Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences/Laudes Crucis attollamus

by Adam of Saint Victor

For other English-language translations of this work, see Laudes crucis attollamus.

Laudes Crucis attollamus.

This Sequence, for the Invention or Exaltation of the Cross, is perhaps the masterpiece of Adam of S. Victor.

Be the Cross our theme and story,
We who in the Cross's glory
Shall exult for evermore.
By the Cross the warrior rises,
By the Cross the foe despises,
Till he gains the heavenly shore.

Sweetest praises
Earth upraises:
Accents sweetest
Are the meetest
For the Trees of sweetest cheer:
Life and voice keep well in chorus;
Then the melody sonorous^[1]
Shall make concord true and clear.

Love be warm, and praise be fervent,
Thou that art the Cross's servant,
And in that hast rest from strife:
Every kindred, every nation,
Hail the Tree that brings Salvation,
Tree of Beauty, Tree of Life!

O how glorious, how transcendent
Was this Altar!^[2] how resplendent
In the life-blood of the Lamb!
Of the Lamb Immaculate
That redeemed our ancient state
From its sin and from its shame.

Ladder this, to sinners given,
Whereby Christ, the King of Heaven,
Drew to Him both friends and foes:
Who its nature hath expended
In its limits comprehended^[3]
All the world's four quarters knows.

No new Sacraments we mention;
We devise no fresh invention:
This religion was of old;
Wood made sweet the bitter current:^[4]
Wood called forth the rushing torrent
From the smitten rock that rolled.

No salvation for the mansion^[5]
Where the Cross in meet expansion
On the door-post stood not graved:
Where it stood, the midnight blast
Of the avenging Angel passed,
And the first-born child was saved.

Wood the widow's^[6] hands collected,
When salvation unexpected
Came, the Prophet's mystic boon:
Where the wood of faith is wanted,
There the Spirit's oil is scanted,
And the meal is wasted soon.

Rome beheld each shattered vessel^[7]
And Maxentius vainly wrestle
In the stream against its might:
This procured the bright ovation
O'er the Persian and the Thracian
When Heraclius won the fight.

Types of old in Scripture hidden
Setting forth the Cross, are bidden,
In these days, to fuller light;
Kings^[8] are flying, foes are dying,
On the Cross of Christ relying
One a thousand puts to flight.

This its votaries still secureth,
Victory evermore assureth,
Weakness and diseases cureth,
Triumphs o'er the powers of hell:
Satan's captives liberateth,
Life in sinners renovateth,
All in glory reinstateth
Who by ancient Adam fell.

Tree, triumphal might possessing,
Earth's salvation, crown, and blessing,
Every other prætergressing
Both in bloom and bud and flower:
Medicine of the Christian spirit,
Save the just, give sinners merit,
Who dost might for deeds inherit
Overpassing human power. Amen.

---

M. Gautier has printed translations of the fifteenth century of some fifty of Adam's Sequences. As a specimen I give the 6th, 7th, and 8th stanzas of the above.

Ce n'est pas nouvel sacrament:
Tel religion nouvelement
Si n'a pas esté trouvée.
Douche eaue fist qui est amere:
Par li jeta pierre eaue clere
Quant de Moyse fa hurtée.

Nul salu n'est en la maison,
Se de la Crois n'est par raison,
Par aucun garnie a l'entrée :
Ne glaive n'a enduré
Ne son enfant adiré
Cil qui tel chose a ouvrée.

La povre femme qui estoit
En Sarepte, où buche cueilloit,
Acquist la grace divine :
Qui de la crois n'a creance
L'uile n'a point d'abondance,
Ni le pot de farine.

1. This is an idea which Adam frequently, indeed almost too frequently, expresses. So in a Sequence for S. Laurence.

   Non discordat os a corde:
   Sint Concordes hæ tres chordæ,
   Lingua, mens, et actio!

   In the Common of Apostles:

   Lætâ linguâ mens collaudet;
   Quæ si laude se defraudet
   Fructûs laus est modici.

   And in another for the same:

   Cuï psallant mens et ora:
   Mentis mundæ vox sonora
   Hymnus est angelicus.

2. So have we seen Fortunatus address the Cross:

   Hail, Altar! Hall, O Victim! Thee
   Decks now Thy Passion's Victory.

   The author of the glorious Ambrosian Hymn, Ad Cœnam Agni providi, still more boldly:

   Whose Body hath redeemed our loss,
   Roast on the Altar of the Cross;

   which image is omitted in the Roman recast, Ad Regitu Agni Dapes. So also Santolius Victorinus:

   Arâ sub illâ, Par Deo,
   Se consecrabat Victimam:

   and Adam himself repeats the thought in his Second Sequence on the Evangelists.

   Arâ Crucis mansuëtus
   Sic offertur, sicque vetus
   Transit observantia.

   So also S. Hildebert: "He on the Altar of the Cross made good the office both of King and Priest: of King, because He fought and conquered, of Priest because He made oblation and appeased: but neither was the oblation which He made, nor the God to Whom He offered, alien from Himself."

3. So Hildebert: "Christ therefore willed to be exalted on the Cross, not without a reason: but that in accordance with the four arms of the Cross, whereby the four parts of the world be signified, He might draw all men to love, to imitate, and to reign together with Him."
4. The reference is, of course, to the bitter waters of Marah. Daniel unaccountably applies it to the healing the Waters of Jericho by Elisha.
5. Hugh of S. Victor, in his treatise "de proprietatibus rerum," under the title "Crux," says:

   "Crux, serpentis ænei palus, ligna Isaac, scala Jacob, virga Moysi, lignum Marath, Signum Thau in superliminari domus." (Compare Ezekiel ix. 4.)

6. The "two sticks" which the widow of Sarepta was gathering, when Salvation came to her house, are expounded of the two beams which by their intersection made up the Cross.
7. I. e., when the bridge of boats broke down under the routed army of Maxentius, who thus perished miserably in the Tiber.
8. A very clear reference to the Crusades. The two last stanzas are slightly altered from the Translation which Mr. Wackerbarth has given of them, as a separate poem. The Ista suos fortiores is quoted by Archbishop Harsnett, in a Sermon preached at Paul's Cross.