Aestimatus sum (Carlo Gesualdo)

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• CPDL #17930: 

Editor: Diana Thompson (submitted 2008-08-17).   Score information: A4, 4 pages, 63 kB   Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes:

General Information

Title: Aestimatus sum
Composer: Carlo Gesualdo

Number of voices: 6vv  Voicing: SSATTB
Genre: Sacred, Motet

Language: Latin
Instruments: a cappella
Published: Gesualdo, 1611

Description: Response no. 8 of the Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday

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Original text and translations

Latin text

Aestimatus sum cum descendentibus in lacum,
factus sum sicut homo sine adjutorio, inter mortuos liber.

Versus: Posuerunt* me in lacu inferiori,
in tenebrosis et in umbra mortis.

[Factus sum]

English translation Translation supplied by Paul Pascal, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of Washington

I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength: free among the dead.

Verses: [Thou hast]* laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

Note: The lines are almost verbatim quotations from the Latin Vulgate Book of Psalms, Psalm 87. Here is the standard English version (King James) in which Psalm 87 of the Vulgate is numbered as Psalm 88.

* This final line is altered in the translation from the Latin original. "Posuerunt me" means "They have laid me," not "You have laid me."