University of Virginia Library

Jesus verses (f)

[As the sermon nears its end, the preacher describes the passion as resembling a
harp like that Orpheus used in hell:]

[fol. 90] In ista autem cithera Cristus cantauit 7. dulcissimos cantus confortatio-
nis peccatorum, que fuerunt 7. uerba que locutus est in cruce. Primus cantus fuit,
'Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt quid faciunt' [Luke 23:34]. In quo datur magna
consolacio peccatori, videndo clemenciam Dei, quando pro persecutoribus et
peccatoribus exorauit. Pro quibus non solum orauit in cruce, sed iugiter eis orat
in celo, vnde verum securum accessum habes homo ad Deum. Mater ostendit
filio pectus et vbera; filius ostendit patri latus et wlnera. Nulla ergo omnino po-
terit esse repulsa vbi tot concurrunt caritatis insignia:

Suer help hast thou & prest
qwer the modyr hyr sone shewyt hyr brest

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the sone hys fader[49] hijs blode syde
and alle hys wowndes opennyd wyde
ther no may be noo waryngge
qwer i[s] of loue so gret tokny[n]gge[50]
 
[49]

MS vader (corr. to fader) fadyr.

[50]

MS id, to knygge. On the poem and its sources, see Rosemary Woolf, The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968), 34.