This name by which the sequence in requiem Masses is commonly known. They are the opening words of the first verse: Dies iræ, dies illa.
The rubrics af the Roman Missal prescribe the recitation of the
sequence by the celebrant on the following occasions: (1) in the Mass
of All Souls' Day (In commemoratione Omnium Fidelium Defunctorum); (2) in funeral Masses (In die obitus seu depositionis defuncti);and (3) whensoever in requiem Masses, only one oratio,
or collect, is to be said, namely in the anniversary Mass, and when
Mass is solemnly celebrated on the third, the seventh, or the thirtieth
(month's mind) day after death or burial. Its recitation in other
requiem Masses (In Missis quotidianis defunctorum) is optional
with the celebrant. It should be noted here that the decree of the
Congregation of Sacred Rites (12 August, 1854) permitting the choir to
omit such stanzas as do not contain a prayer is not included in the new
edition of the "Decreta Authentica S. R. C" (Rome, 1898-1900). From
this fact may be inferred that the more ancient rule is now in force
and that the whole sequence must either be sung by thechoir or be
"recited" in a high and clear voice with organ accompaniment (cf.
American Ecclesiastical Review, August, 1907, p. 201).
As found in the Roman
Missal, the Dies Iræ is a Latin poem of fifty-seven lines in accentual
(non-quantitative), rhymed, trochaic metre. It comprises nineteen
stanza, of which the first seventeen follow the type of the first
stanza:
1. Dies iræ, dies illa,
Solvet sæclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sibyllâ.
The remaining stanzas
discard the scheme of triple rhymes in favour of rhymed couplets, while
the last two lines use assonance instead of rhyme and are, moreover,
catalectic:
18. Lacrimosa dies illa,
Quâ resurget ex favillft,
Judicandus homo reus.
19. Huic ergo parce Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. Amen.
Thus the last two stanzas
are printed in the typical 1900) edition of the Missal, and in the
Ratisbon edition of the plain-chant setting. The Vatican edition (1907)
of the plain-chant melody however, apparently takes account of the fact
that the last six lines did not, in all probability, originally belong
to the sequence, and divides them into three couplets.
This Missal text of the
sequence is found, with light verbal variations, in a
thirteenth-century manuscript in the Biblioteca. Nazionale at Naples
(cf. Haberl, Magister Choralis, Ratisbon, 1900, pp. 237-238). Father
Eusebius Clop, O.F.M., in the "Revue du chant Grégorien"
(November-December, 1907, p. 49) argues a date between 1253-1255 for
the manuscript--a. Franciscan Missal whose calendar does not contain
the name of St. Clare, who was canonized in 1255, and whose name would
have been inserted if the manuscript were later date. The same writer
would assign (pp. 48, 49) a still earlier date (1250) to a copy of the
Dies Iræ inserted at the end of a so-called "Breviary of St. Clare"
dating about 1228. Into his arguments it is not necessary to enter
here; but it is important to notice that these dates are much anterior
to the dates of the manuscripts which, until recently, hymnologists had
cognizance of when they attempted to fix the probable authorship of the
sequence. Thus Mone found none anterior to the fifteenth century;
Chevalier mentions only a Magdeburg Missal of 1480 and a manuscript
Franciscan Missal of 1477; the first edition of Julian's "Dictionary of
Hymnology" (1892) declared the "oldest form known to the present time"
to be found in a Dominican Missal "written at the end of the fourteenth
century and apparently for use at Pisa"; Warren, in his "Dies Irae"
(London, 1902, p. 5), knows no earlier manuscript The second edition of
Julian (1907) mentions the Naples manuscript in its supplement (p.
1629), but not the "Breviary of St. Clare". Father Clop describes also
a third contemporary manuscript (p. 49), Italian, like the others:
"Toutes trois enfin appartenant également à la liturgie des Frères
Mineurs". All this renders very probable the conjecture generally
entertained by hym nologists, that the Dies Iræ was composed by a
Franciscan in the thirteenth century.
Its authorship has been
most generally ascribed to Thomas of Celano, the friend, fellow-friar,
and biographer of St. Francis. Reasons for this particularity of
ascription are given by Keyser (Beiträge zur Geschichte und Erklärung
der alten Kirchenhymnen, Paderborn undMünster, 1886, II, 194-196 and
230-235); also by Duffield (Latin Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, New
York, 1889, 245-247), an ardent champion of the ascription to Thomas;
also in "The Dolphin" (Nov., 1904, 514-516) which corrects a
fundamental error in one of Duffield's main arguments. Ten other names
have been suggested by various writers as the probable author of the
Dies Iræ: (1) St. Gregory the Great (d. 604); (2) St. Bernard of
Clairvaux (d. 1153); (3) St. Bonaventure (d. 1274); (4) Cardinal
Matthew d'Acquasparta (d. 1302); (5) Innocent III (d. 1216) (6)
Thurstan, Archbishop of York (d. 1140); (7) Cardinal Latino Orsini, or
Frangipani, a Dominican (d. 1296); (8) Humbert, a general of the
Dominicans (d. 1277); (9) Agostino Biella, an Augustinian (d. 1491);
(10) Felix Haemmerlein, a priest of Zurich (d. 1457). The ascription to
Haemmerlein was due to the discovery, after his death, of a variant
text of the sequence among his papers. Its eighteenth and nineteenth
stanzas are:
18. Latcrimosa dies illa,
Cum resurget ex favillâ
Tamquam ignis ex scintillâ,
19. Judicandus homo reus:
Huic ergo parce, Deus;
Esto semper adjutor meus.
To these are added five
stanzas of the same form. This Haemmerlein text is given by Keyser (op.
cit., 211), Warren (op. cit., 11), and by others. Still another text,
known as tho "Mantuan Marble" text (first printed in 1594), prefaces
the Dies Iræ with four similar stanzas, and replaces stanzas 17-19 with
the single stanza:
Ut consors beatitatis
Vivam cum justificatis
In ævum æternitatis.
Daniel gives both texts in
his "Thesaurus Hymnologicus'' (II, 103-106), except the two concluding
stanzas of the Haemmerlein text. Coles (Dies Irae in Thirteen Original
Versions, New York, 1868) gives (xv-xxi) both texts together with
versifiedEnglish translation.
All of these additional
stanzas rather detract from the vigorous beauty of the original hymn,
whose oldest known form is, with slight verbal changes, that which is
found in the Roman Missal. It appears most likely that this text
originally ended with the seventeenth stanza, the first four of the
concluding six lines having been found among a series of verses on the
responsory "Libera me, Domine" in a manuscript of the end of the
twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century (cf. Mone,
Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters, Freiburg im Br., 1863, I, 406). It
is quite probable that the sequence was first intended for private
devotion and that subsequently the six lines were added to it in order
to adapt it to liturgical use. The composer found his Biblical text in
Soph. (i. 15, 16): "Dies iræ dies illa. ... dies tubæ et clangoris";
and it may be that he obtained a suggestion for his wonderful rhythm
(cf. Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, 3rd ed., London, 1874, p, 302,
foot-note) from a tenth-century judgment hymn (given in two forms by
Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, Leipzig, 1896, XXIII, pp. 53, 54) containing
this rhythmized text of Sophonias:
Dies iræ, dies illa,
Dies nebulæ et turbinis,
Dies tubæ et clangoris,
Dies nebulosa, valde,
Quando tenebrarum pondus
Cadet super peccatores.
The sequence has been
translated many times in various tongues, the largest recorded number
(234) being English renderings. Among the names of those who have given
complete or fragmentary translations are those of Crashaw (1646);
Dryden (1696); Scott (1805); Macaulay (1819); Father Caswall (1849).
Amongst American translators we find Dr. Abraham Coles, a physician of
Newark, credited with eighteen versions; W. W. Nevin, with nine; and
Rev. Dr. Samuel W. Duffield, with six. Space will not permit here an
wealth of eulogy passed upon it by hymnologists of every shade of
religious conviction, save fragment from the appreciations of Daniel:
"Sacræ poeseos summum decus et Ecclesiæ Latinæ keimelion est
pretiosissimum" (It is the chief glory of sacred poety and the most
precious treasure of the Latin Church) ; of Orby Shipley, in the
"Dublin Review" of Jan., 1883, who, after enumerating some hymns "which
are only not inspired, or which, more truly, are in their degree
inspired", says: "But beyond them all, and before them all, and above
them all may, perhaps be placed Dies irae, by Thomas of Celano"; of
Coles: "Among gems it is the diamond. It is solitary in its excellence
"; of Dr. Schaff: "This marvellous hymn is the acknowledged masterpiece
of Latin poetry and the most sublime of all uninspired hymns"; of Dr.
Neale: ". . . the Dies iræ in its unapproached glory".
Written by H.T. Henry. Transcribed by Wm Stuart French, Jr.. In Memoriam Wm Stuart French, Sr.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV. Published 1908. New
York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort,
Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
JULIAN, Dictionary of Hymnology (Revised ed., London, 1907), 295-301, 1551, 1629, gives very serviceable references, but strangely omits WARREN, Dies Iræ
(London. 1902), who devotes 170 pages to his theme, prefacing it with
references under the heading of Literature of the Dies Iræ. To their
lists should be added: SHIPLEY, Annus Sanctus (London, 1884); ANON., The Seven Great Hymns of the Mediæval Church (New York, 1868); HENRY in The Amer. Ecclesiastical Review (April, 1890), 247-261; IDEM in The Dolphin
(November, 1904, to May 1905), an extensive series of articles (144
pages) on the history, literary uses, and translations of the Dies iræ:
CLOP in Revue du Chant Grégorien (Nov.-Dec., 1907), 48-53, who discusses the authorship and the plain-song melody of the sequence; JOHNER, A New School of Gregorian Chant (New York, 1906), 116.
