What Child Is This?

Lyrics

What child is this, who, laid to rest
on Mary's lap is sleeping?
whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
while shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
whom shepherds worship and angels sing:
haste, haste to bring him praise
the babe, the son of Mary.

Why lies he in such mean estate,
where ox and ass are feeding?
Come have no fear, God’s son is here,
his love all loves exceeding.
Nails, spear, shall pierce him through,
the cross be borne for me, for you:
hail, hail the Saviour comes,
the babe, the son of Mary.

So bring him incense, gold and myrrh,
all tongues and peoples own him,
the King of kings salvation brings,
let every heart enthrone him:
Raise, raise your song on high
while Mary sings her lullaby.
Joy, joy, for Christ is born
the babe, the son of Mary.

History

"What Child Is This?" is the work of William Chatterton Dix (1837-1898), a Bristol-born writer who, unusually for a nineteenth-century British hymn writer, was not a clergyman: he worked in business and managed a marine insurance firm in Glasgow. The words are generally dated to 1865 and are described by Hymnary as Dix's modification of his own poem "The Manger Throne". Accounts of the occasion differ: one ties it to the Epiphany Gospel reading that year, another places it at Christmas 1865.

The carol reached print in the collections edited by John Stainer and Henry Ramsden Bramley under the title Christmas Carols New and Old. Hymnology Archive gives the first publication as the First Series of 1868 (London: Novello), with an illustrated edition of 1871 combining the First and Second Series (1870); another source gives 1871. The text has three stanzas, each ending with a refrain-like pair of lines. The first asks who the sleeping child on Mary's lap is, the second turns to the cross, and the third lists the magi's gifts and calls for praise. Hymnology Archive notes Dix's careful craft in the half-line rhymes and repeated opening words, and records the hymnologist Carl Daw's criticism of hymnals that truncate the last two stanzas and so lose some of that design.

The melody is GREENSLEEVES, a traditional English tune that is much older than the carol. A ballad called "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves" was registered by Richard Jones with the London Stationers' Company in September 1580, and the tune is mentioned more than once in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor. Hymnary lists Greensleeves as the only tune used with Dix's text. It is not known with certainty who first matched the words to the tune; Stainer, who is credited with the harmonisation, is one suggestion. Hymnology Archive states that the pairing dates from 1868 and that the Bramley and Stainer collections popularised it.

A popular belief holds that King Henry VIII composed Greensleeves. This is generally regarded as a myth, since the Italian-influenced style of the melody reached England only after his death, and Hymnology Archive likewise treats any connection with his reign as uncertain. Hymnals also differ in how they set out the text: Hymnary notes that some treat the chorus as an extension of each verse and add new words to the second and third verses, while others keep three verses with an altered third line in the chorus.

Performance

This recording, titled on its channel "What Child Is This - Traditional Christmas Hymn | St. Martin's Voices", is performed by St Martin's Voices and runs about 3 minutes. The words are sung in three verses and the video was published in November 2024. Its second and third verses use a revised form of Dix's words.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org · hymnary.org · hymnologyarchive.com · St Martin's Voices recording and Words book