MEDIÆVAL HYMNS,
ETC.
Pange lingua gloriosi.
Venantius Fortunatus, whose life extended from 580 to 609, is the connecting link between the poetry of Sedulius and Prudentius, and that of the middle ages. The friend of S. Gregory of Tours and S. Radegund, he long wandered over the South of France, the fashionable poet of his day. The latter half of his life, however, raised him to a higher post, and to a holier character. He died Bishop of Poitiers. The following is in the very first class of Latin Hymns: and is retained, with a few ill-judged retouchings, in the Roman Breviary.
Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle,[1]
With completed victory rife:
And above the Cross's trophy
Tell the triumph of the strife:
How the world's Redeemer conquer'd
By surrendering of His Life.
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