37. Mariam] This line assumes that, in favour of which are many probabilities, but no absolute proof, namely, that the woman who was a sinner, (Luke vii. 37,) was no other than Mary Magdalene. Their identity, on the authority of Gregory the Great, who had so decided the question, was taken for granted during all the middle ages, as indeed it is to a great extent in our common language now.

Oro supplex et acclinis,

Cor contritum quasi cinis:
Gere curam mei finis.

50

51. It is not wonderful that a poem such as this should have continually allured, and continually defied, translators. We have several versions in English, beginning with a very noble one by Crashaw, in his Steps to the Temple, London, 1648, p. 105; it is in quatrains, and rather a reproduction than a translation; and including one by Walter Scott. In German they are yet more numerous, and there also include highest names, such as Herder, Fichte, and Augustus Schlegel. I have a volume before me by Lisco, exclusively dedicated to these. It was published in 1840, and contains forty-three versions. And in an Appendix, which followed three years after, seventeen inore are given, which either had before escaped the editor's notice, or had been published since the publication of his book. Among these, it is true, there is one French and one Romaic; but all the rest are German.

278

LXIV. DE CRUCE DOMINI.

RUX ave benedicta !
Per te mors est devicta,

CRU

In te pependit Deus,

Rex et Salvator meus.

LXIV. [Walraff,] Corolla Hymnorum, p. 23; Daniel, Thes. Hymnol., v. 2, p. 349.-This little poem, so perfect in its kind, might fitly have had its place among the earlier hymns upon the Passion, pp. 113-133, and may strike some as out of due order here. But the sublime and awful judgement-hymns which have just gone before, seem to want one of this nature-one which should set forth Him, in whom and through whose cross alone there shall be no condemnation there-as a transitional hymn to those which presently follow, and of which the theme is everlasting life. I may be excused perhaps for setting beside these lines, some of Calderon's, of no inferior grace, and on the same theme :

Arbol, donde el cielo quiso

Dar el fruto verdadero
Contra el bocado primero,

Flor del nuevo paraiso,
Arco de luz, cuyo aviso
En piélago mas profundo
La paz publicó del mundo,
Planta hermosa, fértil vid,
Harpa del nuevo David,
Tabla del Moises segundo;
Pecador soy, tus favores
Pido por justicia yo;
Pues Dios en ti padeció,
Solo por los pecadores.

Which lines may thus be translated:

Tree, which heaven has willed to dower
With that true fruit whence we live,
As that other, death did give;
Of new Eden loveliest flower;
Bow of light, that in worst hour

LXV.

Prudentii Opp., ed. Obbarius, 1845, p. 41.-These lines, the crowning glory of the poetry of Prudentius, form only a part (the concluding part) of his tenth Cathemerinōn. But it has long been the custom to contemplate them apart from their context, and as an independent poem. This continued till a late day as the favourite funeral-hymn in the Evangelical Church in Germany, being used either in the original, or in the fine old translation, Hört auf mit Trauern und Klagen.