Talk:Virgo divino nimium (Francisco Guerrero)

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Amended Latin text + translation:

Virgo divino nimium favore plena,
mortalem supra diva sexum,
salva sis. Tecum Dominus.
perenne accipe [or aspice] votum.

Sancta [but I wonder if this should be "sanctum" and refer to Christ] pro nobis genitum precator.

Quippe tu sola poteris benignum reddere
et sontes facere expiatos
si ubera monstres.

Virgin, most full of divine favour,
holy above the mortal sex,
May you be well [this is just a greeting]. The Lord is with you.
Receive [or "see" for "aspice"] an eternal prayer.

Holy one, pray to the (one you have) begotten for us.
Indeed, you only can make him kindly
and make the guilty forgiven,
if you show your breasts.

The text seems to me a standard, serious-minded prayer to the Virgin. It's most striking feature is the deliberate use of classicizing language. Diva is the ancient term used for deified mortals, and became popular in the Renaissance to replace santus / beatus, when it was realized these words weren't used in anything like the Christian sense of "saint" in antiquity. precator is a future passive infinitive form - a rare form.

I'm sure "sontes" is correct. Probably, someone has failed to spot an old-fashioned printed S. In any case, "fontes" makes no sense. "sontes" is from "sons" - not that common a word.

As for "ubera monstres", this would be a fairly standard invocation to the breast-feeding virgin. However "ubera monstres" does seem very abrupt. I suspect we have a rather ill-advised truncation (by Guerrero or whoever did his texts) of something along the lines of "if you show your breasts to your son". But I can't find an early edition of Guerrero online, or trace the source of the text.

Please note my source for these emendations as well as the translation is Daniel Hadas, lecturer in Latin language and literature, Early Christian literature and manuscript culture and textual criticism at King's College, London, who has authorised the free use of this translation. Ariadne (talk) 10:55, 17 June 2013 (UTC)