Firstpublished: Description: Responsory for St. Ursula
External websites:
Original text and translations
Latin text
RESPOND
Spiritui sancto
honor sit,
qui in mente Ursule virginis
virginalem turbam
velut columbas
collegit.
Unde ipsa patriam suam
sicut Abraham reliquit.
REPETENDA
Et etiam propter amplexionem Agni
desponsationem viri sibi
abstraxit.
VERSE
Nam iste castissimus
et aureus exercitus
in virgineo crine
mare transivit.
O quis umquam talia
audivit?
REPETENDA
Et etiam propter amplexionem Agni
desponsationem viri sibi
abstraxit.
DOXOLOGY
Gloria Patri et Filio
et Spiritui sancto.
REPETENDA
Et etiam propter amplexionem Agni
desponsationem viri sibi
abstraxit.
English translation
RESPOND
Give praise
to the Holy Spirit
who put it into Ursula’s young woman’s mind
to gather together
a clutch of young women
like doves.
Because of which she, like Abraham before,
quit her homeland.
REPETENDA
And preferring the embrace of the Lamb
she withheld herself from
a pledge to a man.
VERSE
And in fact that army,
golden, purest
crossed the sea
on a virgin’s tresses.
Oh, who ever heard
anything like it?
REPETENDA
And preferring the embrace of the Lamb
she withheld herself from
a pledge to a man.
DOXOLOGY
Glory to the Father, and the Son,
and the Holy Spirit.
REPETENDA
And preferring the embrace of the Lamb
she withheld herself from
a pledge to a man.