St Patrick's Breastplate
Jun. 19th, 2011 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ancientandmodernI bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.
I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.
Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.
Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.
A magnificent hymn, this, and really the first choice for Trinity Sunday. I used to have a copy printed out and blu-tacked to my wardrobe. Saint Patrick, of course, is meant to have explained the concept of the Trinity using the shamrock as a visual aid (three leaves, one stalk). Whether he actually wrote the Old Irish original of this hymn is debateable - scholarship puts it about three centuries later - but the singer is someone who is particularly well aware of their place in the cosmos, in the Church, and in space and time.
The saint starts and ends with the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We do not learn a huge amount about the doctrine of the Trinity, but the knowledge of the threeness of the oneness resonates through the length of the hymn. Along the way, Patrick (or his anonymous successor) invokes the events of Christ's life, the communion of the faithful in earth and heaven, the wonders of nature and the power of God against the forces of evil. (The verses that deal in detail with the forces of evil tend to be the ones that get omitted.) It is a picture of the universe in seven minutes; the scale is impressive.
In terms of performance, this is a particularly long and complicated hymn - 'Hail thee, Festival Day' is the only one I can think of to touch it in the league of length and number of tunes needed to sing it properly - but, done well, it has a marvellous solemnity and grandeur about it. Cecil Frances Alexander's metrical rendering of the translation is magnificent - powerful and dignified, not to mention an impressive week's work:
I wrote to her suggesting that she should fill a gap in our Irish Church Hymnal by giving us a metrical version of St. Patrick’s “Lorica” and I sent her a carefully collated copy of the best prose translations of it. Within a week she sent me that exquisitely beautiful as well as faithful version which appears in the appendix to our Church Hymnal. - H. H. Dickinson, Dean of the Chapel Royal at Dublin Castle
'St Patrick', the main tune, to which the verses that begin 'I bind unto myself...' are set, is a melody from the Petrie collection of Irish music, edited by Charles Villiers Stanford. Towards the end, 'Christ be with me, Christ within me' refuses to fit St Patrick comfortably, though it remains in double long metre, and another tune has to be slotted in. I haven't yet worked out what Brother Alphonsus Mary is singing at that point; I have always heard Gartan, again from the Petrie collection:
(warning: images in this video change very fast)
One of the best hymns in the book.
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.
I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.
I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.
I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.
I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.
Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.
Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.
A magnificent hymn, this, and really the first choice for Trinity Sunday. I used to have a copy printed out and blu-tacked to my wardrobe. Saint Patrick, of course, is meant to have explained the concept of the Trinity using the shamrock as a visual aid (three leaves, one stalk). Whether he actually wrote the Old Irish original of this hymn is debateable - scholarship puts it about three centuries later - but the singer is someone who is particularly well aware of their place in the cosmos, in the Church, and in space and time.
The saint starts and ends with the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We do not learn a huge amount about the doctrine of the Trinity, but the knowledge of the threeness of the oneness resonates through the length of the hymn. Along the way, Patrick (or his anonymous successor) invokes the events of Christ's life, the communion of the faithful in earth and heaven, the wonders of nature and the power of God against the forces of evil. (The verses that deal in detail with the forces of evil tend to be the ones that get omitted.) It is a picture of the universe in seven minutes; the scale is impressive.
In terms of performance, this is a particularly long and complicated hymn - 'Hail thee, Festival Day' is the only one I can think of to touch it in the league of length and number of tunes needed to sing it properly - but, done well, it has a marvellous solemnity and grandeur about it. Cecil Frances Alexander's metrical rendering of the translation is magnificent - powerful and dignified, not to mention an impressive week's work:
I wrote to her suggesting that she should fill a gap in our Irish Church Hymnal by giving us a metrical version of St. Patrick’s “Lorica” and I sent her a carefully collated copy of the best prose translations of it. Within a week she sent me that exquisitely beautiful as well as faithful version which appears in the appendix to our Church Hymnal. - H. H. Dickinson, Dean of the Chapel Royal at Dublin Castle
'St Patrick', the main tune, to which the verses that begin 'I bind unto myself...' are set, is a melody from the Petrie collection of Irish music, edited by Charles Villiers Stanford. Towards the end, 'Christ be with me, Christ within me' refuses to fit St Patrick comfortably, though it remains in double long metre, and another tune has to be slotted in. I haven't yet worked out what Brother Alphonsus Mary is singing at that point; I have always heard Gartan, again from the Petrie collection:
(warning: images in this video change very fast)
One of the best hymns in the book.