Page:Raccoltaorcolle00raccgoog.djvu/16

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xii
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

To show still further what variations are consistent with fidelity, it may be mentioned, that in the last Roman edition of the Horæ Diurnæ, published by Salviucci in Rome, with authority, there is another Latin version very different from that in the Raccolta, with a rubric referring to the same grant of Pius VII. as the warrant for its having a Plenary Indulgence annexed to it; yet in this version there is not only even greater latitude than in the other Latin version, but at the end of the prayer a whole sentence is added, with a text from Scripture not found in the original prayer; and as these variationt involve an important question regarding the gaining of Indulgences, we will also give this version as it stands in the Roman Breviary:

En ego, mi dilecte bone Jesu, coram sanctissimo conspectu tuo prostratus. Te ignito fervore obtestor, ut imprimas in cor meum sensus fidei, spei, charitatis, commissorumque peccatorum contritionem, atque propositum non peccandi de cætero: dum ego magno dilectionis affectu, ac commiseratione plenus, tua quinque vulnera perpendo, incipiens ab illis verbis de te dictis, Deus mi, a S. Propheta David: "Foderunt manus meas, et pedes meos; dinumeraverunt omnia ossa mea;" et desinens in illis quæ pronunciavit S. Zacharias Propheta: "Aspicient ad me quem confixerunt."

This version, very different from the one previously given, contains a whole quotation from one of the minor prophets, not found at all in the original; so that it would appear that we are justified in saying as above, that whilst no alterations of words which do not change the general sense of the prayer forfeit the Indulgence, so also no additions to the prayer affect its validity.

Again, in the translation of the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, there is no appearance of any attempt to give a literal rendering of the words. The translation, or, as it is more correctly called, paraphrase, consists of a series of sonnets founded upon the words of the original. Take, for instance, the second stanza of the paraphrase:

"In questo mar del mondo
D'angosce noi siam pieni,
E se dal Ciel non vieni
Chi me consolerà.