David Wright <lily...@lionunicorn.co.uk> writes: > BTW does the German used here sound as archaic as Coverdale's > translation (Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, > ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in)
Uh, The Messiah _was_ composed and performed in English. The libretto was written by Charles Jennens, and basically uses Bible passages from the KJV version. In this quote, I see "ye", 2nd person plural nominative (nowadays, the accusative is used for everything). That's all. Just a tiny bit of Early Modern English. All the rest is quite current-day use. It's similar with other passages: it uses Early Modern English pronouns and verb forms (like Shakespeare would) but is pretty standard fare otherwise. The problem is that the corresponding Lutheran German _is_ the same as modern-day German apart from some spelling differences. German hasn't seen significant grammatical changes or simplifications since then. > or does it resemble contemporary usage? Both. -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ lilypond-user mailing list lilypond-user@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/lilypond-user
