Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.2003, Page 78
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Michael Chesnutt
character is matched by the conventional language in which a selection
of them are referred to in the very last respond (all quotations repunc-
tuated in what foliows):
surdis aures das apertas,
linguas mutis das disertas,
claudis gressus, cecis uisus;
quisquis eger est, confisus
in te, sanus redditur,
with which may be compared this antiphon at Lauds in the historia of St
Tøger (VSD 23,65-66):
Cecis visu proficit,
multos cibo reficit,
egros sanos efficit,
and the following stanza, also from a Lauds antiphon, in the historia of
Sts Victor and Ursus from late medieval French sources:
Caecis visus, claudis gressus,
mutis sermo redditur;
aegris sålus, et auditus
surdis restituitur.114
Interestingly, the opening line of the latter antiphon is the highly popular
Preciosa mors sanctorum, which is a Biblical quotation used in K’s
homily at Matins of the Passion feast (§ 2c:2:4:l). It provides the incipit
of the first Mass sequence (§ 17:6:1), where in st. 82 we also read:
Preciosa mors Kanuti;
claudi, surdi, ceci, muti
sunt saluti restituti
eius patrocinio.
114 Guido Maria Dreves s.J. (ed.), Analecta hymnica 5, Leipzig 1889, 245, no. 89, st. 2.