Chapter 59OrdV.1.59
Querela Anime penitentis et Virtutes invocantis
Lament of the Penitent Soul
The penitent soul addresses the royal Virtues with wonder at their radiance and grief at having fled from them.
O royal Virtues, how beautiful and radiant you are in the highest sun, and how sweet your dwelling — and so, woe to me, because I fled from you.
Read the original Latin
O vos regales Virtutes, quam speciose et quam fulgentes estis in summo sole, et quam dulcis est vestra mansio – et ideo, o ve michi, quia a vobis fugi.
Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues) companion
Let a different Virtue meet you each morning
Chosen Portion walks you through the whole Ordo Virtutum — and Hildegard's Scivias — as free daily devotionals.
The Ordo was performed scene by scene by Hildegard's nuns, and Chosen Portion restores that rhythm — one scene of the Virtues' drama as each day's devotional.
- The complete 84-scene drama, one short scene per day, in modern readable English
- Each portion pairs the scene with its Scripture echoes — 26 references resolved across the play
- Finish Hildegard, then continue with 70+ other works from Europe's royal devotional archive