starts:
Wake the song of joy and gladness
Hither bring your noblest lays.
This is particularly funny because where I live, "lay" can be slang for "person you have slept with." So I have to not just bring my various lays to church, but select the noblest of them?
BTW regarding my previous suggestion, I do know about Ebenezer being a stone of help, but I think it's more of a stumbling-stone to most people, particularly non-churchgoers, and if it strikes anything in their minds at all it will certainly be Scrooge.
Some years ago when the Belah viaduct on the railway line over Stainmore was demolished in the 1960s, they found a box in of one of the piers with a paper saying, among other things, "here we raise our Ebenezer". It marked the stone on which a great structure was founded.
Some years ago when the Belah viaduct on the railway line over Stainmore was demolished in the 1960s, they found a box in of one of the piers with a paper saying, among other things, "here we raise our Ebenezer". It marked the stone on which a great structure was founded.
Ah - that wonderful viaduct was built in those far-off, dear dead days beyond recall, when people Knew Their Bibles...especially in chapel-going country...
To be fair, many hymns - whether ancient, mouldy, or more recent - have obscure words, on account of the peculiar ideas they're trying to convey.
The Lord’s my shepherd. can be paraphrased as:
The Lord and I are in a shepherd /sheep situation
And I am in a position of negative need.
(David lyric two three)
I come from the part of the world that song comes from, and we learned at a very early age what it means. My denomination’s hymnal includes a note translating kum by yah; I don’t think it’s alone in doing so.
Our Place's book puts it in the Children's Hymns and Songs section, but doesn't provide a translation. Professor Google tells me that Kum ba yah means Come by here.
I assume that, in the song, it's a prayer to God to make his presence known. Was it, in S Wales, simply an invitation to visit?
This hymn by William Cowper is not so much obscure, perhaps, as yucky, at least to modern-day minds (YMMV of course):
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
The Psalms (at least in some versions) can be obscure, quirky, or even plain funny.
I especially like Psalm 108 vv8-9, as rendered in the 1662 Prayer Book, which IIRC uses Coverdale's translation:
8 Gilead is mine, and Manasses is mine : Ephraim also is the strength of my head.
9 Judah is my law-giver, Moab is my wash-pot : over Edom will I cast out my shoe, upon Philistia will I triumph.
A delightful vision of the greedy, grumpy demi-urge of the Old Testament chucking his shoes about, and using poor old Moab to clean his *hinder parts* (?)...
One is probably only likely to come across this Psalm at (say) Evensong in a Cathedral, but whatever do strangers (if any) make of it all?
Stephen Fry — famously atheist, but with a non-religious Jewish mother, and who briefly considered the Anglican priesthood as a career path — titled one of his memoirs Moab is My Washpot. But of course he’s not the type to be put off by an unfamiliar phrase or metaphor.
I assume that, in the song, it's a prayer to God to make his presence known. Was it, in S Wales, simply an invitation to visit?
This hymn by William Cowper is not so much obscure, perhaps, as yucky, at least to modern-day minds (YMMV of course):
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
This reminds me oddly of Down in Yon Forest which I sang once as a choirboy I think around Christmas time. At the same time we were singing an arrangement of Stairway to Heaven at school in our (secular) choral music class at and the two are oddly merged in my mind… lyrics to the carol here:
Comments
The double agony in Man
For man should undergo.
I know it as 'What they ask of Thee to gain' which is slightly clearer. But then the rest of the verse is still pretty complicated.
Death and estrangement from God?
Definitely archaic (obviously) but I don’t find it remotely difficult to understand I have to say (but then I am a fellow traveller of the Prayer Book Society)
“Here bestow on all your servants,
what they seek from you to gain.”
It’s not a hymn, but I’m not sure anything can beat the traditional translation of Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes (“The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God”) from Haydn’s Die Schöpfung (“The Creation”):
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.
Today that is coming speaks it the day,
The night that is gone to following night.
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.
In all the lands resounds the word,
never unperceived, ever understood.
The heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament.
I mean, it would have scanned just fine to say “the firmament displays the wonder of his work.” And that would have avoided the risk of “firm-a-MENT.”
And even after singing this for almost 50 years, I’m at a total loss as to how to parse “Today that is coming speaks it the day/The night that is gone to following night.” The original German would be better translated as “the day tells it to the coming day, and the night that is disappeared/gone to the following night.”
There are better translations out there, but I rarely hear them used.
That's how I see it.
Here I raise my Ebenezer
Hither by thy help I've come.
How many of us really know how to raise an Ebenezer -- here, or anywhere else for that matter?
Quite, but you can't easily do that if the hymn is sprung on you at church! I guess you could consult Google on your mobile phone during the sermon...
ya-da, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da."
The Ghost of Christmas Past does! They just sailed through the air…
"What is parched, fructify." 🤔😳
and my cup overflows.
Messy...
I wonder what those attending funerals make of what appears to be a popular hymn on those occasions?
Sweep the string and poor the lay.'
Clean up those dirty bits of old rope and make a nice milky drink?
I can't parse what "poor the lay" is supposed to mean at all. I thought a "lay" was a hymn or song, but "poor" as a verb?
We have one in our hymnal (I don't think it's common in other denominations) that starts:
Wake the song of joy and gladness
Hither bring your noblest lays.
This is particularly funny because where I live, "lay" can be slang for "person you have slept with." So I have to not just bring my various lays to church, but select the noblest of them?
BTW regarding my previous suggestion, I do know about Ebenezer being a stone of help, but I think it's more of a stumbling-stone to most people, particularly non-churchgoers, and if it strikes anything in their minds at all it will certainly be Scrooge.
Well, to be fair, David* probably gets the blame for that one.
* Or whoever wrote Psalm 23.
Ah - that wonderful viaduct was built in those far-off, dear dead days beyond recall, when people Knew Their Bibles...especially in chapel-going country...
To be fair, many hymns - whether ancient, mouldy, or more recent - have obscure words, on account of the peculiar ideas they're trying to convey.
The Lord and I are in a shepherd /sheep situation
And I am in a position of negative need.
(David lyric two three)
This hymn by William Cowper is not so much obscure, perhaps, as yucky, at least to modern-day minds (YMMV of course):
There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:
Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
I especially like Psalm 108 vv8-9, as rendered in the 1662 Prayer Book, which IIRC uses Coverdale's translation:
8 Gilead is mine, and Manasses is mine : Ephraim also is the strength of my head.
9 Judah is my law-giver, Moab is my wash-pot : over Edom will I cast out my shoe, upon Philistia will I triumph.
A delightful vision of the greedy, grumpy demi-urge of the Old Testament chucking his shoes about, and using poor old Moab to clean his *hinder parts* (?)...
One is probably only likely to come across this Psalm at (say) Evensong in a Cathedral, but whatever do strangers (if any) make of it all?
This reminds me oddly of Down in Yon Forest which I sang once as a choirboy I think around Christmas time. At the same time we were singing an arrangement of Stairway to Heaven at school in our (secular) choral music class at and the two are oddly merged in my mind… lyrics to the carol here:
https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/down_in_yon_forest.htm