Virtutes
Praise for God's Redeeming Plan
The Virtues praise God for His great plan of mercy that destroyed the infernal abyss and ask Him to guide the faithful into heavenly Jerusalem.
O God, who are you, who held within yourself this great plan, which destroyed the infernal abyss among tax collectors and sinners, who now shine in heavenly goodness! Therefore, O King, praise be to you.1 O almighty Father, from you flows a fountain in fiery love; lead your children into a fair wind on the waters' sails, so that we too may guide them in this way into the heavenly Jerusalem.2
The Fading of Greenness
All creatures were once green and blooming, but their greenness has faded, and a warrior observes this decline.
In the beginning all creatures were green, flowers bloomed in their midst; afterward the greenness faded.✦ And this warrior saw it and said:
The Incomplete Golden Number
The speaker acknowledges that the golden number is not yet complete, pointing to an eschatological expectation.
I know this much — but the golden number is not yet complete.
Looking into the Fatherly Mirror
The speaker urges the listener to look into the fatherly mirror, where bodily weariness and the failing of the little ones are seen.
So you, look into the fatherly mirror: in my body I endure weariness, and even my little ones are failing.3
A Call to Kneel Before the Father
All people are called to kneel before God the Father so that He may stretch out His hand to them.
So now, everyone, kneel before your Father, so that he may stretch out his hand to you.
Read the original Latin
O deus, quis es tu, qui in temet ipso hoc magnum consilium habuisti, quod destruxit infernalem haustum in publicanis et peccatoribus, qui nunc lucent in superna bonitate! Unde, O rex, laus sit tibi. O pater omnipotens, ex te fluit fons in igneo amore, perduc filios tuos in rectum ventum velorum aquarum, ita ut et nos eos hoc modo perducamus in celestem Ierusalem.
In principio omnes creature viruerunt, in medio flores floruerunt; postea viriditas descendit. Et istud vir preliator vidit et dixit:
Hoc scio, sed aureus numerus nondum est plenus. Tu ergo, patemum speculum aspice: in corpore meo fatigationem sustineo, parvuli etiam mei deficiunt.
Ergo nunc, omnes homines, genua vestra ad patrem vestrum flectite, ut vobis manum suam porrigat.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.1.11-Gen.1.12 — And God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation—plants yielding seed, fruit trees bearing fruit according to their kinds, whose seed is in them, upon the earth." And it was so. Gen.1.12 — And the earth brought forth vegetation—plants yielding seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Notes
- 1 ↩Unde carries inferential force here in this doxological context, rendered as 'therefore' rather than 'whence'
- 2 ↩rectum ventum velorum aquarum rendered as 'a fair wind on the waters' sails' to preserve the nautical metaphor of favorable winds filling sails
- 3 ↩Patemum speculum — likely a corruption of paternum speculum (fatherly mirror); the manuscript reading 'patemum' is uncertain. Translated as 'fatherly mirror' following the most plausible intended sense. 'Speculum' here carries the sense of a reflective surface for moral or spiritual self-examination, resonant with the speculum genre.
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