STADION
240
STADLER
A large literature has grown about the hymns, Prot-
estants sharing with Catholics a deep, and often
glowingly expressed, admiration for its pathos, its
vividness of description, its devotional sweetness
and unction, its combination of easy rhythmic flow
with exquisite double rhyming and finished stanzaic
form. Daniel styles it "the queen of sequences"
(op. cit., V, 59) and devotes much space to its praise
(II, 136-138). Dr. Philip Schaff (in "Literature and
Poetry", 191) says: "The secret of the power of the
'Mater Dolorosa' lies in the intensity of feeling with
which the poet identifies himself with his theme,
and in the soft, plaintive melody of its Latin rhythm
and rhyme, which cannot be transferred to any
other language." Dr. Coles, a physician, devotes
a long "Proem" to his own translation, to an esti-
mate of the hymn, and thinks the hymn "powerful
in its pathos beyond almost anything that has ever
been written ". Mingled with his praise is much very
strong denunciation of its " Mariolatrj'." Schaff also
notes the usual Protestant objection, but gently
answers his co-religionists, concluding with the re-
minder that Catholics "do not pray to Mary as the
giver of the mercies desired, but only as the inter-
ceder,' thinking that she is more likely to prevail
with her Son than any poor unaided sinner on earth".
This affection of Protestants for the hymn has re-
sulted in manifold translation. Dean Trench, how-
ever, excluded the hymn from his "Sacred Latin
Poetry", and Saintsbury, in "The Flourishing of
Romance" (p. 77, footnote), characterizes the exclu-
sion as "a little touch of orthodox prudery". There
are over sixty translations into English (in whole or
in part), Caswall's being the most extensively used in
hymnals. Amongst the translations are those of D.
F. McCarthy, Aubrey de Vere, and Father Tabb.
Because of its vividly epic and lyric character, the hymn has received multiform musical setting. There are four well-known plainsong settings, the authentic form being found in the Vatican Gradual (1908). Josquin des Pres (fifteenth century) wrote a Stabat as elaborate as any of his "most highly developed Masses" (Rockstro). His great effort was distanced by the immortalizing twain of settings by Palestrina. Of Pergolesi's Stabat the German poet Tieck confes- ses: "I had to turn away to hide my tears, espe- cially at the place, 'Vidit suum dulcem natum'". Haydn's Stabat is considered "a treasury of refined and graceful melody". Some less famihar names in the long list are Steffani, Clari, Astorga, Winter, Raimondi, Vito, Lanza, Neukomm. Rossini had written his "William Tell" before he essayed his much-abused Stabat. While it is not indeed fitted for liturgical use. Father Taunton (History and Growth of Church Music, 78-9) defends it; and Rock- stro, refusing to discuss the question whether its sensuous beauty befits the theme, thinks that "critics who judge it harshly, and dilettanti who can listen to it unmoved. . . . must either be case-hardened by pedantry, or destitute of all 'ear for music"'. The long list may close with Dvořák, who, in his original musical phrases, illustrated anew the peren- nial freshness of the theme.
II. The Speciosa. — An edition of the Italian poems of Jacopone published at Brescia in 1495 contained both Stabats; but the Speciosa fell into almo.st com- plete oblivion until A. F. Ozanam transcribed it from a fifteenth-century manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale for his "Poetes Franciscains en Italie au Treizieinc siecle", Paris, 1852. He thought Jacopone had composed both Stabats at the same time; and, remarking of the Dolorosa that "this incdmpni'.iblo work would have sufficed for the glory of .laidponc", he confesses that he gave up the attempt to traiislale the Speciosa in verse, and cdncludpil to i)n-scnt Ixith hymns in simple prose, because "the initraiisl;ital)le charm of the language, of the melody, and of the old
quaintness, I feel are escaping me". The Anglican
hymnologist. Dr. J. M. Neale, introduced the Spe-
ciosa to the English-speaking world in 1866, and as-
cribed it to Jacopone. Dr. Schaff dissents: "This
is improbable. A poet would hardly write a parody
on a poem of his own." Noting the unfinished style
and the imperfect rhyme of the Speciosa, Neale
thought it indicated the work of an apprentice shap-
ing his hand to the work of Latin verse — m which
case it must have preceded the Dolorosa, which is
a perfect piece of work. Schaff, however, points
out that the opening words of the Dolorosa were
borrowed from the Vulgate Latin (John, xLx, 25)
"with reference to Mary at the Cross, but not at
the Cradle ", and also that the sixth line, " Pertransivit
gladius", might have suggested the similar line of
the Speciosa, "Pertransivit jubilus", but not vice
versa. Coles doubts "a simultaneous birth, or even
a common parentage". In his "Essay on Minor
Rites and Ceremonies" Cardinal Wiseman seized
on the parallelism of contrast in the two poems —
similarity of form and phrase, and complete antith-
esis of theme and thought. Finally, it should be
said that the great ruggedness of the Speciosa may
be due to the carelessness of copyists.
Kayser, Beitr&ge zur Geschichte und ErkUirung der HUt&len Kirchenhymneit, II (Paderborn, 1886), 110-192, gives text of both Stabats with variants and much comment. Henry, The Two Slabals, in Amer. Cath. Quarterly Rev. (January, 1903), 68-89 and (Apr., 1903), 291-309, texts and translations, comment on authorship and "Mariolatrv", and comparison of trs.; Coles, Stabat Mater {Dolorosa) (2nd ed.. New York, 1S68) ; Idem, Stabat Mater {Speciosa) (New York, 1868) ; Julian, Did. of Hymnology (2nd ed., London, 1907), 1081-84, 1590, 1706. To his entries must be added Henry (as above); Tabb in Catholic News (New York, Apr. 7, 1906), In the Shadow oj the Rood: McKenzie in The Beacon (Boston, May 7, 1887); Stood the Virgin Mother Weeping, and others noted in Henry, loc. cit.; Bagshawe, Breviary Hymns and Missal Sequences (London, 19(X)). 109, The Mother in deep sorrow stood; Donahoe in Early Christian Hymns (New York, 1908), 197, Waiting by the cross atoning; a good version, perhaps by a Catholic, reprinted in The Catholic World (April, 1870) from The Democratic Magazine of thirty years pre- viously: Brokenhearted, lo, and tearful. The same issue of The Catholic World has a tr. into Greek by Mayer. Victori in Ccecilia (Strasburg, Dec, 1909) analyzes the Christus of Franz Liszt (the Speciosa, 182-5; the Dolorosa, 196-200); Shipley adds others in .imer. Bed. Review, XII (1895), 453. Pacheu, L'.4u- teur du Stabat' in Revue du Clerg^ Francais (Mar., 1904), 163-75, thinks the author is, in all probability, Jacopone, and that the Speciosa is not his, but probably the work of some humanist of the fifteenth century. D'Udenhout, Le 'Stabat Mater Speciosa' de Jacopone da Todi, in Etudes Franciscaines (Aug., 1909), 140-8. Shipley, Annus Sanctus (London, 1884), gives the trs. of McCarthy, de Vere, and Aylward. There is an anonymous tr. of the Speciosa (Joy her tender breast expanding) , quoted from The Catholic Magazine in The Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary (London, s. d.), 62. Dreves, Analecta hymnica (Leipzig, 1S8S — ), gives many poems founded on the Dolorosa, e. g. XXIV, 127; 150; 122 (from a Dominican Breviary, fifteenth century) ; see also II, 53, and VIII, 55-56, for illustrations of the fourteenth to the fifteenth century. Husenbeth, Missal for the Use of the Laity (new ed., London, 1906), 234-6, gives Latin text and new translation. The Latin text is in many places different from that of the Roman Missal (although the preface declares that the book "will be found strictly conformable to the Roman Missal, as used by authority in this countr.v" — sc. England). The Latin text includes the line. " Infiaminatus et accensus", which is not in the Roman Missal text, but is found in Rossini's, and even in Liszt's Stabat Mater. For information concerning the line, cf. Kayser, Henry, opp. cit., or Mone, Lateinishche Hymnen des Mitlelalters, II, 148, at end. The typical and official text of the Vatican Graduale (1908) is the same as that of the Roman Missal.
H. T. Henry. Stadion, Christopher von. See Augsburg,
DlOCESK OF.
Stadler, John Evangelist, a Bavarian hagi- ographer, b. at Parkstetten, in the Diocese of Ratis- bon, 24 Dec, 1804; d. at Augsburg, :iO Dec, 1S68. After completing the humanities in the gymna.'iiuin of Straubing in 18'21, he entered the University of L:indshul, where, in addition lo the philosophical and thriiliigiral studies |)n'.scribi'd for candidates to the priesthood, he devoted much of liis time to the study of Oriental and modern languages. The year pre- ce(hng his ordination to the priesthood he spent at the diocesan seminary of Ratisbon, where under the
