Latin Translating

[PaixGioiaAmor]

Anyone here even close to being a Latin scholar?

I have a motet whose text is slightly different then every single other setting of this text by any other composer and would like to find the exact translation.

www.CPDL.org is no help.

The motet in question is “O Bone Jesu” by Michaelangelo Grancini.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

 

[JMJ_coder]

Hello,

Is this the prayer:

O bone Jesu, o dulcissime Jesu, o piisseme Jesu, o Jesu, o Jesu, o Jesu!
Miserere nobis, miserere nobis

The translation would be:

O good Jesus, O most sweet Jesus, O most pious Jesus, O Jesus, O Jesus, O Jesus!
Have mercy on us, have mercy on us!

bone = good
dulci = sweet + ssime = most == most sweet

The piisseme (sseme = most) is the most difficult word to translate as it (pii) can take on any number of meanings. It is the same root of the word for pious, but it can mean piety, humility, love (agape - as is the way the Salve Regina translates that root word - pia), etc., etc. Usually, if you are setting this to music, the musical structure will dictate what translation to use (i.e, how many syllables you need or if it needs to rhyme with anything).

Hope this helps.

 

[PaixGioiaAmor]

Thank you very much. You reply is exactly what I was looking for.

 

[THurifer2]

Thank you very much. You reply is exactly what I was looking for.

Remember…NO Guitars…juuuuuuuust kidding.

Alex V is a go to guy but looks like you got a very good answer

 

[PaixGioiaAmor]

Remember…NO Guitars…juuuuuuuust kidding.

Alex V is a go to guy but looks like you got a very good answer

If you’re ever in my neck of the woods, give me a yell. Want to really experience something different? We often do music that is very much the same dreck that everyone else does - with really great choral pieces interspersed between them as choral verses. So picture going from having just sung “And he will raise you up, on eagles’ wings …” to hearing an SATB choir sing a motet in latin, and then picking back up with “The snare of the fowler…”

Believe it or not - it works! It brings “good” music back into the mass and still allows the people to sing the mediocre songs they know and love. And it doesn’t sound silly like one may think it would either!