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Andromache’s Lament

Set by Frank Ferko (b. 1950), "Andromache’s Lament" [ soprano, mixed chorus ], from Stabat Mater, no. 1 [Sung Text]

Note: this setting is made up of several separate texts.


Oh darling child I loved too well for happiness,
your enemies will kill you and leave your mother forlorn.
Your own father’s nobility, where others found
protection, means your murder now.

I lived
never thinking the baby I had was born for butchery
by Greeks, but for lordship over all Asia’s pride of earth.
Poor child, are you crying too? Do you know what they
will do to you? Your fingers clutch my dress. What use
to nestle like a young bird under the mother’s wing?

Yours the sick leap head-downward from the height, the fall
where none have pity, and the spirit crushed out in death.
O last and loveliest embrace of all, O child’s
sweet fragrant body. Vanity in the end. I nursed
for nothing the swaddled baby at this mother’s breast;
in vain the wrack of labor pains and the long suffering.
Now once again, and never after this, come close
to your mother, lean against my breast and wind your arms
around my arms and put your lips against my lips.

Text Authorship:

  • by Richmond Lattimore (1906 - 1984), appears in The Trojan Women, copyright ©

Based on:

  • a text in Greek (Ελληνικά) by Euripides (c484BCE - 406BCE) [text unavailable]
    • Go to the text page.

Go to the general single-text view

Researcher for this page: Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]



 ... 

5. Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si videret
in tanto supplicio?

6. Quis non posset contristari,
Christi Matrem contemplari
dolentem cum Filio?

7. Pro peccatis suæ gentis
vidit Iesum in tormentis
et flagellis subditum.

8. Vidit suum dulcem natum
moriendo desolatum,
dum emisit spiritum.

 ... 

Text Authorship:

  • possibly by Jacopone da Todi (1230 - 1306)

See other settings of this text.

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • DUT Dutch (Nederlands) (Lau Kanen) , "Stabat mater"
  • ENG English (Michael P Rosewall) , "The sorrowful mother", copyright © 2022, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • FRE French (Français) (Guy Laffaille) , "La mère pleine de douleurs", copyright © 2010, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
  • GER German (Deutsch) (Karl Eitner) , "Stabat mater dolorosa"

Note: There are several versions of this text. Please visit the highly detailed Stabat Mater Website for more information about over 200 Stabat Mater settings and the many textual variants.

Researcher for this page: Guy Laffaille [Guest Editor]


Author(s): Jacopone da Todi (1230 - 1306), Richmond Lattimore (1906 - 1984)
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