# tenebras nostros



## panjandrum

Hello Latin Forum.  I have not been here before.
This evening, at choir practice, we had an animated discussion about the following line from "Song of Simeon": words by Mary Holtby, music by Margaret Rizza.
This piece has a refrain chant:
_Lumen ad revelationem gentium: illumina *tenebras nostros* Domine._

One of our members, who has studied Latin more recently than the rest of us, suggested that this was an error and the second part of the refrain should be:
_... illumina tenebras nostras Domine._

That would make sense to me, and when I Googled both forms, I found very limited mention of "tenebras nostros" - mostly related to this particular work and an 1825 source.  There were a good number of examples of "tenebras nostras", but not in this specific sentence.

Is there any justification for "tenebras nostros", which appears to us to be a gender mismatch in the text?


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## Cagey

Welcome panjadrum.   

I agree with member who suggested it was an error.  _tenebrae_ is feminine and usually plural. I can't think of any reason _nostros_ should be masculine.


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## Scholiast

Greetings all

For what it is worth, the words are partly (a) a quotation from the _Nunc Dimittis_ (Lk 2:29-32), the full text of which (in the Vulgate) reads:

Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace,
quia viderunt oculi mei salutare tuum
quod parasti ante faciem populorum omnium
*lumen ad revelationem gentium* et gloriam plebis tuae Israhel;

and partly (b) a translated quotation from the final Collect in the Order of Evening Prayer ('Evensong') of the Anglican Church in the _Book of Common Prayer_ (1549/1662/1927), which begins with the words

'*Lighten our darkness*, we beseech thee o Lord...'.

panjandrum's fellow-chorister and Cagey are quite right, it should be _tenebras _*nostras*.

It may be worth remarking that the setter has been cavalier about the syntax, as in (a) _lumen_ ('light') is accusative, whereas in the given text, _lumen_ is addressed ('*O light* of the gentiles...'), which in Latin is vocative. This suggests that she is a tad insensitive to strict linguistic proprieties, and so may easily have made a mistake over the gender of _tenebrae_.

And a final shot: always come here for enquiries about Latin, rather than use Google. The latter is hopeless for inflected languages and for Latin in particular.

Σ

Edited afterthought: if, despite it being a soloecism, 'tenebras _nostros_' is what the composer actually wrote in her score, there might be an artistic case for preserving it in performance. In any case I rather doubt that the aural effect would be very different.


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## bearded

Hello Scholiast
I do not well understand what you mean by your last remark (afterthought): do you surmise that the composer might have made that mistake on purpose? If not, why preserve it?  Is it more 'artistic' not to rectify mistakes? Or do you think the performance should be 'faithful' in any case? Thanks in advance for illustrating your point a bit more.


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## Scholiast

@bearded (# 4)

No, I'm not suggesting that either 'librettist' or composer made the mistake deliberately. But the question put me in mind of a performance of Poulenc's _Gloria_ I was involved in a few years ago, in which Poulenc's text diverges in places from the Tridentine, and the score I was given to sing from (and several others') had pencilled 'corrections' made by previous users. Some discussion ensued, but eventually it was agreed that we should stick to the received version without emendation, on the grounds that either Poulenc had himself mis-remembered the text, or (more charitably) that his musical intention was to be subjectively impressionistic, rather than precisely faithful to the 'proper' text. I don't know the work under discussion here, but it is not inconceivable that the composer had musical reasons for preferring the sound of _-os_ rather than _-as—_though by all means I think this highly unlikely, and had she known of the anomaly, she would probably have welcomed and endorsed the correction.

Σ


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## panjandrum

Thank you all so much for your very prompt responses to my question. You have confirmed our suspicion that really it should be "tenebras nostras".
On further investigation, I found the text in a booklet associated with a CD containing the piece. There, it is "tenebras nostras".
And to put the cherry on the bun, listening to the track from the CD, they sing "tenebras nostras".


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