Canticum graduum Salomonis.

(A song of ascents. Of Solomon.)

Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam. Nisi Dominus custodierit civitatem, frustra vigilat qui custodit eam.

Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.

Vain is the builder’s toil, if the house is not of the Lord’s building; vainly the guard keeps watch, if the city has not the Lord for its guardian.

Vanum est vobis ante lucem surgere: surgite postquam sederitis, qui manducatis panem doloris. Cum dederit dilectis suis somnum,

Unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it. It is vain for you to rise before light: rise ye after you have sitten, you that eat the bread of sorrow. When he shall give sleep to his beloved:

Vain, that you should be astir before daybreak, and sit on over your tasks late into the night, you whose bread is so hardly won; is it not in the hours of sleep that he blesses the men he loves?

ecce hæreditas Domini, filii; merces, fructus ventris.

behold the inheritance of the Lord are children: the reward, the fruit of the womb.

Fatherhood itself is the Lord’s gift, the fruitful womb is a reward that comes from him.

Sicut sagittæ in manu potentis, ita filii excussorum.

As arrows in the hand of the mighty, so the children of them that have been shaken.

Crown of thy youth, children are like arrows in a warrior’s hand.

Beatus vir qui implevit desiderium suum ex ipsis: non confundetur cum loquetur inimicis suis in porta.

Blessed is the man that hath filled his desire with them; he shall not be confounded when he shall speak to his enemies in the gate.

Happy, whose quiver is well filled with these; their cause will not be set aside when they plead against their enemies at the gate.