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Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano. It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic. The poem describes the day of judgment, the last trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames.

The hymn is best known from its use as a sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. It was removed from the ordinary form of the Roman Rite Mass in the liturgical reform of 1969–1970, but was retained as a hymn of the Divine Office. It can also still be heard when the 1962 form of the Mass is used. An English version of it is found in various missals used in the Anglican Communion.

Use in the Roman liturgy

Those familiar with musical settings of the Requiem Mass—such as those by Mozart or Verdi—will be aware of the important place Dies Iræ held in the liturgy.

It remained as the sequence for the Requiem Mass in the Roman Missal of 1962 (the last edition before the Second Vatican Council) and so is still heard in churches where the Tridentine Latin liturgy is celebrated.

The Dies Irae was retained only in part by the "Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy" – the Vatican body charged with drafting and implementing reforms to the Catholic Liturgy ordered by the Second Vatican Council. It is given as the hymn in the Liturgy of the Hours during last week before Advent for the Office of Readings, Lauds and Vespers (divided into three parts).

Nevertheless the same body felt that the funeral rite was in need of reform and eliminated the sequence as such from the Masses for the Dead. A leading figure in the post-conciliar liturgical reforms, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, explains the mind of the Cardinals and Bishops who were members of the Consilium:

They got rid of texts that smacked of a negative spirituality inherited from the Middle Ages. Thus they removed such familiar and even beloved texts as the Libera me, Domine, the Dies Iræ, and others that overemphasized judgment, fear, and despair. These they replaced with texts urging Christian hope and arguably giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.

The text

The Latin text below is taken from the Requiem Mass in the 1962 Roman Missal. The first English version below, translated by William Josiah Irons in 1849, replicates the rhyme and metre of the original. The second English version is a more formal equivalence.

Because the last two stanzas differ markedly in structure from the preceding stanzas, some scholars consider them to be an addition made in order to suit the great poem for liturgical use. The penultimate stanza Lacrimosa discards the consistent scheme of rhyming triplets in favor of a pair of rhyming couplets. The last stanza Pie Jesu abandons rhyme for assonance, and, moreover, its lines are catalectic.

In 1970, the Dies Iræ was removed from the Missal and since 1971 has been proposed ad libitum as a hymn for the Liturgy of the Hours at the Office of Readings, Lauds and Vespers. For this purpose stanza 19 was deleted and the poem divided into three sections: 1–6 (for the Office of Readings), 7–12 (for Lauds) and 13–18 (for Vespers). In addition Qui Mariam absolvisti in stanza 13 was replaced by Peccatricem qui solvisti so that that line would now mean, "You who freed/absolved the sinful woman". In addition a doxology is given after stanzas 6, 12 and 18:

Inspiration and other translations

A major inspiration of the hymn seems to have come from the Vulgate translation of Zephaniah 1:15–16:

Dies iræ, dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiæ, dies calamitatis et miseriæ, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebulæ et turbinis, dies tubæ et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angulos excelsos.

That day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high bulwarks. (Douay–Rheims Bible)

Other images come from Revelation 20:11–15 (the book from which the world will be judged), Matthew 25:31–46 (sheep and goats, right hand, contrast between the blessed and the accursed doomed to flames), 1 Thessalonians 4:16 (trumpet), 2 Peter 3:7 (heaven and earth burnt by fire), Luke 21:26–27 ("men fainting with fear ... they will see the Son of Man coming"), etc.

From the Jewish liturgy, the prayer Unetanneh Tokef also appears to have been a source: "We shall ascribe holiness to this day, For it is awesome and terrible"; "the great trumpet is sounded", etc.

A number of English translations of the poem have been written and proposed for liturgical use. A very loose Protestant version was made by John Newton; it opens:

Day of judgment! Day of wonders!

Hark! the trumpet's awful sound,

Louder than a thousand thunders,

Shakes the vast creation round!

How the summons wilt the sinner's heart confound!

Jan Kasprowicz, a Polish poet, wrote a hymn entitled Dies irae which describes the Judgment day. The first six lines (two stanzas) follow the original hymn's metre and rhyme structure, and the first stanza translates to "The trumpet will cast a wondrous sound".

The American writer Ambrose Bierce published a satiric version of the poem in his 1903 book Shapes of Clay, preserving the original metre but using humorous and sardonic language; for example, the second verse is rendered:

Ah! what terror shall be shaping

When the Judge the truth's undraping –

Cats from every bag escaping!

Rev. Bernard Callan (1750–1804), an Irish priest and poet, translated it into Gaelic around 1800. His version is included in the Gaelic prayer book, The Spiritual Rose.

Manuscript sources

The oldest text of the sequence is found, with slight verbal variations, in a 13th century manuscript in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Naples. It is a Franciscan calendar missal that must date between 1253–1255 for it does not contain the name of Clare of Assisi, who was canonized in 1255, and whose name would have been inserted if the manuscript were of later date.

Musical settings

In four-line neumatic notation, the Gregorian chant of the sequence begins:

In 5-line staff notation, the same appears:

The words have often been set to music as part of the Requiem service, originally as a sombre plainchant. It also formed part of the traditional Catholic liturgy of All Souls' Day. Music for the Requiem Mass has been composed by many composers, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as well as Hector Berlioz, Giuseppe Verdi, and Igor Stravinsky.

The traditional Gregorian melody has also been used as a musical quotation in a number of other classical compositions, among them:

• Charles-Valentin Alkan – Souvenirs: Trois morceaux dans le genre pathétique, Op. 15 (No. 3: Morte)
• Ernest Bloch – Suite Symphonique
• Hector Berlioz – Symphonie fantastique
• George Crumb – Black Angels
• Michael Daugherty – Metropolis Symphony 5th movement, "Red Cape Tango";
• Diamanda Galás – Masque Of The Red Death: Part I – The Divine Punishment
• Charles Gounod – Faust opera, Act IV
• Joseph Haydn – Symphony No. 103, "The Drumroll"
• Franz Liszt – Totentanz
• Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 2, movements 1, 3, and 5
• Sergei Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 1, Op. 13; Symphony No. 2, Op. 27; Symphony No. 3, Op. 44; Isle of the Dead, Op. 29; The Bells choral symphony, Op. 35; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43; Symphonic Dances, Op. 45
• Camille Saint-Saëns – Symphony No. 3 ("Organ Symphony")
• Dmitri Shostakovich – Symphony No. 14
• Stephen Sondheim – Sweeney Todd – quoted in "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" and the accompaniment to "Epiphany"
• Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji – Variazioni e fuga triplice sopra "Dies iræ" per pianoforte (1923–26); Sequentia cyclica super "Dies iræ" ex Missa pro defunctis in clavicembali usum (1948–49)
• Eugène Ysaÿe – Sonata in A minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Obsession"

Literary references

• Walter Scott used the first two stanzas in the sixth canto of his narrative poem "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" (1805).
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe used the first, the sixth and the seventh stanza of the hymn in the scene "Cathedral" in the first part of his drama Faust (1808).
• Italian poet Giuseppe Giusti composed in 1835 the satirical poem Il "Dies iræ" on the occasion of the death of Francis II, Emperor of Austria.
• In José Rizal's 1887 novel Noli Me Tangere, the last two lines of the sixth stanza of the hymn ("Quidquid latet, apparebit, Nil inultum remanebit") are used as the title of the 54th chapter of his novel, depicting how Elias discovers who the descendant of the man who ruined their family is.
• Oscar Wilde composed a Sonnet on Hearing the Dies Irae Sung in the Sistine Chapel, contrasting the "terrors of red flame and thundering" depicted in the hymn with images of "life and love".
• In Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, Erik (the Phantom) has the chant displayed on the wall of his funereal bedroom.
• Kurt Vonnegut wrote Stone, Time, and Elements: A Humanist Requiem in opposition to the classical Requiem and in particular to the Dies Irae, which he found "vengeful and sadistic" (and mistakenly reputed a "piece of poetry by committee from the Council of Trent"). His Requiem was set to music by Edgar David Grana.
• Thomas Pynchon's 1963 novel V. includes direct references to Dies Irae in chapter 9 – "Somewhere in the house (though he may have dreamed that too) a chorus had begun singing a Dies Irae in plainsong."
• Arthur C. Clarke's 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey has the main character, David Bowman, listening to a recording of it on the spaceship Discovery One on his way to Saturn.
• The title of the 1976 novel Deus Irae, a collaboration between Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, is a play on the name of the hymn Dies Irae.
• In Umberto Eco's 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, Adso has a dream or vision based on the Coena Cypriani while the monks around him chant the Dies Irae.
• In Patrick O'Brians novel, The Letter of Marque (1988): "and some moments later the after part of the ship, usually quiet with a following wind and a moderate sea, was filled with a great deep roaring Dies Irae that went on and on, quite startling the quarterdeck." (Played by the character Dr Maturin on his cello.)
• "Dies irae, dies illa when the absent shall be present and the present absent...in albums, in desk drawers, this picture and thousands like it have subtly matured, metamorphosed." Age of Iron (1990) by J. M. Coetzee
• In Anne Rice's 1998 novel The Vampire Armand , when Amadeo and other apprentices were captured by the Santino's satanic coven of vampires, they would mock Amadeo/Armand by singing this hymn.

References in popular culture

• Gottfried Huppertz used Dies Irae as a leitmotif for several apocalyptic scenes in the 1927 film Metropolis.
• Film composer Dimitri Tiomkin used the Dies Irae in the scene in It's a Wonderful Life (1946) where George Bailey is fleeing to the bridge after seeing Pottersville.
• In Ingmar Bergman's 1957 film The Seventh Seal, the traditional Gregorian Dies Irae is used throughout the film.
• Bernard Herrmann scored the Alfred Hitchcock Hour episode titled "The Jar" which included a calliope theme based on Dies Irae.
• In Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining, the main theme is based on Hector Berlioz' interpretation of the Dies Irae as he used it in his "Symphonie fantastique".
• In the soundtrack to Disney's 1994 film The Lion King, Hans Zimmer underscored the Dies Irae theme during the Scar/Simba confrontation in the track King of Pride Rock.
• In the 1996 Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the first two stanzas are used as background choirs in the opening song "The Bells of Notre Dame" when Frollo (the Judge) chases Quasimodo's mother.
• In the 2011 Disney film "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides", the chant is quoted in the lower bass instruments towards the end of the film when Lt. Cmdr. Theodore Groves is shot by King Ferdinand VI after Groves declares the Fountain of Youth under British rule. This score was also composed by Hans Zimmer.

References

1. Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Dies Iræ" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
2. ^ Liturgia Horarum IV, (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000), p. 489.
3. Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy : 1948–1975, (The Liturgical Press, 1990), Chap. 46.II.1, p. 773.
4. This translation appears in the English Missal and also The Hymnal 1940 of the Episcopal Church in the USA.
5. F 2.22: The Spiritual Rose ed. Malachy McKenna at School of Celtic Studies - Scoil an Léinn Cheiltigh Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies Institiúid Ard-Léinn Bhaile Átha Cliath website
6. Simmons, Walter. Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-romantic Composers. Scarecrow Press, 2004. ISBN 0810848848
7. About this Recording - 8.559635 - DAUGHERTY, M.: Metropolis Symphony / Deus ex Machina (T. Wilson, Nashville Symphony, Guerrero)
8. Zadan, Craig (1989). Sondheim & Co. 2nd edition. Perennial Library. p. 248. ISBN 0-06-091400-9. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
9. Leroux, Gaston. "The Phantom of the Opera". Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1985, p. 139
10. "The Story Behind the Music of It's a Wonderful Life by George Harter
11. The Lion King soundtrack, review by Jeffrey Wheeler (November 2003)

External links

• Dies Iræ, Franciscan Archive. Includes two Latin versions and a literal English translation.
• Podies Irae – Film Score Monthly podcast highlighting the use of Dies Irae in concert and film music.

• Catholic music
• Christian hymns
• Latin hymns
• 13th-century medieval Latin literature
• Requiems
• Catholic liturgy
• Latin religious phrases