Before the Ending of the Day

Lyrics

Before the ending of the day,
creator of the world, we pray,
that with thy wonted favour thou
wouldst be our guard and keeper now.

From all ill dreams defend our eyes,
from nightly fears and fantasies;
tread under foot our ghostly foe,
that no pollution we may know.

O Father, that we ask be done,
through Jesus Christ thine only Son,
who, with the Holy Ghost and thee,
doth live and reign eternally.
Amen.

History

Before the Ending of the Day is the English form of Te lucis ante terminum, the ancient Latin office hymn sung at Compline, the final service of the monastic day. The hymn's origins are old and its authorship uncertain. It was long attributed to St Ambrose of Milan (340-397), and Hymnary.org still records that traditional ascription, but scholars have disputed the attribution. What is certain is its antiquity: the hymn survives in a hymnary written in Irish script of the eighth or early ninth century, and the classical prosody of its stanzas suggests a still earlier origin. In the Roman Breviary the hymn was appointed daily at Compline throughout the year, except from Holy Thursday to the Friday after Easter.

The familiar English translation is by John Mason Neale (1818-1866), the great Victorian translator of Latin and Greek hymnody, and appeared in The Hymnal Noted (1851). Neale's version has become a fixture of Anglican and wider English-language worship, recorded in 69 hymnals including The New English Hymnal, The Hymnal 1982, Common Praise and Ancient and Modern (2013).

Performance

This recording follows the hymn's oldest musical tradition: plainsong. The proper melody, catalogued as TE LUCIS ANTE TERMINUM, is a chant in Mode VIII, given in modern hymnals as a Sarum melody — the form of the plainsong used in the medieval English (Salisbury) rite. Because the Latin hymn was sung every night of the year, the chant books provided it with many plainsong settings varying with season and rite.

Plainsong of this kind is a single unaccompanied melodic line in free rhythm, shaped by the flow of the words rather than a regular beat, which suits the hymn's place at Compline — the quiet night office that closes the day with prayer for protection through the hours of darkness. Sung in Long Metre, Neale's English words fit the ancient melody directly, so congregations today can sing at night essentially what monastic communities sang more than a thousand years ago.

Sources: hymnary.org · en.wikipedia.org