Gloria Patri
When Carissima and I began using Latin in the liturgy, we started with the Gloria Patri. This is a good place to start for three reasons:
1. It's short and easy.
2. There are two translations of this prayer into English, and when you pray the Office in English with others, half of your group prays the old version, the other half prays the new, both halves stammer, stop, and look at each other. Yuck! Latin solves this problem; in the Latin, there is only one version of this doxology.
3. Both English translations, the old and the new, are simply terrible. When a friend of mine was converting to Catholicism some years ago, he asked me what the prayer meant. Not knowing Latin at the time, I could not answer him.
The old translation is: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The new translation is: Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
The original is: Gloria Patri et Filio*, et Spiritui Sancto./ Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper,* et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
So what's up with that "world without end" in the older English version? It turns out that "world" used to mean age. It comes from the Old English "were-old" or man-age, i.e. lifetime. "Were" as in were-wolf meant man; it is cognate with Latin "vir" which means the same. So in a sense, "world without end" is not such a bad translation of "in saecula saeculorum".
The original Latin is hard to translate. What else is new? But both of the approved English translations are frankly bizarre. And the reason, I believe, that they are so bizarre, is that in the Latin there is only one verb, "erat", shared over both of the prayer's sentences and all four of the prayer's clauses. This sort of thing very rarely happens in English, and the translators just didn't know how to deal with it.
In Latin, the verb "erat" does duty for both sentences. To make this explicit: Gloria [erat] Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. The translators translated this verb as various forms of the verb "to be": "be", "was", "is", and "shall be". Okay, fine. Every first year student of Latin knows, after all, that "erat" is a form of "esse", right? Right.
And "esse" means "to be", right?
It's not so simple. When "esse" is followed by a dative, it should be translated as "to belong". So "gloria [erat] Patri" means "the glory [belonged] to the Father."
So the prayer should more accurately be translated as: The glory belonged to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it belonged in the beginning, so now, and always, and into ages of ages. Amen.
Now, I am not recommending that you adopt the translation I just made into your celebration of the Divine Office. It is not, after all, approved by the Church, and adding any third translation to the already confusing mix cannot be helpful. And moreover, there is no need. Just pray it in Latin!
And if the Latin is mere gibberish to you, well, it still can't be worse than the English, can it?
1. It's short and easy.
2. There are two translations of this prayer into English, and when you pray the Office in English with others, half of your group prays the old version, the other half prays the new, both halves stammer, stop, and look at each other. Yuck! Latin solves this problem; in the Latin, there is only one version of this doxology.
3. Both English translations, the old and the new, are simply terrible. When a friend of mine was converting to Catholicism some years ago, he asked me what the prayer meant. Not knowing Latin at the time, I could not answer him.
The old translation is: Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The new translation is: Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.
The original is: Gloria Patri et Filio*, et Spiritui Sancto./ Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper,* et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
So what's up with that "world without end" in the older English version? It turns out that "world" used to mean age. It comes from the Old English "were-old" or man-age, i.e. lifetime. "Were" as in were-wolf meant man; it is cognate with Latin "vir" which means the same. So in a sense, "world without end" is not such a bad translation of "in saecula saeculorum".
The original Latin is hard to translate. What else is new? But both of the approved English translations are frankly bizarre. And the reason, I believe, that they are so bizarre, is that in the Latin there is only one verb, "erat", shared over both of the prayer's sentences and all four of the prayer's clauses. This sort of thing very rarely happens in English, and the translators just didn't know how to deal with it.
In Latin, the verb "erat" does duty for both sentences. To make this explicit: Gloria [erat] Patri et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. The translators translated this verb as various forms of the verb "to be": "be", "was", "is", and "shall be". Okay, fine. Every first year student of Latin knows, after all, that "erat" is a form of "esse", right? Right.
And "esse" means "to be", right?
It's not so simple. When "esse" is followed by a dative, it should be translated as "to belong". So "gloria [erat] Patri" means "the glory [belonged] to the Father."
So the prayer should more accurately be translated as: The glory belonged to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it belonged in the beginning, so now, and always, and into ages of ages. Amen.
Now, I am not recommending that you adopt the translation I just made into your celebration of the Divine Office. It is not, after all, approved by the Church, and adding any third translation to the already confusing mix cannot be helpful. And moreover, there is no need. Just pray it in Latin!
And if the Latin is mere gibberish to you, well, it still can't be worse than the English, can it?
posted by Figulus | 1:57 AM
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