Refrain: “Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me.”
Ode I.
Irmos. After crossing the sea as if it
were dry ground and escaping the wickedness of Egypt, the Israelite cried
out: Let us sing to our redeemer and God.
May your face shine with joy when you look upon your
wretched servant, O Judge, in the frightful day of your second, future and
unspeakable coming upon earth.
O angel guardian of my soul,
establish my soul in the bright light of your hopes in the fearful hour,
granting me a defense at the coming judgement.
By the streams
of your mercy, kind Lord, quench the flame of the fiery river which flows
before your tribunal and draws the accursed souls to destruction.
O First and Last
of life, Alpha and Omega: Be merciful to
me, Jesus, for the Father and the Spirit have committed the Judgement to you as
to the Son of Man.
Most pure
temple of God, make me a pillar standing eternally in your temple, in which the
Lamb, whose slaughter pierced your heart, is its light and lamp.
Ode III.
Irmos. You covered the vault
of the sky with a roof, O Lord, and built the church; confirm me in your love,
O summit of desires, support of the faithful and only compassionate Lord.
I stand silent and fearful at heart in prayerful
vision of the coming judgement, always groaning and trembling, and I cry out to
my God, “Merciful Lord, be gracious to your wretched servant.”
You will open the vaults of the heavens, O Lord, and
the divine brightness of your life-bearing Cross will be manifested in glory;
then all who with joy hope in your grace will fall down in supplication.
Having scattered with all folly the talents of my
soul, I supplicate you with groans, O Master, that I may return to you before
your coming judgement and hear you say, “Come, servant, into my house.”
O Mother of the God-man, O all-holy Mary, you have
become the cleansing of the filth of all creation; wherefore I beg you, in the
hour of judgement, Mother, grant me courage with your joyous face.
[Prayers following Ode VI.]
Preserve from condemnation in the hour of trial, O
only all-ruling and Trinitarian Godhead, those who confess you in all their
life.
Kathisma. Tone 2.
Fervent intercession.
Sweet
hope of the despairing heart and glorious choir of the heavenly powers,
fervently I implore you: Come to me
quickly when I am being judged, and on behalf of my soul, which longs for
Paradise, render the just Judge favorable to me.
Ode IV.
Irmos. I have heard, O Lord, the mystery of your dispensation; I
have meditated on your works and glorified your divinity.
I lament, O Master, when I grasp in my mind the
torment which the wretches will undergo who despised your judgement.
Spiritually I am delighted when I grasp in my mind how
the just, whose life was crucifixion with Christ, will enjoy the eternal rest.
Deem me worthy, Forerunner, of discerning the glory
of the manifestation of my Bridegroom who is very near, as you are the pioneer
of monks.
Before my death, cleanse my defiled heart of the
anxiety that leads to carelessness, pure Virgin, so that it may be seen as
clean by the Judge.
Ode V.
Irmos. Illumine us with your commandments, O Lord, and by your lofty
arm grant us your peace, O merciful God.
So that we
may wash away the abominable filth of our sins with repentance, we hold fast to
the memory of your judgement with tears.
Pierce my
soul with remorse, august twelve apostles, so that I may contemplate the divine
judgement and be confident in the hope of my salvation.
On the
fearful day of your second coming, O Christ, deem us worthy to sit with you at
the banquet.
O sweetest
hope of monks, deliver me from the spiritual disease of sloth, so that I may be
saved from eternal torments.
Ode VI
Irmos. I will pour out my supplication to the Lord and
to him will I declare my afflictions, for my soul has been filled with troubles
and my life has approached Hades, so like Jonah I pray: Raise me up
from death, O God.
In your
spiritual activity and sobriety, keep in mind the comforting thought of the day
of the coming of Christ, so that you, my soul, may acquire thoroughly the
desire to cry out to the savior fervently:
O my Judge, O King of all, I glorify you.
Intercede for
us before the Lord, O glorious clouds of martyrs, so that when you cry with
joy, seeing the reward of righteousness, we may cry with you, “O most just
Judge, glory to you.”
I am exposed
by my conscience, Master, perceiving every day the unfathomable depth of my
insensibility, in view of your coming judgement. Wherefore I cry to you fervently, “O Judge,
pity me, an unprofitable sinner.”
Let the
angels rain down sweetness, singing joyfully in Psalms, and so prepare for the
throne of glory on which the Son of Man will sit and pass all judgement,
beginning the eighth day of creation.
Men rejoicing
on Earth cheerfully celebrate you in song, O Mother of God, for you are the
queen and the true Mother of life and the renewal of the race of mortals, and
they faithfully trust in you to render the Judge merciful to us.
[Prayers
after Ode VI.]
Preserve from
affliction, O threefold, all-ruling, single Deity, those who confess you in
their whole life in the hour of condemnation.
Kontakion
Tone 2.
By the streams of your blood.
Those who will see the glory of the Bridegroom in the last day of judgement
will immediately cry out with joy when they hear the sweet voice saying, “Enter
into my bridal chamber.” Glory.
Father, Word,
Spirit—Trinity in Unity—deem me worthy of the lot of the saved on the right. Both now.
Merciful
Lord, by the intercessions of the Mother of God, deliver me from the sentence
of the lamentable wicked.
Prosomoion. Tone 6. Having laid all hope.
Most just judge, when you come in
glory, then will all the present creation be raised groaning, and the hosts of
men will stand with fear before your tribunal; the books will be opened and the
secrets of life will be manifested. Your
face will be seen, and all existence will be judged. O Lord of the throne, we wretched sinners beg
that we may join the company of those who have loved you.
Ode VII.
Irmos. The
youths from Judea, having come to Babylon of old, by their faith in the Trinity
trampled down the flame of the furnace, chanting, O God of our fathers, blessed
are you.
Looking down
with fear upon Hades—already yawning to receive them—those who have sinned
offer hopeless lamentation to the Creator, and they cry to men, “Repent now,
who still live in the world!”
When the
trumpet of the seventh day has sounded in glory and triumph, all will hear and
hasten with trembling to meet the Lord; be gracious, then, O Judge, to those
who praise you in hymns.
O sacred and
elect order of ministers who stand about the heavenly altar of the Most
High: Beseech the Lamb on behalf of the
whole trembling universe. Be gracious
then, O Judge, to those who praise you in hymns.
I entreat
you, O Mother of God, as the fountain of mercy: save me in the hour of judgement and set me on
the right hand of the King of all, so that I may dwell blessedly with joy in
the choir of the living.
Ode VIII
Irmos. The king of Heaven whom the hosts of angels hymn, hymn and
exalt him above all forever.
The choir of
martyrs of the great tribulation entreats the Savior of our souls that they
meet him in the clouds.
Accept now my
garlands of songs of praise, O choir of monks and virgins, and give me in
return your intercession at the judgement.
Let heartfelt
thanksgiving be offered to the Creator, who gives to men the ways of repentance
when it is time to work.
O Virgin who
leads us to the Bridegroom as we sing a song of rejoicing! O unwedded Bride, betroth my soul to the
Bridegroom forever.
We wear black
clothing in life, having dressed the dead in joyful clothes, seeking to have
the enjoyment of deathless life.
O entirety of
all saints in Heaven and on Earth, beseech Christ also to judge mercifully the
whole mortal race.
The choirs of
monks offer you the fragrant hyacinth of the ointments of repentance, beloved
Bridegroom, on behalf of all.
I, a wretch,
have turned black from despair, for I have paid no regard to the articles of
the covenant with God, and from the depths I cry out, “My Savior, save me.”
Accept a
suppliant’s song, O Virgin, and set it before the feet of your Son, so that I
may offer at the Judgement a ransom for my soul.
ENDNOTES FOR THE CIRCUMSPECT
This canon may be found at https://www.proseyxi.com/paraklisi-eis-ton-despoti-xristo-gia-tin-deutera-autou-parousia/. I
thank Zoilus for patiently proofing my translation and I thank eagle-eyed Aeteia,
my lawfully wedded, for proofing my English. Any errors surviving their
ministrations are purely my own.
This canon was much more difficult than the average
canon, which typically exhibits Pindaresque obscurity, misspellings,
neologisms, modern semantics, textual confusion etc. While I was working on it, I happened to be
reading Peter Botsis’ The Elder Ieronymos of Aegina, wherein he comments
on a letter written by his subject. “The
letter is translated in the way it was written, with abrupt sentences and
peculiar grammatical syntax. This is the
typical Cappadocian manner of speaking and writing. The Cappadocians would say a few words and
the hearer was supposed to fill in the rest.”
This would appear to be a good description of much of this canon. The Cappadocians had the charming habit of
describing themselves as Romans, not Greeks.
They remembered that they belonged to the Roman empire, which was
currently under Turkish occupation. The
Population Exchange purged them of that memory, within a generation, Romans
became Greeks.
Ode I.
“May you look gladly” (ἱλάρυνον ὄμμα Σου, ὦ Κριτά, ἐν φρικτῇ ἡμέρᾳ). Lit., “gladden your face.” Ἱλάρυνον underlies the familiar words of
Ps. 104:15 (LXX). The different versions
of this verse sketch out our choices:
“oil to make his face to shine” (KJV) and “to make his face cheerful with oil” (Brenton, Douay-Rheims). In fact, the Hebrew verb translated by ἱλάρυνον can mean
either shine or be cheerful.
There is a similar expression in Spanish (el mostro buen semblante he
looked happy). With Gifford, we may
take St. Cyril of Jerusalem’s ἱλάρυνον τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς σου πρόσωπον to mean “make the face of
your soul to shine,” but it could be said “be cheerful”? And don’t we say that someone’s face shines
with joy?
“Granting me” is inserted to make the text readable.
“Judgement.” I vote with Fowler on the spelling of
this word.
“Kind” (Ἀγαθέ).
The definitions of ἀγαθός vary according to eraand context. Following Montanari, we find that in Homeric
Greek, it means good in the sense of valiant, skilful or capable. In Classical Greek, it can (according to
Cremer) refer to qualities which are admirable (perfect, excellent)
or advantageous (suitable, sound, useful). However,
Cremer omits mention of qualities clustering about the Latin word faustus (propitious,
favorable, lucky). In
modern Greek, the meanings of ἀγαθός are closer to the Hellenistic development noted by
Kittel—benevolent, kind.
Here again we see the problem of using the first definition in the
dictionary. We know that God is good;
what we need to remember is that God is also kind and benevolent.
“Flows” is inserted to complete
the picture.
“And” is inserted to clarify
the syntax.
“Of the fiery river etc.” Zoilus recommended the translation adopted
here. It was not until I was in church
that I realized that the this line was borrowed from a stichos of the Last
Judgement Vespers.
“Accursed” (εὐωνυμούσας) is a conjecture, based on the
fact that εὐωνυμέομαι (to
have a good name) is liable to euphemism.
Lampe defines εὐώνυμος as evil, for instance. Therefore, I supposed that εὐωνυμέομαι can
also mean be evil or accursed.
Omit Σου δέομαι (I beg of you). There seems to be no place to fit this into
the translation without sounding awkward.
If we translate ἱλάρυνον
literally, we could say, “Make your
face shine with joy when you look upon your wretched servant, O Judge, in the
frightful day of your second, future and unspeakable coming upon earth, I beg
of you.” Also, we could say, “I beg of
you to make your face etc.”
English word order is, as a minimally inflected
language, much more restricted than Greek.
May arguably lexicalizes Σου δέομαι, although my immediate
purpose was to avoid addressing the Judge imperiously.
“Son of man.”
Cf. Daniel 7:13.
Theotokion. I
sincerely thank Zoilus for his help with this troparion, which he said made him
think of Revelation 22:5.
Ode III.
The Greek of this troparion is unintelligible, as
the morphology provides no guide to syntax.
My hunch is that this is the work of a Turkish-speaking “Roman” from,
say, Cappadocia or Trebizond. I
translated it the way certain, ecclesiastical translators routinely do their
work—by stringing words together as sense or whim suggested. The usual consequences of this method are
disastrous. Since the Greek of this
troparion is already a D-Day of a noble language, and since its concepts
involve fairly predictable themes, the results may not be too far off the
mark.
“Joyous” (ἱλαρός),
taking Giles’ suggestion. This adjective
normally is taken as glad, hilarious, jolly (Montie),
though oddly taken as gladsome in the standard translation of the
Vespers hymn Φῶς ἱλαρὸν.
Ode IV.
“I grasp in my mind” (κατά νοῦν λαμβάνω). Odd that the hymnographer uses the same
expression—which is already puzzling from at least the Classical view—in
successive troparia.
“As you are” is my
G-flat translation of ὁπτανόμενος. The hymnographers, apparently in imitation of
Pindar, studiously avoid the substantive verb.
The employment of the present passive participle of ὀπτάνομαι (be seen) as a substitute substantive is
a new one for me. This verb is
late. It shows up once in the NT, where
it is amazingly found in the proemium of Acts (1:3) and twice in the LXX; Lampe
cites several fathers who used it, notably St. John of Damascus. This verb was formed from ὤφθην (was seen, appeared), which evidently
originated from a lost, more primitive form of ὀπτάνομαι itself. The hymnographers
usually prefer as circumlocutions verbs like ὤφθην (as in the theotokion immediately following)
and δείκνυμι.
“Pure” (ἄσπιλε). Ἄσπιλος joins the ranks of synonyms for pure.
“That leads to sloth” (ῥαθυμοτόκος). LBG renders “causing “thoughtlessness,
carelessness.” Lampe: “breeding indolence, sloth-inducing.” Sloth means “laziness, indolence” (COED).
Ode V.
“With
repentance” (ἵνα
τῷ λουτρῷ μετανοίας) omits τῷ λουτρῷ
in order to avoid saying “wash . . . with the washing of
repentance.” This canon’s combination of
sentence fragments and pleonasm is particularly oppressive.
“With
remorse” added. Lit., “deem us worthy to
attain to banqueting with you at the banquet.”
Ode VI.
“In Psalms” (ψαλμικῶς). Lexicographers and translators differ (in
Psalms? with Psalms? in the language of the Psalms?). The reader may make up his own mind about
this word.
“Prepare for
the throne” (ἑτοιμασία τοῦ Θρόνου). A puzzling expression exhibiting Cappadocian
obscurity.
“Sits” (καθέζεται) etc. This hymnographer generally prefers the
present when we would use the future.
But that very rare bird, the future active participle, is found in the
kontakion.
“Trust in” (ἐπερίδονται). The verb is a misspelling of ἐπερείδονται. The Classical definition is to lean on,
leading naturally to the modern definition to trust in.
“Keep in
mind” does not translate ἀπέργασαι
(“conceive”), but does seem to do less violence to the associations favored by
the English language.
Kontakion
“In the last
day of judgement” (ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς Κρίσεως) is an
awkward combination of what are usually separate expressions.
Prosomoion
“All existence” (πᾶσα . . . ὕπαρξις). Perhaps
the hymnographer intended every creature.
“We may join
the company” (ὡς ἄν τῆς στάσεως τύχωμεν).
The Greek literally says, “attain to the company.”
Ode VII.
“Hopeless” (ἀπέλπιδα). A modern word. Kontopoulos renders “in despair.”
Ode VIII.
The first
troparion is another one that does not pull together grammatically. I have handled it roughly.
“Time to
work” (καιρῷ τῆς ἐργασίας) seems to be
an allusion to an idiomelon from Great and Holy Tuesday: “I slumber in slothfulness of soul, O Christ
the Bridegroom; I have no lamp that burns with the virtues, but like the
foolish virgins I go wandering when it is time to work” (ἐν καιρῷ τῆς ἐργασίας).
Ode IX.
“We wear
black etc.” Presumably written by
someone living under Moslem rule, as Christians were required to wear black.
“The dead” (νέκρωσιν). Lit., “death.”
“From the depths I cry out” (ἐκ βαθέων
κραυγάζω). Cf. Ps. 129 (LXX): Ἐκ βαθέων ἐκέκραξά σοι, Κύριε.
“So
that I may offer at the Judgement a ransom for my soul” (ἵνα ἐν Κρίσει
προσφέρω ψυχῆς ἐξίλασμα).
It seems to me that this last troparion is reminiscent of ἀδελφὸς οὐ λυτροῦται λυτρώσεται, ἄνθρωπος οὐ δώσει τῷ θεῷ ἐξίλασμα αὐτοῦ καὶ τὴν τιμὴν τῆς λυτρώσεως τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ (“A brother does not redeem, shall a
man redeem? He shall not give to God a
ransom for himself, or the price of the redemption of his soul” [Brenton]) (Ps.
48:8-9 [LXX]). If I understand the
hymnographer correctly, he trusts the Mother of God to grant him the redemption
which he knows he cannot offer of himself.
The word ἐξίλασμα is also used in I Samuel to mean "bribe." Stephanos defines it as "means of appeasing, lenitive." Lampe defines it as "atonement, propitiation." Great Scott defines it as "ransom, propitiatory
offering." I would expect a hymnographer to be more conversant with
the Psalms than with Samuel. These are
treacherous waters for the Anglophone, as the dogmatic history of Western
heresiarchs combine with the general ignorance of English vocabulary to confuse
appeasement, ransom and propitiation.
The fact that a related word, ἱλασμός, is used by the hymnographers to mean not “an offering to
appease (satisfy) an angry, offended party” but “pardon”
or “forgiveness” should prevent us from jumping to conclusions about ἐξίλασμα. I
would not be surprised if in the years to come—some of the words in these
canons require a few years to fully work out—evidence should come to light
requiring a revision of my translation of ἐξίλασμα. In the meantime, it seems to me that we may
suppose that the hymnographer is not trying to make a literal, theological
claim but a hyperbolic, poetic one—that his composition of this canon will be
exhibited as exculpatory evidence at the heavenly tribunal. The problem in the post-schism West is that
we, like the Puritans of at least Nathaniel Hawthorn's imagination, say, take everything seriously. We tend to imagine that anything connected
with the faith must be gloomily bound up by the tightest cords of literalism to
the very bedrock of our salvation. This
leads to the ridiculous result that educated people are unable to distinguish rhetorical
embellishments from gravely pronounced dogma.
The only solution is—to the degree possible—to become as well-read as
the Fathers themselves. Otherwise, by
refusing to recognize hyperbole, pleonasm, apostrophe, scheme, trope as literary
devices, we will make them articles of the faith.
