Pie Jesu - Text

Text

The original text, derived from the Dies irae sequence, is as follows:

Pie Iesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. (×2)
Pious Lord Jesu,
Give them rest.
Pie Iesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem sempiternam.
Pious Lord Jesu,
Give them everlasting rest.

Pie is the vocative of the word pius ("pious", "dutiful to one's parent or God"). Requiem is the accusative of requies ("rest"), sometimes mistranslated as "peace", although that would be pacem, as in Dona nobis pacem ("Give us peace").

The Andrew Lloyd Webber version combines the text of the Pie Iesu with that of the version of the Agnus Dei formerly appointed to be used at Requiem Masses:

Pie Iesu, (×4)
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
Dona eis requiem... (×2)
Pious Jesu,
Who takes on the sins of the world,
Give them rest...
Agnus Dei, (×4)
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
Dona eis requiem, (×2)
Sempiternam (×2)
Requiem...
Lamb of God,
Who takes on the sins of the world,
Give them rest,
Everlasting
Rest...

Read more about this topic:  Pie Jesu

Famous quotes containing the word text:

    Great speeches have always had great soundbites. The problem now is that the young technicians who put together speeches are paying attention only to the soundbite, not to the text as a whole, not realizing that all great soundbites happen by accident, which is to say, all great soundbites are yielded up inevitably, as part of the natural expression of the text. They are part of the tapestry, they aren’t a little flower somebody sewed on.
    Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)

    I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.
    Umberto Eco (b. 1932)

    What our eyes behold may well be the text of life but one’s meditations on the text and the disclosures of these meditations are no less a part of the structure of reality.
    Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)