Sorry. Couldn’t resist. And of course the answer is “no,” although hooded monks have probably sung this carol many times through the ages.
So what does the title mean, and (leading question here) are there any interesting facts about the song’s background? “Personent” means to resound or resonate, literally “to sound through.” “Hodie” shows up in many Latin Christmas carols; it simply means “today” or “this day.” So the title means something like “let resounding happen today.” Perhaps before I go any further I should provide the Latin verses and their literal English translation so that you’ll know what I’m talking about as I go through said background:
Now we can go on to the rest of the carol. Who is doing this “resounding”? Children. “Voces puerulae” means “puerile,” or young, voices. Well, that would make sense, wouldn’t it? Christmas has lots of associations with children, beginning with the Christ child. We all want our children to have wonderful memories of family celebrations and to get the presents they want.
The association with children in this song, though, is pretty dark. The original text which dates all the way back to the 1100’s, seems to have been addressed to St. Nicholas and sung on his saint’s day, Dec. 6, with the first line saying, “Make a thunderous noise from all the churches on this day of great joy.” But since Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of children, among other groups, and since his saint’s day is so close to Christmas, the lyrics were changed to reflect another day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, on Dec. 28. I have quite a long post on the “Coventry Carol” with its strange references to slain children that spells out the story of these “innocents,” or children. (“Innocent” here means that the children are too young to be held accountable for their sins, not that they’re necessarily sinless–just in case you’re wondering.) The source of that story is in the Gospel of Matthew, where we’re told about Herod’s killing all children under the age of two after the Wise Men come to him looking for “the King of the Jews.” The feast day commemorating that massacre came to be a time when children got to stand in for the adults, with a “boy bishop” being put in the place of the adult one and boy choristers replacing the men in the choir stalls.
The text has an unusual repetition of syllables within each verse: “vir, vir, vir,” “dit, dit, dit,” “thus, thus, thus” and “o, o, o.” There seems to be an idea (I don’t think I want to state it any more strongly) that these repeated syllables originally represented three children whom the saint helped out in various legends, the most famous being about three girls who were too poor for dowries and were going to be sold into prostitution by their father. St. Nicholas threw purses full of gold into their windows or, alternatively, down the chimney. (I won’t belabor the Santa Claus imagery here.) There’s even a Sweeney Todd-ish take on the story, with children being murdered and either pickled in barrels as ham or baked into meat pies. St. Nicholas brings them back to life.
The legends of St. Nicholas and the riotous changing of roles between adults and children don’t enter the actual text of the song, though. Instead, it sticks pretty closely to New Testament doctrine. Let me note briefly the main thrust of each verse. The first one is pretty obvious: Voices resound praising the gift of the Christ child given through the “virgineo” Mary. The second verse delves a little deeper into theology: First a contrastis drawn between the humble birth of Christ and his position as the master of the heavens. (I can’t resist mentioning the word “involvitur,” which refers to the swaddling clothes that the baby Jesus was wrapped in: you can see the word “involve” there. We still say, “I got all wrapped up” to mean “I got all involved.”) The “perdit spolia” line refers to “lost spoils” by the “Princeps Infernorum,” or Satan, the Prince of Hell, those spoils that he has lost being the souls of men. In verse three the story line moves to the Magi, or Wise Men, and a listing of their gifts. The repeated word “thus” means “incense,” one of the three gifts of the Magi. (If you know anything about Roman Catholic or Anglican ritual you’ll remember the “thurible” that holds the smoking incense and is swung back and forth during a service; that word is from the same Latin root as “thus.”) The fourth verse goes back to a general hymn of praise, with a nod to the switching of roles by mention of the “boys” singing along with the priests, or “clerics.” “Ideo” means “for that reason” or “and so.” A neat little play on words here, “ideo” and “Deo.”
I first sang this song as processional for concert with my own choir, a use that has probably been made of it in many venues. Just imagine the entrance of the children into a medieval cathedral, holding candles and singing. A very legitimate form of time travel!
Here’s a very cool performance at Ely Cathedral:
©Debi Simons
