Suggested tune: WARUm BETRÜBST DU DICH, MEIN HERZ;
Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz. [Cross and Consolation.] Wackernagel, iv. pp. 128-130, gives three forms of the text of this anonymous hymn: No. 190 as the first of Zivey schöne newe geistliche Lieder, Nürnberg, N.D., c. 1560; No. 191, from an Enchiridion printed at Hamburg, 1565; No. 192, from the Psalmen und Leder, Lübeck, 1567. In his Bibliographie, 1855, p. 279, he had cited it as in Neun schöne geistliehe Lieder, Nürnberg, N.D., which he then dated 1556—probably too early. According to Koch, v., 653, it had already appeared as "Czemu sic trosczyss," in a Polish hymnbook edited by Pastor Secklucyan, and published at Königsberg in 1559.
This hymn has often been ascribed to Hans Sachs. So Ambrosius Hannemann in his Prodromus Hymnologiae, Wittenberg, 1633, Second 10, No. 8, entitles it "Consolation against Tearfulness. Hans Sachs"; and in Jeremias Weber's Gesang-Buch, Leipzig, 1638, p. 578, it is entitled, “On Famine. A good family hymn. Written for the use of heads of households and their families, by Hans Sachs, of Nürnberg, the well-known German poet.” The hymn has not however been traced in any of the works of Sachs, and the ascription to him seems to be without foundation.
In the 1560 Zivey schöne the hymn has 12 stanzas; in the 1565 Enchiridion there are 14 (Nos. viii., ix. not in 1560). The 1565 is the usual text as in the Unverfälschter Liedersegen, 1851, No. 701; but stanzas v.-ix., in which the Old Testament examples of Elijah, Daniel, Joseph, and the Three Holy Children are cited, are omitted in some collections. It is one of the best German hymns of Cross and Consolation, and is in almost universal German use. Translated as:—
Why art thou thus cast down, my heart? By Miss Winkworth, omitting st. v.-ix., in her Lyra Germanica, 2nd Ser., 1858, p. 187, and repeated in her Chorale Bookfor England, 1863, No. 143.
Other translations are:
(1) "Why thus with grief opprest my heart," by J. C. Jacobi, 1725, p. 14 (1732, p. 66), repeated in the Moravian Hymn Book., 1754, pt. i., Nos. 141,317. (2) “Rejoice, my soul, God cares for thee," by P. H. Molther, as No. 183, in the Moravian Hymn Book, 1789 (1886, No. 221). (3) "Why vex thyself with anxious fears," by Dr. H. Mills, 1845, p. 69. (4) "Oh! why art thou so sad, my breast," by Madame de Pontes, in her Poets and Poetry of Germany, 1858, vol. i. p. 376. (5) "My soul, why art thou troubled? why," by Dr. G. Walker, 1860, p. 88. (6) "Why dost thou vex thyself, my heart," by N. L. Frothingham, 1870, p. 200. (7) "Why dost thou make lament, my heart," by the Rev. Andrew Carter, in the Quiver, 1881. [Rev. James Mearns, M.A.]
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)
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