T029 Mater digna dei

Tags: 
Mixed prose and verse
To/about Jesus
To/about Mary
Standardised text incipit: 
Mater digna dei
Reference sources: 

Full text: I-Mfd 1, ff. 115v-116r
Translation: Eva Ferro, after CMM106.4 (Kerry McCarthy)

Full text: 

Mater digna dei,
Veniae via luxque diei,
Sis tutela rei
Duxque comesque mei.

Nata dei,
Miserere mei.
Lux alma diei,
Digna coli,
Regina poli,
Me linquere noli.

Me tibi, virgo pia
Genitrix, commendo, Maria.
Iesu fili dei,
Tu miserere mei.

English translation: 

Mother worthy of God, way of mercy and light of day, be a protection to the guilty and my leader and my companion.

Born of God, have mercy on me. Sweet light of day, worthy to be venerated, queen of heaven, do not abandon me.

I commend myself to you, pious virgin mother, Mary. Jesus, son of God, have mercy on me.

Subject: 
BVM; Christ
Liturgical/devotional association: 
Marian feasts and observances
Correspondences in standard ref works: 

RH 2, No. 11335, p. 93

Related texts in other sources: 

The multi-purpose prayer to the BVM from which the text derives (sometimes with the incipit: Fluat scintilla / de mamilla / gloriosae virginis) is often found in fifteenth-century breviaries, books of hours, and prayer books (see CMM 106.4, xlvii; CIP).

One of the closest version is that of a Neapolitan book of hours (c.1480), D-Ngm 22402, 84v (as reproduced in CIP; see http://bilder.manuscripta-mediaevalia.de/hs//katalogseiten/HSK0060_c134_JPG.htm):
via] porta
Sis tutela rei] Tutela rei sis
miserere] tu miserere
linquere] derelinquere
Iesu] Iesu Christe
adds Amen

Mater ... noli = beginning of a longer Marian prayer included within a section of hymns and prayers in I-Mb AD.IX.43 (formerly at the Certosa of Pavia).

Literature: 
CMM 106.4
, XLVII
GASSER 2001
, 421-425
Further notes: