Hildebert of Lavardin

Hildebert of Lavardin (c. 1055 – 18 December 1133) was a French ecclesiastic, hagiographer and theologian. From 1096–97 he was bishop of Le Mans, then from 1125 until his death archbishop of Tours.

Quotes

• Save me, Lord! thou King Eternal!
  From those dark domains infernal,
  Where is weeping, where is wailing;
  Where all prayers are unavailing;
  Where each soul doth self-inherit
  Proof of its own damned demerit;—
  Tortures reaping, ever crying,
  From the worm that is undying;
  Where no hope can come to sever
  Life from death, in hell for ever!
  Me to Zion take in pity!
  David's Zion, tranquil city!
  Built by God, of light; its portal
  Cross of Christ, the wood immortal:
  Key that locks, the tongue of Peter;
  Tuned, the songs of gods not sweeter:
  Walled, heaven-high, the scaleless story,
  Guarded by the King of Glory?
  In this city, light eternal
  Reigns for ever—peace superna;
  Odors flow in such completeness,
  Heaven is filled with songs of sweetness;
  There the soul knows no corruption,
  Frailty none, nor interruption;
  None too little, none dilated—
  All in Christ are consummated.
  Heavenly city! glorious city!
  Built upon the rock of pity!
  City, in whose gates are gathered
  All I long for, all I fathered!
  Now I greet thee, thee I sigh for,
  Whose possession I would die for!
  With what warm congratulations
  Meet in thee the joyful nations!
  How delighted stand they gazing
  At the walls, with glory blazing—
  Hyacinth and chalcedony—
  Heaven's own wealth their patrimony!
  In this city's streets, for greeting,
  Clouds of blessed souls are meeting—
  Singing songs, such as the pious
  Moses sang for rapt Elias!
  • Oratio Hildeberti ('Hildebert's Oration')
  • Translated by Thomas H. Chivers in The Literary World (30 April 1853), p. 356

• Cura, labor, studium, sumpti pro munere honores,
  Ite, aliam posthac sollicitate animam.
  Me deus a uobis procul euocat. Ilicet actis
  Rebus terrenis, hospita terra uale.
  Corpus, auara, tamen sollemnibus excipe saxis.
  Nanque animam celo reddimus, ossa tibi.
  • Care, toil, striving, honors received for service,
    Be gone, harass another soul henceforth.
    God summons me far from you: it's over, my earthly
    Things are done. Farewell earth, my hostess.
    Still, grasping one, receive my body for your solemn stones,
    For we return the soul to heaven, the bones to you.
    • Epitaphium Senecae ('Seneca's Epitaph')
    • Text and translation by Paul Antony Hayward in "The Earls of Leicester, Sygerius Lucanus, and the Death of Seneca...", Speculum, vol. 91, no. 2 (2016), p. 341. See also L. R. Lind, Latin Poetry in Verse Translation (1957), p. 341