www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Liturgical Translations Wording of "O Heavenly King"

I quite agree - this is an impressive accomplishment.

I am a member of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, so I hope any comments I make are not out of place.

This particular comment concerns the translation of the prayer "O heavenly King":

1. "O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth,
2. Who are everywhere present and fill all things,
3. Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life,
4. come and dwell within us,
5. cleanse us of all stain,
6. and save our souls, O Good One."

This prayer is not a prayer to the Trinity, but to the Holy Spirit, so the use of the plural in line 2 is puzzling. I would rather expect:

"Who is everywhere present and fills all things"

The third line in Slavonic is "priidi i vsjelicja v ni" (come and dwell in us). The use of "within" sounds somehow slightly 'un-English". Maybe I'm just not used to it. However, using a simple "in" instead would bring the wording closer to the wording in use among most Orthodox I know. Ditto for "all stain" in Line 5. The version I learned over 40 years ago runs "and cleanse us of every impurity." The Slavonic is "vsjakija skvjerni" (every 'filthiness' or 'pollution'), so "stain" feels a bit weak, to my ear. There is also a missing 'and' at the beginning of Line 5. The Slavonic is "i ochisti ni ot vsjakija skvjerni" - and cleanse us of every impurity.

David James

Very good comments!

Originally, the term "You" was used, so "are" and "fill" were both correct. At some point (1979 Levkulic Pew Book, I think) "You" became "Who". But the verbs were not updated. Probably because no one noticed. [Which shows the benefit of having someone who has not memorized the 1964 translation review it.]

"Within" to "in" also makes sense. We had left "within" because we were used to it, but we had planned to match the usage of the RSV-2CE/RSV and it seems to use "dwell in" rather than "dwell within".

Not sure about "stain" to "impurities". We had considered it but felt "stain" to be close enough. This one will need further discussion as "stain" is memorized.

The "and" before "and cleanse" I'm not sure about, either. In English we would use commas for the list, and then the "and" before the final item ("come and dwell", "cleanse", and "save").

So the current working draft is as follows (but with open questions that need to be addressed):

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth,
Who is everywhere present and fills all things,
Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life,
come and dwell in us,
cleanse us of all stain,
and save our souls, O Good One.

Thanks!

A question: In English, do nouns in relative clauses have to agree in person and number with their antecedents? If they do, then to say "who are everywhere present..." would be correct, since we are speaking to God in the second person. Hence, in many translations using older English we find "who art everywhere present and fillest all things."

That is certainly what I was taught, many years ago. While one might say "My wife, who is my comfort in my old age,.." when speaking OF her, one would say "O wife, who are my comfort..." when speaking TO her. In this prayer, we are not speaking OF the Holy Spirit ("He is"), but TO the Holy Spirit ("You are").

In Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Perhaps CS and Jeff's reasoning are part of why the original always seemed normal to me? Bob (theophan) is an English teacher. Stuart writes for a living. Both will surely post on this. I will also consult a few other experts and report back.

--

One English professor and poet responded almost immediately. I don't have permission (yet) to post his entire email but will post an excerpt: Since we say, "You are in Heaven," we must say "You who are in Heaven look upon us". Since we say, "You dwell in unapproachable light," we must say, "We entreat you, who dwell in unapproachable light."

So while one can omit the "You", the "You" still governs what follows:

O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth,
[You] Who are everywhere present and fill all things,
Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life,
come and dwell in us,
cleanse us of all stain,
and save our souls, O Good One.

I will await their comments with interest. I thought I had a reasonably good command of written English, but I am certainly no grammarian.

I note that, inconsistently, the Lord's Prayer in the same sequence of Trisagion prayers is in traditional liturgical English. So no help there.

David James

Well, there you go. I learned something, so it's a good day.

David

The form that I have used for the past 4 decades is

O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth,
that art present everywhere and fillest all things,
Treasury of Good Things and bountiful Giver of Life,
come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every stain,
Good Lord, and save our souls. Amen.

This is Elizabethan English that comes from Hapgood's time and translation.

It seems to me if you want to update and bring it to second person consistently, you ought to consider

"You are present everywhere and fill all things"

or (and not my preference)

"present everywhere and filling all things"

The text with the nouns in the first line seem to me to call out for something more:

O Heavenly King, (O) Comforter, (the) Spirit of Truth,

It seems to me to be overly stark. The language of the past translations seemed to flow more, to be more poetic in its flow than what we've tried to do to modernize: something like the temples we see that want to become modern and turn out to be chilling monsters.

Bob

Christ is in our midst!!

There are a few points I thought I should add after I posted about the invocation prayer to the Holy Spirit.

1. We ought to be very sensitive to the wording people are already accustomed to hearing. Prayer is something that we ought not to tinker with because it is something that people can come back to when they have been away for a period of time and the familiar cadences can reawaken faith. Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) makes this point in a book (now out of print) entitled "Courage to Pray." He was of the opinion that one ought to pray for at least three decades with familiar words and phrasings in order for the prayers to become both part of a person and that person to become part of the praying Church.

2. We ought to be very careful in our wording and phrasing because in the Byzantine tradition the prayers often need to be sung. So I think, on reflection, that this prayer ought to be sung a few times to see how it rests on the ear, as well as how it rests when it is recited. Shower singers welcome to have a go at it.

3. Each word that we choose has a slightly different nuance and the modern tendency to drop an adjective sometimes leaves out the wonder that prayer ought to evoke. Byzantine prayer, in my own (limited, biased) opinion, lifts one up from the mundane and opens the panorama of eternity. I say that because I collect prayers--like some people collect recipes--to see how the Holy Spirit has moved people. Though I am limited in other languages, the translations speak volumes.

Back to the Heavenly King . . .

I much like using the definite article before "Spirit of Truth," because there are plenty of spirits out there that claim to speak the truth. The One we want is the definite one that Jesus says in the Gospel He will send us "the Spirit of Truth." Using that relates this phrase to the Gospel.

Similarly, we are calling out to the Spirit when we add the "O" to the first phrase (and possibly the second), but in a form that is not as mundane as calling over the back fence or across the room to someone on our level. Somehow English liturgical language has retained this practice and maybe--at least to me--that is why the "Comforter" by itself seems "stark" or naked by itself.

I don't know if "bountiful" comes from the Slavonic and Greek in "Giver of Life," but it seems to me to more fully express the fact that all that we are and all that we have comes from a generosity that even "bountiful" doesn't fully cover, but it is our attempt to remind ourselves of how limitless this "Giver of Life" in giving.

Maybe that's another point. We are addressing the Holy Spirit and asking Him to come live with us. But we're also giving ourselves a reminder--a mini evangelization--of our Faith and how God the Holy Spirit is som intimately involved with us.

Bob