Apparebit Repentina
Apparebit Repentina [1]
(Sudden will appear) is the. beginning of an anonymous Latin poem based on Matthew 25:31-46. Like the Lamentations .of Jeremiah, it is alphabetic. "This rugged but grand Judgment hymn," as Neale' styles it,, is certainly as old as, if not a good deal. older than, the 7th century; for Bede, who belongs to the end of this and the beginning of the 8th, refers to it in his work De Metris.: 'It was then almost or altogether lost sight of, but Cassander published it in his Hymnni Ecclesiastici. Although, according to Trench, "wanting the high, lyrical passion" of the Dies Iree, yet it is of a very noble simplicity, Daniel well saying of it, "Juvat carmen fere totum e Scriptura Sacra depromptum comparare cum celebratissimo illo extremi judicii praeconio, Dies irce, dies illa, quo majestate et terroribus, non sancta simplicitate et fide, superatur." We subjoin the first lines in the original:
dies magna Domini, Fur obscuras velnt nocte improvisos occupans. Brevis totus tunc parebit prisci luxns saeculi, Totnm simul culn clarebit prseterisse saecnlum. Clangor tubse per quaternas terree plagaLs concinens Vivos una mortnosque Christo ciet obviam. These run, in Neale's translation, That great day of wrath and terror, That last day of woe and doom, Like a thief that cones at midnight, On the sons of men shall come; When the pride and pomp of ages All shall utterly have passed, And they stand in anguish owning That the end is here at last; And the trumpet's pealing clangor Through the earth's four quarters spread, Waxing loud and ever louder, Shall convoke the quick and dead." For the original, see Rambach, Anthol. christl. Gesange, p. 126; Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnol. i, 194; Trench, Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 290 sq. In English, it is given by Neale, Mediceval Hymns, p. 9 sq.; Benedict, Mediaeval Hymns, p. 35 sq.; Schaff, Christ in Song, p. 369. German translations are given by Rambach, Bassler, Simrock, and Konigsfeld, in their collections of Latin hymns. (B. P.)
