"" (literally: With seriousness, you Children of Man) is an

Advent hymn Advent songs (german: Adventslieder, link=no) are songs and hymns intended for Advent, the four weeks of preparation for Christmas. Topics of the time of expectation are the hope for a Messiah, prophecies, and the symbolism of light, among others. S ...

by . It partly paraphrases the call to

penitence Penance is any act or a set of actions done out of repentance for sins committed, as well as an alternate name for the Catholic, Lutheran, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox sacrament of Reconciliation or Confession. It also plays a part i ...

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

. The text was first published in 1642 in the collection ''Preußische Festlieder''. The different melody that later became popular dates back to 1557.

History

"" is one of the hymns by , a member of the (

Königsberg Königsberg (, ) was the historic Prussian city that is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Königsberg was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named ...

poets' circle). His text was first published by

Johann Stobäus Johann Stobäus (6 July 158011 September 1646) was a North German composer and lutenist. Life Stobäus was born at Graudenz, now in Poland. From 1599 to 1608 he was a pupil of Johannes Eccard, the Kapellmeister of Königsberg. In 1601 he join ...

in the 1642 collection ''Preußische Festlieder'' (Prussian festive songs), with an art song melody by Stobäus. In

East Prussia East Prussia ; german: Ostpreißen, label=Low Prussian; pl, Prusy Wschodnie; lt, Rytų Prūsija was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1773 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 187 ...

, the song was also sung with a melody by

Johannes Eccard Johannes Eccard (1553–1611) was a German composer and kapellmeister. He was an early principal conductor at the Berlin court chapel. Biography Eccard was born at Mühlhausen, in present-day Thuringia, Germany. At the age of eighteen he went to ...

. The melody in modern hymnals goes back to the French song "Une Jeune Pucelle" that appeared in Lyon in 1557. It was first used for a hymn by

Ludwig Helmbold Ludwig Helmbold, also spelled Ludwig Heimbold, (21 January 1532 – 8 April 1598) was a poet of Lutheran hymns. He is probably best known for his hymn " Nun laßt uns Gott dem Herren", of which J. S. Bach used the fifth stanza for his cantata ...

in 1563, associated with " Von Gott will ich nicht lassen". The hymn is part of the common Protestant hymnal '' Evangelisches Gesangbuch'' as EG 10. The common Catholic hymnal ''

Gotteslob ''Gotteslob'' ("Praise of God") is the title of the hymnbook authorized by the Catholic dioceses in Germany, Austria, South Tyrol, Luxembourg and Liège, Belgium. First published in Advent 2013, it is the current official hymnal for German-speaki ...

'' included the song in the first 1975 edition as GL 113 in three stanzas, omitting the third, and in a slightly modified version. In the 2013 edition, it appears no longer in the ''Stammteil'' (root part), but in regional sections. In the Diocese of Stuttgart, GL 752 has all four stanzas, in the modified version. In the

Diocese of Limburg The Diocese of Limburg (Latin: ''Dioecesis Limburgensis'') is a diocese of the Catholic Church in Germany. It belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Cologne, with metropolitan see being the Archdiocese of Cologne. Its territory encompasses ...

, GL 748 is copied from the 1975 version. It is also part of other hymnals and song books.

Text

Thilo wrote four stanzas of four lines each. His fourth

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian language, Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or Indentation (typesetting), indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme scheme, rhyme and ...

clarifies that he partly paraphrases Biblical words by

, according to , who again quotes , calling to turn in penitence and prepare a way for the Lord. However, this fourth stanza was replaced in the 1657 edition of the Hannoversches Gesangbuch (Hanover hymnal) by a different stanza, a prayer for the right attitude of repentance, looking at the stable and the manger of the nativity. The text in modern Protestant hymnals is: The third stanza, pointing out that a "humble" heart is closer to God than a "proud" heart, has been compared to text from the

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for "

y soul Y, or y, is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. According to some authorities, it is the sixth (or sevent ...

magnifies

he Lord He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Eastern Christianity, Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated ...

, Mary's song of praise.

History

Text

References

Further reading