also a portion of the glosses themselves is to be regarded as Gerbert's composition, I must leave undecided: certainly the introductory passage proclaims itself to be the work of a commentator. Hitherto the text of the glosses has only been published in M. Olleris's edition of Gerbert's works. The editor gives the following account of it—'On attribue à Gerbert un cantique sur le saint-Esprit, cantica de s. Spiritu, conservé dans la bibliothèque Bodléienne, et une prose ajoutée au canon de la messe en honneur des anges. . . M. H. O. Coxe n'a pas trouvé le cantique, et il a eu la complaisance de copier lui-même le commentaire suivant.' Since, however, M. Olleris could not identify the canticum nor print the glosses without a multitude of grammatical and other mistakes, I have transcribed the text afresh; and I have prefixed the sequence to which it refers, and with the punctuation unaltered, from the edition of the Sarum Missal published at Paris in 1555, folio:—
Ad celebres rex celice laudes cuncta.
Pangat nunc canora cater va symphonia.
Odas atque solvat concio tibi nostra.
Cum iam renovatur Michaelis inclyta valde festa.
Per quem letabunda perornatur machina mundi tota.
Novies distincta: pneumatum sunt agmina per te facta.
Sed cum vis facis hec flammea ceu rutilantia sydera.
Inter primeva sunt hec nam creata tua, cum simus nos ultima factura: sed imago tua.
Theologa categorizent symbola nobis hec ter tripartita: per privata officia.
Plebs angelica, phalanx et archangelica principans turma, virtus uranica, ac potestas almiphonia
Dominantia nunima, divinaque subsellia cherubin etherea ac seraphim ignicoma.
Vos o Michael celi satrapa, Gabrielque vera dans verbi nuncia.
Atque Raphael vite vernula: conferte nos inter paradisicolas.
Per quos patris cuncta complentur mandata que dat.
Eiusdem sophia: compar quoque pneuma: una permanent in usia.
Cui estis administrancia deo milia milium sacra.
Vices per bis quinas bis atque quingenta dena.