This song has intrigued me for a long time. It appeared in a collection called 'Piae Cantiones' which appeared in 1582 but contained music much older than that. [That collection provided the tune we now know as 'Good King Wenceslas.]

We are having a Three Kings party on Jan 1, and I would like to do Personent Hodie then. I would appreciate it if any Latin scholars would translate the words. Here they are:


1. Personent hodie
Voces puerulae,
Laudantes iucunde
Qui nobis est natus,
Summo Deo datus,
Et de virgineo
Ventre procreatus.

2. In mundo nascitur;
Pannis involvitur;
Praesepi ponitur
Stabulo brutorum
Rector supernorum;
Perdidit spolia
Princeps Infernorum.

3. Magi tres venerunt;
Munera offerunt;
Parvulum inquirunt,
Stellulam sequendo,
Ipsum adorando,
Aurum, thus et myrrham
Ei offerendo.

4. Omnes clericuli,
Pariter pueri,
Cantent ut angeli:
'Advenisti mundo:
Laudes tibi fundo
Ideo: Gloria
In excelsis Deo'.

In the first verse we see a virgin. In the second a manger [presepi] and a stable for brutes. The third has the three Magi. But the fourth - it seems to be saying something about all clericals. Hmmm!