O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

The antiphons. At Vespers, the evening service, the Western church sings a short verse called an antiphon before and after the Magnificat, the song of Mary ^[7][13][24]. On the seven evenings from 17 to 23 December these are the "O" antiphons, each calling on the coming Messiah by a title from the Old Testament: Wisdom, Adonai (Lord), Root of Jesse, Key of David, Oriens (the dawn), King of the nations, and Emmanuel ^[7][13][15]. The antiphons were already sung in the ninth century ^[8][9].

The Latin hymn. No one knows who made the hymn. Its poet took five of the antiphons, began with Emmanuel, set each in four rhyming lines and added a refrain the antiphons lack: Gaude, gaude, rejoice, rejoice ^[7][9][8]. The earliest printing that can be dated with confidence is the seventh edition of the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum, a Catholic song book printed in Cologne in 1710 ^[7][8]. One modern study puts an earlier copy in a Westphalian school book of 1693, but its page shows no date and we have found no second witness ^[9]. It stands on page 269, among the Advent songs, as "Veni, veni Emanuel" ^[1][8]. Neale translated it from the text in Daniel's Thesaurus Hymnologicus, a large collection of Latin hymns ^[7][13].

Myth and record. Often told: the hymn is medieval, from the twelfth century. What the record shows: that was Neale's guess; his 1851 contents list it as "Apparently of the Twelfth Century" ^[2][7]. The English Hymnal of 1906 calls it "18th cent.", and in 1911 the Catholic Encyclopedia could trace it no earlier than the first decade of the 1700s ^[12][13]. The antiphons are ancient; the rhyming hymn, as far as anyone has shown, is not.

Neale's English. John Mason Neale (1818 to 1866), a priest, scholar and translator, was warden of Sackville College, an almshouse at East Grinstead in Sussex ^[7][16][2]. His Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences (London, 1851) gives the hymn on page 119, with a note calling it "little more than a versification" of the O antiphons ^[2][7]. It opens "Draw nigh, draw nigh, Emmanuel, And loose Thy captive Israel", and its refrain says Emmanuel "Is born for thee, O Israel!" ^[2].

The tune. The Hymnal Noted, Latin hymns in English printed with plainsong under the sanction of the Ecclesiological Society, had Thomas Helmore (1811 to 1890), a priest and choir trainer, as its musical editor ^[7][3][17]. Its Part II, dated 1856 on its title page, prints the hymn on page 131 as "Veni, veni Emmanuel. Advent. From a French Missal in the National Library, Lisbon" ^[3][11]. The tune stands in square plainsong notes, one unbarred line, under Neale's revised words, now "And ransom captive Israel", with the refrain "Shall be born for thee" ^[3]. Helmore's own copy shows the same page ^[8]. Some reference books date Part II to 1854, and Julian dates Neale's revised text to 1852 ^[8][22][7].

O come, O come. Hymns Ancient and Modern was compiled by a committee of clergy whose secretary and editor was Henry Williams Baker (1821 to 1877), a vicar in Herefordshire ^[7][19]. Julian says its trial copy of 1859 already began "O come, O come, Emmanuel"; we have not seen it ^[7][8][9]. The first edition with tunes, its preface dated Lent 1861, prints it as Hymn 36 under Advent, with four-part harmony by its musical editor, William Henry Monk (1823 to 1889) ^[4][18]. Its preface thanks Helmore "for his friendly co-operation in this work" ^[4]. The Revised Edition, its preface dated 21 January 1875, made it No. 49, "To be sung in Unison" ^[6][7][5].

Myth and record. Often told: the tune is a medieval chant from a Lisbon missal. What the record shows: in 1901 a hymn handbook reported that the French missals in Lisbon's National Library had been searched and the melody was not there ^[11][8]. In 1966 Mary Berry (1917 to 2008), a Cambridge chant scholar then known as Mother Thomas More, reported a melody she had found in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Latin manuscript 10581 ^{[20][8][9][21]}. It is a processional that belonged to French Franciscan nuns, dated to the fifteenth century or about 1500, and the melody carries "Bone Jesu dulcis cunctis", a chant asking mercy for the dead ^[8][10][22]. Its melody matches the tune of the hymn's verses closely; the part now sung to "Rejoice! Rejoice!" was much changed, an adaptation usually credited to Helmore ^[8][12].

We sing the Revised Edition's words, the compilers' reshaping of Neale ^[5][7]. The Latin of 1710, Neale and Hymns Ancient and Modern all have five stanzas; we sing the first three ^[1][2][5]. The refrain has moved in time: the 1710 Latin and Neale's 1851 English say Emmanuel is born, the Hymnal Noted "Shall be born", and Hymns Ancient and Modern "Shall come" ^[1][2][3][4].

Verse 1. Emmanuel is the name Isaiah gives the promised child, "God with us" in Matthew's Gospel ^[24]. Israel is a captive people mourning in exile until the Son of God comes. To "ransom" a captive is to pay the price that sets him free ^[25].

Verse 2. The Rod of Jesse comes from Isaiah: "there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse" ^[24]. A rod here is a shoot or young branch, and Jesse was the father of King David, so the line asks for the promised son of David's family ^[26][24]. He is asked to free his own people from the devil's power and give them victory over death.

Verse 3. The Dayspring is the dawn, the first light of day, as in Luke's Gospel: "the dayspring from on high hath visited us" ^[27][24]. It stands for the antiphon's Oriens. The dawn is asked to cheer the singers by its coming, his Advent, and drive away night and the shadows of death ^[5][1].

Verse 4. The Key of David comes from Isaiah again: the one who holds it opens and none shall shut ^[24]. The verse asks him to open heaven and close the road to misery.

Verse 5. The Lord of Might stands for the antiphon's Adonai, the Lord who gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai in cloud and fire ^[7][24].

The refrain. Rejoice: Emmanuel shall come. In Advent it is a promise that looks forward to Christmas ^[5][14].

The Latin of 1710

These are the five stanzas of "Veni, veni Emanuel" as the Psalteriolum Cantionum Catholicarum (Cologne, 1710) prints them on pages 269 and 270, seen in the page images reproduced by Hymnology Archive ^[1]. The book runs each stanza on as prose; we break the lines at the rhymes, drop the accents and the long s, write "ae" and "oe" for the joined letters, and "et" for "&". It prints the refrain in full only after the first stanza. Under each Latin line is our own plain English.

Verse 1

Veni, veni Emanuel, Come, come, Emmanuel, captivum solve Israel, set captive Israel free, qui gemit in exilio who groans in exile, privatus Dei filio. robbed of the Son of God.

Refrain

Gaude, gaude, Emanuel Rejoice, rejoice: Emmanuel est natus pro te, Israel! is born for you, Israel!

Verse 2

Veni o Iesse virgula, Come, O shoot of Jesse, ex hostis tuos ungula, your own from the enemy's claw, de specu tuos tartari your own from the cave of hell educ et antro barathri. lead out, and from the pit of the abyss.

Verse 3

Veni, veni o Oriens, Come, come, O Dawn, solare nos adveniens, comfort us by your coming, noctis depelle nebulas, drive off the clouds of night dirasque noctis tenebras. and night's dreadful darkness.

Verse 4

Veni clavis Davidica, Come, Key of David, regna reclude coelica, open the kingdom of heaven, fac iter tutum Superum, make safe the road on high, et claude vias inferum. and close the ways below.

Verse 5

Veni, veni Adonai, Come, come, Adonai, qui populo in Sinai who to the people on Sinai's legem dedisti vertice summit gave the law in Majestate gloriae. in the majesty of glory.

It is an Advent hymn, for the season of preparation before Christmas, and above all for its last days, 17 to 23 December, when the O antiphons are sung ^[14][7]. Both the Hymnal Noted and Hymns Ancient and Modern print it under Advent ^[3][4].

In hymnals the tune is VENI EMMANUEL and the meter 8.8.8.8.8.8, four lines of eight syllables and a two-line refrain ^[12][22][23]. Hymns Ancient and Modern gave the plainsong line four-part harmony in 1861, though its preface says "the ancient melodies should generally be sung in unison"; its Revised Edition printed "To be sung in Unison" over the hymn, with mf at the start of each verse, p for "That mourns in lonely exile here" and ff for every refrain ^[4][5]. The 1861 preface also says the dotted semibreve that ends a phrase, as it ends each line here, "must not be so fully sustained as to impede the flow of the melody" ^[4].

Our arrangement takes the tune and the words from the Revised Edition of 1875, No. 49, in a later printing, in E minor as printed there. The harmony is W. H. Monk's four parts from the 1861 book, No. 36, with the lower parts adapted for beginners, for 2 to 4 singers. Each of our three verses ends with the refrain, at a steady, unhurried pace. The Soprano carries the tune; two singers sing Soprano and Alto, three add the Bass, and four the Tenor. Monk ends on a bright E major chord, where the Revised Edition ends in E minor, and we keep his ending.

• Soprano: the tune, most often on B, then G and A, with three notes on the "man-" of "Emmanuel" and the "Is-" of "Israel". Its top D comes only on the first "Rejoice!" of each refrain; its low D falls on the "ra-" of "Israel" and the held "here,", "save," and "night,".
• Alto: under the tune, mostly a sixth below it, and most often on C, then D. At the end of each verse's third line it rises to its top F-sharp on "here,", "save," and "night,", a third above the tune's low D, the only place it sings above the tune.
• Tenor: the middle of the chord, mostly on G. It drops to its low E for the "Is-" and "el" of every "Israel", and reaches its top C-sharp once a verse, on "ile", "ple" and "of", just before the held "here,", "save," and "night,".
• Bass: the bass line, most often on G, then D. Its top G comes only on the last note of each verse's first and last lines, and its only sharp note, D-sharp, on the "ly" of "lonely", "Thy" and the "my" of "gloomy", rising to E on the next note.