View source for O sanctissima

{{Short description|Roman Catholic hymn}}
{{italic title}}{{Synthlisten|filename=O du fröhliche.mid |title=O sanctissima |style=width:270px}}
{{Roman Catholic Mariology}}
"'''{{Lang|la|O sanctissima|italic=no}}'''" (O most holy) is a [[Roman Catholic Church|Roman Catholic]] [[hymn]] in [[Latin]], seeking the prayers of the [[Blessed Virgin Mary]], and often sung in various languages on her [[Marian feast days#In the Catholic Church|feast days]]. The earliest known publication was from [[London]] in 1792, presenting it as a traditional song from [[Sicily]]; no original source or date has been confirmed for the simple melody or poetic text. The tune is often called "'''Sicilian Mariners Hymn'''" or similar titles, referring to the seafarers' nightly invocation of Mary as maternal protector:<ref name=1792mag>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NsMPAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA342 |title=Drossiana. Number XXXVIII. The Sicilian Mariner's Hymn to the Virgin |first=William |last=Seward |author-link=William Seward (anecdotist) |editor-first=Isaac |editor-last=Reed |journal=[[European Magazine and London Review]] |volume=22 |number=5 |date=November 1792 |pages=342, 385–386 |access-date=25 October 2016 |quote=Travellers all agree in their account of the effects of the simple air called 'The Virgin's Hymn,' sung in unison by the whole crew of the Sicilian seamen on board their ships when the sun sets, or when it is the twenty-fourth hour of Italy.}} The editor identified the article's author in his obituary: {{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J1g3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA220 |title=William Seward, Esq. |editor-first=Isaac |editor-last=Reed |journal=European Magazine and London Review |volume=36 |number=4 |date=October 1799 |pages=219–220 |quote=William Seward... amused himself with collecting the materials for what he called Drossiana in the present Magazine; which he began in October 1789, and continued without intermission to the end of his life.}}</ref> [[Our Lady, Star of the Sea]]. The tune has been notably reused for the German [[Christmas carol]] "[[O du fröhliche]]" (O, how joyful) and the English [[recessional hymn]] "Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing", and appears to have been adapted as the first half of the [[American Civil Rights]] anthem "[[We Shall Overcome]]".

Similar Latin lyrics have been set to entirely different tunes since the 1500s, by notable composers and arrangers including [[Leonhard Kleber]] (probably editing another composer), [[Louis-Nicolas Clérambault]], [[E.T.A. Hoffmann]], [[Antonín Dvořák]], and [[Fritz Kreisler]] (using a melody of [[Arcangelo Corelli]]).

==Latin lyric and English translation==
Below is a common version of the text; many other versions exist.
{|
|<poem>{{Lang|la|O sanctissima, o piissima,
dulcis Virgo Maria!
Mater amata, intemerata,
ora, ora pro nobis.

Tu solatium et refugium,
Virgo Mater Maria.
Quidquid optamus, per te speramus;
ora, ora pro nobis.

Ecce debiles, perquam flebiles;
salva nos, o Maria!
Tolle languores, sana dolores;
ora, ora pro nobis.

Virgo, respice, Mater, aspice;
audi nos, o Maria!
Tu medicinam portas divinam;
ora, ora pro nobis.|italic=no}}</poem>
|style="padding-left:1em;"|<poem>O most holy, o most loving,
sweet Virgin Mary!
Beloved Mother, undefiled,
pray, pray for us.

You are solace and refuge,
Virgin Mother Mary.
Whatever we wish, we hope it through you;
pray, pray for us.

Look, we are weak and deeply deplorable;
save us, o Mary!
Take away our lassitude, heal our pains;
pray, pray for us.

Virgin, look at us, Mother, care for us;
hear us, o Mary!
You bring divine medicine;
pray, pray for us.
</poem>
|}

The first lines of the Latin text are similar to the final line of the 12th-century prayer ''[[Salve Regina]]'': "O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria." An 1820 book claims, without verification, that these words were already engraved at [[Speyer Cathedral]] at the time of [[Saint Bernard of Clairvaux]] (1090–1153).<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4wRmAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA90 |title=Volkssagen und Märchen der Deutschen und Ausländer |chapter=Das redende Marienbild zu Speier |editor-first=Ferdinand Philipp "Lothar" |editor-last=Grimm |date=1820 |page=90 |access-date=20 November 2016}}</ref> A 1612 book also associates the saint and the cathedral with these words, without claiming they were already engraved there during his lifetime.<ref>{{cite book |first=Christoph |last=Lehmann |title=Chronica Der Freyen Reichs-Stadt Speier |year=1698 |orig-year=1612 |url=http://digital.ub.uni-duesseldorf.de/content/titleinfo/315022 |pages=438–440 |access-date=3 August 2019}}</ref>

==Widening circulation==
[[File:OSanctissima1792.jpg|thumb|270px|Earliest known printing: ''European Magazine'', November 1792<ref name=1792mag/>]]
"O sanctissima" was published as "The Prayer of the Sicilian Mariners", with text and music for voice and harp, in [[Edward Jones (harpist)|Edward Jones]]'s ''Miscellaneous Collection of French and Italian Ariettas''. His undated publication is sometimes estimated as 1785,<ref>{{IMSLP|work=A Miscellaneous Collection of French and Italian Ariettas (Jones, Edward)|cname=''A Miscellaneous Collection of French and Italian Ariettas'' (Jones, Edward)}}. {{OCLC|829406125}}.</ref> but his cited position as Bard to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales did not begin until "about 1790".<ref>{{cite DWB |id=s-JONE-EDW-1752 |title=Jones, Edward |first=Tecwyn |last=Ellis |year=1959 |access-date=3 August 2019}}</ref> The hymn was published anonymously by ''[[European Magazine]]'' in 1792<ref name=1792mag/> and then by an American magazine in 1794.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://www.cdss.org/elibrary/Easmes/Source0/S000893.htm |title=Prayer of the Sicilian Mariners |editor-first=Robert |editor-last=Shaw |journal=The Gentleman's Amusement |date=May 1794 |page=25 |access-date=18 October 2016}}</ref> By the early 1800s, "O sanctissima" was spreading widely in multiple languages. [[J.G. Herder]] included the song posthumously in his prominent book of traditional [[folksongs]] (''{{Lang|de|Stimmen der Völker in Liedern}}'', 1807),<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qGEHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA175 |title=Stimmen der Völker in Liedern |chapter=An die Jungfrau Maria: Ein sizilianisches Schifferlied |first=Johann Gottfried |last=Herder |date=1807 |pages=175–176 |access-date=18 October 2016}}</ref> while [[Haydn]] ([[Hoboken catalogue|Hob.]] XXIIIc:F2)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.musiqueorguequebec.ca/catal/haydn/hayfj23.html |title=Franz Josef Haydn Catalogue: XXIII |publisher=Musique et Musiciens |access-date=15 October 2016}}</ref> and [[Beethoven]] ([[WoO]] 157:4)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.musiqueorguequebec.ca/catal/beethoven/beelvcat2.html |title=Ludwig van Beethoven Catalogue: WoO |publisher=Musique et Musiciens |access-date=15 October 2016}}</ref> each wrote choral [[arrangement]]s of the Latin hymn. A German-language version ("[[O du fröhliche]]", c.1816)<ref>{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H8xdPdRolGgC&pg=PA26 |title=Liederkunde zum Evangelischen Gesangbuch |chapter=O du fröhliche |first1=Ulrich |last1=Parent |first2=Martin |last2=Rossler |editor-first1=Gerhard |editor-last1=Hahn |editor-first2=Jürgen |editor-last2=Henkys | editor-link2 = Jürgen Henkys |date=2002 |volume=4 |pages=26–30 |isbn=9783525503256 |access-date=15 October 2016}}</ref> became a well-known [[Christmas carol]], with original lyrics by [[Johannes Daniel Falk|J.D. Falk]] referring not to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but rather to [[Jesus]] himself and his day of birth. In English:
<poem style="margin-left:2em;">O, how joyfully; O, how merrily
Christmas comes with its grace divine.
Grace again is beaming; Christ the world redeeming.
Hail, ye Christians, hail the joyous Christmas time!</poem>

Or, in another English-language rendition:
<poem style="margin-left:2em;">O thou happy, O thou holy,
Glorious peace bringing Christmas time.
Angel throngs to meet thee; on Thy birth we greet Thee:
Hail to Christ, the Son of God, our newborn king!</poem>

In the 20th century, a group of textual variants commonly known as "O Thou Joyful" became popular in the United States. Although most of these texts are anonymous, one has been attributed to William Glass.<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=William D. |editor-last=Crump |chapter=O Sanctissima |title=The Christmas Encyclopedia |edition=3rd |publisher=McFarland & Co. |date=2013 |page=328}}</ref>

By 1835, the tune (with its first half repeated) also came to be used for the English [[recessional hymn]] "Lord, Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing",<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/SHEH1835/131a |title=The Sacred Harp or Eclectic Harmony |editor-first1=Lowell |editor-last1=Mason |editor-first2=Timothy B. |editor-last2=Mason |date=1835 |page=131 |access-date=15 October 2016}}</ref> and by 1945 it appears to have influenced the melody of the American civil rights anthem "[[We Shall Overcome]]", with a close match between the chantlike first half of both tunes.<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.hymnary.org/tune/sicilian_mariners |title=The Psalter Hymnal Handbook |editor-first1=Emily |editor-last1=Brink |editor-first2=Bert |editor-last2=Polman |date=1988 |access-date=26 January 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=http://taylorhousemuseum.org/history/charles-albert-tindley/ |title=The People's Almanac #2 |editor-first1=David |editor-last1=Wallechinsky |editor-first2=Irving |editor-last2=Wallace |pages=806–809 |date=1978 |archive-date=25 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150225110157/http://taylorhousemuseum.org/history/charles-albert-tindley/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dT_xBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1 |title=We Shall Overcome: Essays on a Great American Song |first=Victor V. |last=Bobetsky |pages=1–4 |date=2015 |isbn=9781442236035 |access-date=3 March 2015}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline}}
*{{YouTube|XqSjIQBtuVY|"O Sanctissima"}}, The Cathedral Singers, [[Richard Proulx]]

{{Marian hymns}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Christmas carols]]
[[Category:Hymn tunes]]
[[Category:Italian Christian hymns]]
[[Category:Christian hymns in Latin]]
[[Category:Marian hymns]]
[[Category:Music of Sicily]]