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Stabat Mater is a thirteenth century Roman Catholic sequence
Sequence (poetry)

A sequence is a Gregorian chant sung or recited during the Mass , before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year....
 variously attributed to Innocent III and Jacopone da Todi
Jacopone da Todi

Jacopone da Todi was a Franciscan friar from Umbria, Italy in the 13th century. He wrote several laudi in Italian, and the famous Latin lyric Stabat Mater is conventionally attributed to him....
. Its title is an abbreviation of the first line, Stabat mater dolorosa ("The sorrowful mother stood"). The hymn, one of the most powerful and immediate of extant
Extant literature

Extant literature refers to texts that have survived from the past to the present time. Extant literature can be divided into extant original manuscripts, copies of original manuscripts, quotations and paraphrases of passages of non-extant texts contained in other works, translations of non-extant texts into other languages, or, more recently...
 medieval poems, meditates on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ's mother, during his crucifixion
Passion (Christianity)

The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering ? physical, spiritual, and mental ? of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion....
. It is sung at the liturgy on the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
Our Lady of Sorrows

Our Lady of Sorrows , the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows , Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which the Blessed Virgin Mary is referred to in relations to sorrows in her life....
.

It has been set to music by many composers, among them John Browne
John Browne (composer)

John Browne is first among the composers of the Eton Choirbook both in size of contribution and excellence of achievement. It is astonishing that work of such exceptional interest should be known to us only from the Eton Choirbook, even given the paucity of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century sources; works by Walter Lambe and Richar...
, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italy composer of the Renaissance music. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition....
, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a French composer of the Baroque music era.He was a prolific and versatile composer, producing music of the highest quality in several genres....
, Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn was an Austrians composer. He was one of the most prominent composers of the classical music era, and is called by some the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet"....
, Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Dvorák

Anton?n Leopold Dvor?k was a Czechs composer of Romantic music, who employed the idioms and melodies of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia....
, Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed il Prete Rosso , was a Baroque music composer and Venice priest, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist, born and raised in the Republic of Venice....
, Emanuele d'Astorga
Emanuele d'Astorga

Emanuele d'Astorga was an Italy composer.He was born at Naples. No authentic account of Astorga's life can be successfully constructed from the obscure and confusing evidence that has been until now handed down, although historians have not failed to indulge many pleasant conjectures....
, Gioachino Rossini, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italy composer, violinist and organ ....
, Charles Villiers Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer, resident in England for much of his life....
, Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod

Charles-Fran?ois Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Rom?o et Juliette....
, Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Penderecki is a Poland composer and conducting of European classical music....
, Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a France composer and a member of the French group Les Six. He composed music in all major genres, including art song, chamber music, oratorio, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music....
, Karol Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Poland composer and pianist....
, Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti

Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque music composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera....
 (1724), Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti , son of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, was an Italy composer who spent much of his life in Spain and Portugal....
 (1715), Pedro de Escobar
Pedro de Escobar

Pedro de Escobar , a.k.a. Pedro do Porto, was a Portugal composer of the Renaissance music, mostly active in Spain. He was one of the earliest and most skilled composers of polyphony in the Iberian Peninsula, whose music has survived....
, František Tuma
František Tuma

Franti?ek Ign?c Anton?n Tuma was an important Czech Republic composer of the Baroque music. Born in Kostelec nad Orlici, Bohemia, he lived the greater part of his life in Vienna, first as director of music for Count Franz Ferdinand Kinsky, later filling a similar office for the widow of Emperor Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor....
, Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt

Arvo P?rt , is an Estonian classical composer. P?rt works in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabulation and hypnotic repetitions influenced by the intellectual counterpoint elements of European jazz, but fitting into European-American classical post-modernism rather than so-called world music....
, Josef Rheinberger
Josef Rheinberger

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger was a Liechtensteinian organist and composer.When only seven years old Rheinberger was organist at Vaduz Parish Church, and his first composition was performed the following year....
, Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 lieder, nine symphonies , liturgy music, operas, and a large body of chamber music and solo piano music....
, Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic music composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers in the 19th century....
, Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály

Zolt?n Kod?ly ; December 16, 1882 – March 6, 1967) was a Hungary composer, ethnomusicologist, education, linguistics, and philosophy....
, Trond Kverno
Trond Kverno

Trond Hans Farner Kverno is a contemporary Norway composer. He received degrees in church music, music theory and choir direction from the Oslo Conservatory of Music....
 (1991), Pawel Lukaszewski
Pawel Lukaszewski

Pawel Lukaszewski is a Poland composer of choral music....
 (1994), Salvador Brotons (2000), Hristo Tsanoff, Bruno Coulais
Bruno Coulais

Bruno Coulais is a France composer, most widely known for his music on film soundtracks. Coulais was born in Paris; his father is from Vend?e and his mother is an Iraqi Jew....
 (2005), the black metal band Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa (band)

Anorexia Nervosa is a French symphonic black metal band that started as an industrial metal act from Limoges, France. The band was formed in 1995 and was active for ten years thereafter....
, and most recently Karl Jenkins
Karl Jenkins

Karl William Jenkins Order of the British Empire D.Mus. is a Wales musician and composer. Jenkins was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours list for 2005....
.

following translation is not word-for-word.






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Encyclopedia


Stabat Mater is a thirteenth century Roman Catholic sequence
Sequence (poetry)

A sequence is a Gregorian chant sung or recited during the Mass , before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year....
 variously attributed to Innocent III and Jacopone da Todi
Jacopone da Todi

Jacopone da Todi was a Franciscan friar from Umbria, Italy in the 13th century. He wrote several laudi in Italian, and the famous Latin lyric Stabat Mater is conventionally attributed to him....
. Its title is an abbreviation of the first line, Stabat mater dolorosa ("The sorrowful mother stood"). The hymn, one of the most powerful and immediate of extant
Extant literature

Extant literature refers to texts that have survived from the past to the present time. Extant literature can be divided into extant original manuscripts, copies of original manuscripts, quotations and paraphrases of passages of non-extant texts contained in other works, translations of non-extant texts into other languages, or, more recently...
 medieval poems, meditates on the suffering of Mary, Jesus Christ's mother, during his crucifixion
Passion (Christianity)

The Passion is the Christian theological term used for the events and suffering ? physical, spiritual, and mental ? of Jesus in the hours before and including his trial and execution by crucifixion....
. It is sung at the liturgy on the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows
Our Lady of Sorrows

Our Lady of Sorrows , the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows , Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which the Blessed Virgin Mary is referred to in relations to sorrows in her life....
.

It has been set to music by many composers, among them John Browne
John Browne (composer)

John Browne is first among the composers of the Eton Choirbook both in size of contribution and excellence of achievement. It is astonishing that work of such exceptional interest should be known to us only from the Eton Choirbook, even given the paucity of late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century sources; works by Walter Lambe and Richar...
, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italy composer of the Renaissance music. He was the most famous sixteenth-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition....
, Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Marc-Antoine Charpentier

Marc-Antoine Charpentier was a French composer of the Baroque music era.He was a prolific and versatile composer, producing music of the highest quality in several genres....
, Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn was an Austrians composer. He was one of the most prominent composers of the classical music era, and is called by some the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet"....
, Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Dvorák

Anton?n Leopold Dvor?k was a Czechs composer of Romantic music, who employed the idioms and melodies of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia....
, Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed il Prete Rosso , was a Baroque music composer and Venice priest, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist, born and raised in the Republic of Venice....
, Emanuele d'Astorga
Emanuele d'Astorga

Emanuele d'Astorga was an Italy composer.He was born at Naples. No authentic account of Astorga's life can be successfully constructed from the obscure and confusing evidence that has been until now handed down, although historians have not failed to indulge many pleasant conjectures....
, Gioachino Rossini, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italy composer, violinist and organ ....
, Charles Villiers Stanford
Charles Villiers Stanford

Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was an Irish composer, resident in England for much of his life....
, Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod

Charles-Fran?ois Gounod was a French composer, best known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Rom?o et Juliette....
, Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki

Krzysztof Penderecki is a Poland composer and conducting of European classical music....
, Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a France composer and a member of the French group Les Six. He composed music in all major genres, including art song, chamber music, oratorio, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music....
, Karol Szymanowski
Karol Szymanowski

Karol Maciej Szymanowski was a Poland composer and pianist....
, Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti

Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque music composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera....
 (1724), Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti , son of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti, was an Italy composer who spent much of his life in Spain and Portugal....
 (1715), Pedro de Escobar
Pedro de Escobar

Pedro de Escobar , a.k.a. Pedro do Porto, was a Portugal composer of the Renaissance music, mostly active in Spain. He was one of the earliest and most skilled composers of polyphony in the Iberian Peninsula, whose music has survived....
, František Tuma
František Tuma

Franti?ek Ign?c Anton?n Tuma was an important Czech Republic composer of the Baroque music. Born in Kostelec nad Orlici, Bohemia, he lived the greater part of his life in Vienna, first as director of music for Count Franz Ferdinand Kinsky, later filling a similar office for the widow of Emperor Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor....
, Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt

Arvo P?rt , is an Estonian classical composer. P?rt works in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabulation and hypnotic repetitions influenced by the intellectual counterpoint elements of European jazz, but fitting into European-American classical post-modernism rather than so-called world music....
, Josef Rheinberger
Josef Rheinberger

Joseph Gabriel Rheinberger was a Liechtensteinian organist and composer.When only seven years old Rheinberger was organist at Vaduz Parish Church, and his first composition was performed the following year....
, Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 lieder, nine symphonies , liturgy music, operas, and a large body of chamber music and solo piano music....
, Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic music composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers in the 19th century....
, Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály

Zolt?n Kod?ly ; December 16, 1882 – March 6, 1967) was a Hungary composer, ethnomusicologist, education, linguistics, and philosophy....
, Trond Kverno
Trond Kverno

Trond Hans Farner Kverno is a contemporary Norway composer. He received degrees in church music, music theory and choir direction from the Oslo Conservatory of Music....
 (1991), Pawel Lukaszewski
Pawel Lukaszewski

Pawel Lukaszewski is a Poland composer of choral music....
 (1994), Salvador Brotons (2000), Hristo Tsanoff, Bruno Coulais
Bruno Coulais

Bruno Coulais is a France composer, most widely known for his music on film soundtracks. Coulais was born in Paris; his father is from Vend?e and his mother is an Iraqi Jew....
 (2005), the black metal band Anorexia Nervosa
Anorexia Nervosa (band)

Anorexia Nervosa is a French symphonic black metal band that started as an industrial metal act from Limoges, France. The band was formed in 1995 and was active for ten years thereafter....
, and most recently Karl Jenkins
Karl Jenkins

Karl William Jenkins Order of the British Empire D.Mus. is a Wales musician and composer. Jenkins was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours list for 2005....
.

Text and translation

The following translation is not word-for-word. Instead it has been adapted so as to represent the meter (trochaic tetrameter
Trochaic tetrameter

Trochaic tetrameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line of four trochee foot . The word "tetrameter" simply means that the poem has four trochees....
), rhyme scheme, and sense of the original text. A literal translation (word-for-word, without concern for adaptation into the target language) can be found .

Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Crucem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

Cuius animam gementem,
contristatam et dolentem
pertransivit gladius.

O quam tristis et afflicta
fuit illa benedicta,
mater Unigeniti!

Quae maerebat et dolebat,
pia Mater, dum videbat
nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?

Quis non posset contristari
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?

Pro peccatis suae gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis,
et flagellis subditum.

Vidit suum dulcem Natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.

Eia, Mater, fons amoris
me sentire vim doloris
fac, ut tecum lugeam.

Fac, ut ardeat cor meum
in amando Christum Deum
ut sibi complaceam.

Sancta Mater, istud agas,
crucifixi fige plagas
cordi meo valide.

Tui Nati vulnerati,
tam dignati pro me pati,
poenas mecum divide.

Fac me tecum pie flere,
crucifixo condolere,
donec ego vixero.

Iuxta Crucem tecum stare,
et me tibi sociare
in planctu desidero.

Virgo virginum praeclara,
mihi iam non sis amara,
fac me tecum plangere.

Fac, ut portem Christi mortem,
passionis fac consortem,
et plagas recolere.

Fac me plagis vulnerari,
fac me Cruce inebriari,
et cruore Filii.

Flammis ne urar succensus,
per te, Virgo, sim defensus
in die iudicii.

Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
da per Matrem me venire
ad palmam victoriae.

Quando corpus morietur,
fac, ut animae donetur
paradisi gloria. Amen.

At the Cross her station keeping,
stood the mournful Mother weeping,
close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
all His bitter anguish bearing,
now at length the sword has passed.

O how sad and sore distressed
was that Mother, highly blest,
of the sole-begotten One.

Christ above in torment hangs,
she beneath beholds the pangs
of her dying glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep,
whelmed in miseries so deep,
Christ's dear Mother to behold?

By the Cross with thee to stay,
there with thee to weep and pray,
is all I ask of thee to give.

For the sins of His own nation,
She saw Jesus wracked with torment,
All with scourges rent:

She beheld her tender Child,
Saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.

Can the human heart refrain
from partaking in her pain,
in that Mother's pain untold?

O thou Mother! fount of love!
Touch my spirit from above,
make my heart with thine accord:

Make me feel as thou hast felt;
make my soul to glow and melt
with the love of Christ my Lord.

Holy Mother! pierce me through,
in my heart each wound renew
of my Savior crucified:

Let me share with thee His pain,
who for all my sins was slain,
who for me in torments died.

Let me mingle tears with thee,
mourning Him who mourned for me,
all the days that I may live:

Let me, to my latest breath,
in my body bear the death
of that dying Son of thine.

Virgin of all virgins blest!,
Listen to my fond request:
let me share thy grief divine;

Wounded with His every wound,
steep my soul till it hath swooned,
in His very Blood away;

Be to me, O Virgin, nigh,
lest in flames I burn and die,
in His awful Judgment Day.

Christ, when Thou shalt call me hence,
by Thy Mother my defense,
by Thy Cross my victory;

When my body dies,
let my soul be granted
the glory of Paradise. Amen.

Stabat Mater Speciosa


There also exists a Christmas counterpart to the Stabat Mater, entitled Stabat Mater Speciosa ("The beautiful mother stood").

See also

  • Our Lady of Sorrows
    Our Lady of Sorrows

    Our Lady of Sorrows , the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows , Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours are names by which the Blessed Virgin Mary is referred to in relations to sorrows in her life....
  • Roman Catholic Mariology


External links