We've sung Mozart's Dies Irae before, but we sang an edited version. If you know the Latin Mass you will be aware that it is actually much longer than that. According to Wikipedia, the Dies Irae is a poem describing "the day of judgment, the last trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames. The hymn was used as a sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass until the 1970 revision of the Roman Missal."
In Latin:
1
Dies iræ! dies illa
Solvet sæclum in favilla
Teste David cum Sibylla!
2
Quantus tremor est futurus,
quando judex est venturus,
cuncta stricte discussurus!
3
Tuba mirum spargens sonum
per sepulchra regionum,
coget omnes ante thronum.
4
Mors stupebit et natura,
cum resurget creatura,
judicanti responsura.
5
Liber scriptus proferetur,
in quo totum continetur,
unde mundus judicetur.
6
Judex ergo cum sedebit,
quidquid latet apparebit:
nil inultum remanebit.
7
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus,
cum vix justus sit securus?
In English:
1
Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets' warning,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
2
Oh what fear man's bosom rendeth,
when from heaven the Judge descendeth,
on whose sentence all dependeth.
3
Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;
through earth's sepulchers it ringeth;
all before the throne it bringeth.
4
Death is struck, and nature quaking,
all creation is awaking,
to its Judge an answer making.
5
Lo! the book, exactly worded,
wherein all hath been recorded:
thence shall judgment be awarded.
6
When the Judge his seat attaineth,
and each hidden deed arraigneth,
nothing unavenged remaineth.
7
What shall I, frail man, be pleading?
Who for me be interceding,
when the just are mercy needing?
In total there are actually 19 verses, thanking the stars we only have to sing seven of them!
P.S. For the translation of In Paradisum check out this post. Picture of The Last Judgement by Hans Memling.
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