Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Merry Christmas

Hoc praesens diecula loquitur
praelucida,
adaucta longitudine,
quod sol verus radio sui
luminis vetustas mundi
depulerit genitus tenebras.

Nec nox vacat novi
sideris luce,
quod magorum oculos
terruit scios:

Nec gregum magistris
defuit lumen,
quos praestrinxit claritas
militum dei.

Gaude, dei genetrix,
quam circumstant obstetricum vice
concinentes angeli
gloriam deo.

This present little day proclaims,
illumined,
its length increased,
that the true Sun by the ray
of its light has driven off
the ancient darknesses of the world.

Nor does this night lack
the light of the new star,
which terrified the knowing
eyes of the magi:

Nor was light lacking
for the masters of their flocks,
who were stricken by the brightness
of the soldiers of God.

Rejoice, O god-bearer,
who instead of midwives are surrounded
by angels singing in harmony
glory to God.

--Notker of St Gall, "Natus ante saecula"

5 comments:

Brother Charles said...

Merry Christmas to you too. And thanks for the scholarly push and encouragement I have found in this blog. Peace!

Edward Ockham said...

And a Happy new year to the Scotists from the Ockhamists.

PS it is very easy to construct tables in Blogger so you can view the Latin and English side by side.

E.g. as here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/10/andronicus-of-rhodes.html

I can show you how, if you are interested.

Lee Faber said...

Mr. Ockham, that would be swell.

Michael Sullivan said...

Yes, Ockham, thanks. I knew it was possible, I'm just lazy.

Edward Ockham said...

Easy see below. In the Logic Museum I usually set the first col to 45%, the second to 55% to reflect the fact that Latin occupies less space.

I had to put curly brackets so as not to confuse the browser. You will need to change them to html corner brackets. Remember to use the html part of your Blogger editor. Hope it works

{table border="1"}{colgroup}{col valign="top" width="50%"}{colgroup}{col valign="top" width="50%"}{thead}{tr}{th}LATIN{/th}{th}ENGLISH{/th}{/tr}{/thead}{tbody}{tr}{td}Put the Latin here{/td}{td}Put Enlgish here{/td}{/tr}{/tbody}{/table}