DIVINUM OFFICIUM Hymn

Hymnus: O sola magnarum urbium

Epiphany Season - Lauds Hymn - Auth. Prudentius

O sola magnarum urbium ('Bethlehem! of noblest cities') is the Lauds hymn for the Epiphany season, written by Prudentius (348-413), the greatest Latin Christian poet. The hymn celebrates Bethlehem as the city that alone bore the Lord incarnate, then describes the star 'fairer than the sun at morning' that led the Magi with their symbolic gifts of gold (kingship), myrrh (death), and incense (divinity).

LATINE
O sola magnarum urbium / Major Bethlem, cui contigit / Ducem salutis caelitus / Incorporatum gignere. // Quem stella, quae solis rotam / Vincit decore ac lumine, / Venisse terris nuntiat / Cum carne terrestri Deum. // Videre postquam illum Magi, / Eoa promunt munera: / Stratique votis offerant / Thus, myrrham, et aurum regium. // Regem Deumque annuntiant / Thesauris, et fragrans odor / Thuris Sabaei, ac myrrheus / Pulvis sepulcrum praedocet. // Jesu tibi sit gloria, / Qui apparuisti Gentibus, / Cum Patre, et almo Spiritu, / In sempiterna saecula. Amen.
ENGLISH
Bethlehem! of noblest cities / None can once with thee compare; / Thou alone the Lord from heaven / Didst for us Incarnate bear. // Fairer than the sun at morning / Was the star that told His birth; / To the lands their God announcing, / Hid beneath a form of earth. // By its lambent beauty guided, / See the eastern kings appear; / See them bend, their gifts to offer / Gifts of incense, gold, and myrrh. // Solemn things of mystic meaning! / Incense doth the God disclose; / Gold a royal Child proclaimeth; / Myrrh a future tomb foreshows. // Holy Jesu, in Thy brightness / To the Gentile world displayed, / With the Father and the Spirit, / Endless praise to Thee be paid. Amen.
NOTA
FONS
Breviarium Romanum (1962)
USUS
Epiphany Season - Lauds Hymn - Auth. Prudentius
HORA
Lauds
TEMPVS
epiphanyToLent
GENVS
Hymn