"Theatre of Voices" - Peter Abélard (1079 – 1142) - "Epithalamica" | Текст песни

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• Peter Abélard (1079 – 1142) - "Epithalamica"

The Easter sequence "Epithalamica" is one of Abelard's most complicated and beautiful compositions (if indeed it is by him). The piece is composed in rhythmic verse, exhibits a variety of accentual patterns, and incorporates a refrain. The sequence seems both to express Abelard's love for his wife and to praise God's redeeming love. Its very title speaks of love, for it is a wedding song in which the poet fuses several images from Scripture: the lovers in the Song of Songs, the Wise and Foolish Virgins of Matthew 25, and various female figures he associates with the Resurrection: Miriam, who sings and plays in the Old Testament, the Virgin Mary, and Mary Magdalene at the tomb and in the garden. In this theological love song, the singers grieve when the beloved slips from out of their arms into the bonds of death, only to return for a joyful reunion that features a refrain. The refrain's text cornes from Psalm 118:24, "haec est dies quam fecit dominus" [this is the day the Lord has made], also the text of the Gradual for the Easter mass. In the opening few lines the poet quotes from this work to cement the festive relationship, just as he also references the popular eleventh-century Easter sequence melody "Victimae paschali laudes" bringing Mary Magdalene into a new, more jubilatory context (see Waddell 1986).
On yet another level, this sequence is a miniature Easter drama, created to interact intertextually with other elements of the liturgy. If indeed originally written for The Paraclete, the nuns played a significant role, as did Heloise, who lost her husband through their forced separation but could regain him through a love that transcends and justifies loss. In a singing at the Paraclete, the sequence would have joined composer, solo singer, and choir of nuns into one, a performative exegesis rooted in the community and its unique circumstances.
From the penultimate strophes of "Epithalamica":

Eia nunc comites et Sion filiae,
Ad sponsae cantica psalmum adnectite,
Quo moestis reddita sponsi praesentia
Canverlit elegos nostros in cantica:
Quam fecit Dominus haec est dies;
Quam exspectavimus haec est dies;
Quae vere risimus haec est dies.
Quae nos eripuic haec est dies;
Hostes quae subruit haec est dies;
Quam psalmus praecinit haec est dies.

[And now, companions and daughters of Zion
Add your psalms to songs for the bride
For the restored presence of the bridegroom
Has turned out dirges into carols;
This is the day that the Lord has made;
This is the day we have awaited;
This is the day we have truly laughed.
This is the day that has rescued us;
This is the day that has vanquished the foe;
This is the day [of which] the psalm sings.]


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