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’Ephraem the Syrian’s’ θρῆνος τῆς θεοτóκου:What? When? Where? Why?*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 April 2016
Abstract
The Threnos seu lamentatio sanctissimae Dei genitricis, quae dicitur in sancta et magna Parasceve, since long attributed to Ephraem the Syrian, appears to be a direct translation of the anonymous 
, published by Manousakas, and thus cannot be Ephraem’s work. The Greek original, based upon troparia in the versus politicus of the fourteenth century, the Akolouthia of Good Friday and the second version of the Acta Pilati, must have been composed around the year 1400. There are strong indications that this text, a sort of amplified stavrotheotokion, has been sung for some time on Good Friday, outside the official service.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 2005
Footnotes
*
This article was originally presented at the conference ‘Ritual in Greece: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’, which was held in April 2001 at Harvard University in honour of Meg Alexiou. I am very grateful to her and the Department of Classics at Harvard University for securing access for me to the wealth of the Widener, Houghton and other libraries of this institution. I also thank Mr Thomas Babbin, Professor Michael Connolly, Professor Dia Philippides, and Irene Saranteas, all connected with Boston College, and Mr P. Sideropoulos of Magenta in Greece, for technical guidance in converting polytonic Greek into the format required by the publisher.
References
Notes
1 Alexiou, M., The ritual lament in Greek tradition. (Cambridge 1974; reprinted 2002)Google Scholar; M. Alexiou, ‘The Lament of the Virgin in Byzantine literature and Modern Greek folk song’, BMGS 1 (1975) 111-40.
2 M.I. Mανούσακας, ‘Eλληνικά ποιήµατ γιά ηή; σταύρωση το
’, Mélanges Octave et Melpo Merlier (’Aθήν 1956), vol. II, 65-9.
3 The text occurs in the following manuscripts: the two used by Manousakas for his edition, the Athon. 4655: Ίβήρων 535, ff. 279v-282v of the sixteenth century (A) (118 verses; title: Θρήνος τής υπεραγιας Θεοτóκον και άειπαρθένου Mαρίας) and the Athon. Lavras 1309 (K22), ff. 48r-53r of 1696 (A) (123 verses; title: Θρήνος τής υπεραγιας Θεοτóκον είς τήν σταύρωσιν τον δεσποτον Xριστου); and, further, the Baroccianus 216, ff. 371v—372r of unknown date (B) (42 verses; title: Θ ρήνος τής Θεοτóκον) the Lugdunensis (Batavorum) B.P.G. 73A, ff. 28r-32r of the fifteenth century (L) (129 verses; title: 
), the Montepessulanus H 405, 44r-48r of the fifteenth-sixteenth centuries (M) (100 verses; title: 
I am very grateful to the late Professor M.I. Manousakas for kindly sending me his copy of the manuscript), and the 
; 50, 213r-220r of 1621 (µ) (131 verses; title: 
I am very grateful to Dr K.D. Sofianos and Dr Pinelopi Stathi of the Institute of Medieval Studies of the Academy of Athens for kindly sending me photographs of the MS). The Parisinus graecus 1595, 156r-158v of the fifteenth century which according to the description promised to offer another version of the Θρήνος contains an altogether different text, entitled 
(of which I have found — until now — seven other versions; the text(s) will be published by me in the 2003 issue of 
). Notwithstanding the great help of Prof. Paul Canart and Dr Massimo Ceresa, for which I thank them most sincerely, I have not been able to locate the Vaticanus in which, according to Mercati, there should be a version of the Θρήνος (see 
64, n.4). There are two other, shorter, versions, which are partly identical with and partly similar to the 
208 (no. 75).The text in question (quoted in n.64) occurs in the 
702 (c. 1820), f. 150v: 
)
)
. According to Stathis it stems from the fourteenth century; (2) Parisinus graecus 1595: f. 158 (fifteenth century): 
(14 vss). For the text see p. 12 of this article).
4 
64.
5 Sancti Ephraem Syri, Opera omnia quae exstant: graece, syriace, latine, in sex tomos distributa ad MSS. codices Vaticanos opere et studio Josephi Assemani (Rome: J. M. H. Salvioni, 1732—46), vol. HI, 574—5. The lament is entitled Threni, i.e. Lamentationes gloriosissimae Virginis Mariae super Passione Domini, with incipit: Stans iuxta crucem pura et immaculata Virgo.
6 Sancti Ephraem Syri, Opera omnia quae exstant: graece, syriace, latine, in sex tomos distributa ad MSS. codices Vaticanos opere et studio Josephi Assemani (Rome: J. M. H. Salvioni, 1732—46), vol. Ill 574-5. The lament is entitled Threni, i.e. Lamentationes gloriosissimae Virginis Mariae super Passione Domini, with incipit: Stans iuxta crucem pura et immaculata Virgo. Sanctissimi Ephraemi Syri, eremitae, archidiaconi et presbyteri Ecclesiae Edissenae Opuscula. omnia quae apud Latinos reperiri potuerunt, operosius et auctius multo quam hactenus unquam suae integritati restituta et in banc Enchiridii formam Christiano lectori exhibita. Cum auctissimo praecipuarum rerum Indice (Cologne: ex officina Melchioris Novesiani 1547). The text is found under no. IX and is entitled Threnos, seu Lamentatio sanctissimae Dei genitricis, quae dicitur magna et sancta Parasceve, with incipit: Stans apud crucem purissima Virgo (I thank my dear friend and colleague Arnold van Gemert for making for me a comparison of this text, present in the Library of the University of Amsterdam, with the following Lipomanus text).
The second oldest version found by me differs on some minor points from the version of 1547; it forms part of a collection of Saints’ lives which has been published in (1) Aloysius Lipomanus, Sanctorum priscorum vitae (Rome 1551-1558), torn. VIII 14, republished under the title Historiae […] de vitis sanctorum, cum scholiis eiusdem […] (Louvain: apud Martinum Verhasselt 1564, Louvain: apud Petr. Zangrium Tiletanum, sub Fonte 1565, Louvain: apud Petr. Zangrium Tiletanum, sub Fonte 1568, and Louvain: I. Bogardus 1568, and, finally, Venice 1581). I am very grateful to Prof. Artemis Leontis of the University of Michigan for procuring for me a photocopy of this last text, which belongs to the library of her institution. The title of the lament is Lamentatio Sanctissimae Dei Genitricis prope crucem stantis per eundem divum Ephraem, and its incipit: Stans apud crucem purissima Virgo; (2) Laurentius Surius, De probatis Sanctorum historiis, partim ex tomis Aloysii Lipomani […], partim etiam ex egregiis manuscriptis codicibus, quarum permultae antehac nunquam in lucem prodiere, […] collectis […] atque aliquot vitarum accessione auctis […] (Coloniae Agrippinae: apud G. Calenium 1576-1586), torn. VII: Martius, 205-7: Lamentatio Sanctissimae Dei Genitricis prope Crucem stantis per eundem divum Ephraem. Title and incipit are the same as in the edition of 1564 (see above); (3) Franciscus Combefisius, Bibliotheca Patrum Concionatoria a Dominica quarta Quadragesimae ad vesperum Sabbati sancti (Paris 1662), Tom. Ill 822 sub: Feria VI. in Parasceve: Lamentatio sanctissimae Dei genitricis prope crucem stantis. Ambrosio Camaldulensi interprete. Incipit: Stans apud crucem purissima virgo (which is the same as in the Lipomanus and Surius editions). In attributing the translation to Ambrosius Camaldulensis, Combefisius is certainly mistaken: in three editions of homilies of Ephraem translated by Ambrosius (first part of the fifteenth century) the Lamentatio is not to be found (Sancti Ephraem Syri, Sermones secundum traductionem venerabilis patris Ambrosii Camaldulensis (Florentiae: per Antonium Bartholomaei Mischomini 1481); Sancti Ephraem Syri, Sermones De compunctione cordis, De iudicio Dei et resurrectione, De beatitudine animae, De poenitentia, De luctamine spirituali, De die iudicii (Freiburg im Breisgau: Kilian Piscator 1491); Sermones ingeniosissimi ac scitissimi patris Epbrem edissenne ecclesie dyaconi per fratrem Ambrosium Camaldulensem de Greco in Latinum Conversi ([Paris] 1505)). Moreover, when Assemani (see n.5) speaks about the translator of the Lamentatio, he says ‘anonymo antiquo interprete’ (vol. I: Ixxxii) or ‘anonymo prisco interprete’ (vol. II: lvii).
The third edition, by Gerardus Vossius, differs on many points from the previous editions: basing himself on the edition of 1547 (or a previous, unknown, edition or manuscript) the editor appears to have ‘re-edited’ the Latin text: Sancti Ephraem Syri, Opera omnia quotquot in insignioribus Italiae Bibliothecis, praecipue Romanis, Graece inveniri potuerunt, in tres tomos gesta, Nunc recent. Latinitate donata, Scholiisque illustrata, Interprete et Scholiaste Gerardo Vossio, ed. tertia (Cologne: Arnoldus Quentelius 1616), vol. Ill, 697-8 [ed. prima: Rome: Iacobus Tornerius, vol. I, 1589, vol. II, 1593, vol. HI, 1597; secunda: Cologne: Arnoldus Quentelius, 1603-04; the same publisher issued an edition in 1619, and there is also another edition from Antwerp in 1619 (1 volume)]. The lament is entitled Threni, i.e. Lamentationes gloriosissimae Virginis Mariae super Passione Domini, with incipit: Stans iuxta crucem pura et immaculata Virgo, exactly the same as in the later edition by Assemani (see n.4).
7 Assemani (1746; see n.5) may have borrowed the text from the Latin Ephraem-edition prepared by Vossius (1597; see n.6), although he does not acknowledge this dependence in so many words (see Assemani, vol. Ill: liii-iv: ‘Syri turn Maronitae turn Jacobitae in officio Feriae VI. in Parasceve Ephraemianos B. Virginis Threnos canunt Syriace, e quibus hie Latinus videtur desumtus, quern Vossius edidit’); at any rate, title, incipit and text are the same.
8 See n.l.
9 Alexiou, ‘The Lament’, 111.
10 Alexiou, ‘The Lament’, 115 n.10. See also P. Dronke, ‘Laments of the Maries: From the Beginnings to the Mystery Plays’, in Idee — Gestalt — Geschichte. Festschrift Klaus von See. Studien zur europaischen Kulturtradition, ed. G.W. Weber (Odense 1988) 103: ‘[…] since no Greek or Syriac version of these Threni has been traced, it is still difficult to relate them with precision to the fecund Greek tradition’.
11 Alexiou, ‘The Lament’, 130, note 139.
12 Wim F. Bakker — Dia M.L. Philippides, ‘The Lament of the Virgin by Ephraem the Syrian’, in 
2000) 39-56; Wim F. Bakker, ‘The Θρήνος τής Θεοτóκον (ed. 
1956) and the Threnos, seu Lamentatio sanctissimae Dei genitricis by Ephraem the Syrian’, Neograeca Medii Aevi V (Exeter College, Oxford, September 2000) (in press). The same is stated (but not argued) in: K.A. de Meyier, E. Hulshoff Pol, Codices bihliothecae publicae graeci (Leiden 1965 [Codices manuscripti, VIII]) 123, and B. Bouvier, he mirologue de la Vierge. Chansons et poemes grecs sur la Passion du Christ. I: La chanson populaire du Vendredi Saint. Avec une etude musicale par Samuel Baud-Bovy (Geneva 1976) 255.
13 For further particulars see Bakker, ‘The Θρήνος τής Θεοτóκον.
14 See, e.g. the kanones of Joseph Hymnographos (ninth century) in PG 105, 1345D-48B: 
, and 1349A-D: 
; the homily on Mary of George of Nicomedia (ninth century): 
, PG 100, 1457-89, and the lament of the Virgin in Constantine the Rhodian’s description of the mosaics in the church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople (tenth century): 
(E. Legrand, ‘Description des oeuvres d’art et de l’eglise des Saints-Apotres de Constantinople’, REG 9 (1896) 36-65), verses 916-81 (the lament from verse 946 and onwards). For its first appearance in the liturgy of the Orthodox Church see D. Pallas, Passion und Bestattung Christi (Munich: Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia II 1965) 56.
15 See Ioli Kalavrezou, ‘Images of the Mother: When the Virgin Mary Became Meter Theou’, DOP 44 (1990) 165-72. See also Pallas, Passion und Bestattung Christi 37.
16 Cf. Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, Bd. 2: The Passion of Jesus Christ. Translated by Janet Seligman (Greenwich, CT 1971/1972) 96: ’Apart from arguments against the Monophysites, reference to the physical Death of Christ was important also to the opponents of Iconoclasm during the Iconoclastic Controversy (726—843) as a means of justifying images of Christ. They saw his physical Death as parallel to his Incarnation, which they regarded as the reason and motive for the visual representation of Christ. This is why, soon after the end of the Iconoclastic Controversy, illustrations to psalters, which originated in iconodule monasteries, began to depict Christ dead rather than alive on the Cross’. See also Henry Maguire, Art and Eloquence in Byzantium (Princeton 1981) 91 and 97, and J.R. Martin, ‘The Dead Christ on the Cross in Byzantine Art’, in Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend Jr., ed. Kurt Weitzmann (Princeton 1955). For further particulars on the whole subject see Bakker — Philippides, ‘The Lament of the Virgin’, 39-56.
17 P. Maas — C.A. Trypanis, S. Romani Melodi Cantica. Cantica Genuina (Oxford 1963) 142-9 (no. 19): 
[…]
18 On Romanos’ kontakion see especially Alexiou, ’The Lament’, 112—6, and Eva Catafygiotu-Topping, Sacred Songs: Studies in Byzantine Hymnography (Minneapolis 1997) 237—56. For the reasons why the title is rather unfortunate see Bakker — Philippides, ‘The Lament of the Virgin’, n.28.
19 
20 Nikos Panagiotakis’ posthumous critical edition is in press. For the moment, see 
Origini della letteratura Neogreca, a cura di Nikolaos M. Panayotakis (Venice 1993), vol. II, 242-77.
21 The motif, probably inspired by the famous poem of Venantius Fortunatus (c. 600) Flecte ramos, arbor alta, which was even included in the Roman-Catholic Good Friday service (’Flecte ramos, arbor alta. Tensa laxa viscera, et rigor lentescat ille, quern dedit nativitas. Et superni membra regis tende miti stipite’), became very popular. I give only a few examples: the lauda of the early fourteenth century ’Quista vesta mia serane…’ (Giuseppe Galli, Laudi inedite dei disciplinati umbri scelte di sui codici piu anticbi [Biblioteca storica della letteratura italiana, X] (Bergamo 1910) 150-7): verses 89-90: ‘arbore alta, enchina el ramo | ch’ io toccar possa cuie tanto arao’; Planto de la Verzene Maria of the fourteenth century (Alfred Linder, Plainte de la Vierge en vieux venitien. Texte critique precede d’une introduction linguistique et litteraire (Uppsala 1898)) verses 576-7: ‘deflecte ramos, arbor alta, ch’io posa tochar un puocho el fiol mio’; Cantare sulla Passione di N.S. Gesu Crista by Niccolo di Mino Cicerchia (1364) (L. Razzolini, Passione di N.S. Gesii Crista (Bologna 1878)) verse 212: ‘O croce, li tuo ram’ inclina,| o arbor alta’; Compassio Virginis (fourteenth century) by Giovanni d’Aquila (Giovanni Farris, La ‘Compassio Virginis’ nel sec. XV (Giovanni d’Aquila O.P.) (Savona 1980) 42: ‘flecte ramos, ut saltern de meis lachrymis possim dulcissimo filio meo aliquid refrigerium prestare’.
22 C. Tischendorf, 
(Lipsiae 1853) Acta Pilati B: cap. X.4.
23 See Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge, 252-5. See also the Cypriot 
Ilayayiag, which is not a popular ballad, but a ‘(half-) learned’ composition, certainly influenced by the popular ballads, but also, indirectly, by our Threnos (with as intermediary the 
, a reworking of our Threnos by the seventeenth century cleric Akakios Diakrousis), published by 
5 (1927) 72-82) verses 172-183 
[…]
.
For a discussion of this and many other motifs and formulas which do not occur in ‘Laments of the Virgin’ until much later see Bakker — Philippides, ‘The Lament of the Virgin’, 47—53.
24 Egon Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Oxford 1961) 2nd edn, 157.
25 Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music, 127-8.
26 See Marc D. Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm. An Essay on the Political Verse and Other Byzantine Metres (Vienna 1999) 35-7.
27 
28 
29 See 
. 88-104.
30 For more examples see , 175-213.
31 
32 
34 Dronke, ‘Laments of the Maries’, 101: ‘At the close, as in Planctus ante nescia, comes a peripeteia: turning to Christ once more, Mary passes beyond the human anguish, protest and death-wish [which is NOT uttered!], to a comprehension of what his death signifies’.
35 In the verses of the introduction I also give the text of the Latin translation (according to the edition of Cologne 1547), so that the reader may see for himself that the Latin text is indeed a translation of the Greek. For further particulars see Bakker, ‘The 
.’ The Greek text is given according to a new edition, which will be published shortly.
36 Cf. 
25-6.
37 For more on the monody see Lauxtermann, The Spring of Rhythm, 25-31.
38 See, e.g. 
Carsten Hoeg, H.J.W. Tillyard and Egon Wellesz, Monumenta Musicae Byzantinae. Transcripta, vol. V: The Hymns of the Oktoechus. Transcribed by H.J.W. Tillyard. Part II (Copenhagen 1949) 172: 
204:
vss 950-1 (see n.14): 
(A. Tuilier, Gregoire de Nazianze: La Passion du Christ, tragedie [Sources chretiennes 149] (Paris 1969) verses 449-50: 
(W. Horandner, Der Prosarhythmus in der rhetorischen Literatur der Byzantiner (Vienna 1981) 98-104: 
. 
39 Anonymus, ‘Un’ ufficiatura perduta del Venerdi Santo’ (Canon on the Lament of the Virgin), Romae I’Oriente 5 (1913) 302-13.
40 Pallas, Passion und Bestattung Christi 30—1 and 56.
41 It is interesting to see that, notwithstanding the obvious connections between our Threnos and the Acta Pilati, the death wish, which, of course, does not occur in liturgical texts, but is frequent in popular ballads, has been avoided by our poet. For this motif see Bouvier, he mirologue de la Vierge, 177-81.
42 For a discussion of the occurrence of this motif in Eastern as well as in Western texts see Bakker — Philippides, ‘The Lament of the Virgin’, 49-51.
43 
in I. Pitra, Spicilegium solesmense complectens sanctorum patrum scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum anecdota hactenus opera, selecta e graecis orientalibusque et latinis codicibus, publici juris facta curante Domno J.B. Pitra […] (Paris 1852-58) vol. IV, 491-5.
44 Cf. the 
where this part of the kontakion is sung, and Symeon Metaphrastes, who repeats these words literally in his kanon (20). See also the text of Nikolaos Grammatikos (n.43); the 
vss 454-62 
Only much later, in a version of the late seventeenth century, the Cod. Athon. Lavras 1309 (K 22), 48r—53r, did it enter our Threnos in the form of an extra verse (77a): 
. In the popular ballads it is usually found in the form of 
(see Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge 76 (no. 201, verse 39), 77 (no. 42 = no. 118, verse 45), 80 (no. 89a, verse 67), 96 (no. 164, verse 96), and 116 (no. 98, verse 36)).
45 
of Dellaportas (see n.19; fifteenth century), verses 327-8 
the anonymous 
2997 (see n.20; sixteenth century) 
and two compositions (not popular ballads) of probably the eighteenth or nineteenth century from Cyprus, 
5 (1927) 79-82), verses 151-2: 
31 (1967) 183-205), verse 171: 
.
46 See Dellaportas in the previous note.
47 The only Greek text where I found a parallel to the contents of verse 86 is in one of the works of George Lapithes, who was probably a contemporary of our poet (Fr Tinnefeld, ‘Georgios Lapithes Eine Ethopoiie auf Maria unter dem Kreuz Christi’, Orthodoxes Forum 1 (1987) 33-59, cap. 9.11-12 
For the 46 rest, there seem to be parallels only in western literature: Pseudo-Bernardus of Clairvaux (thirteenth century), Liber de Passione Christi et doloribus et planctibus matris eius, in PL 182. 1136C: ‘Tu mihi pater, tu mihi mater, ti mihi sponsus, tu mihi filius, tu mihi omnia eras’; Jacopone da Todi (1230-1306), Stabat Mater (Frederic James Edward Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry from the Beginnings to the Close of the Middle Ages (Oxford 1927) 440), verses 45-6: ‘figlio, pate e marito;/ figlio chi t’à ferito!’; a ‘Pianto della Vergine’ of c. 1325 (Alfred Linder, Plainte de la Vierge en vieux vénitien. Texte critique précédé d’ une introduction linguistique et littéraire (Uppsala 1898)), verses 1309—10: ‘Questo è el mio fiol e la vita mia; mio Dio, mio padre, mio sposo […]’. Since our Threnos does not give any (other) hints of being influenced by western texts, there is no reason to believe that this would be the case here.
48 We find this same passage already in a homily of Pseudo-Epiphanios Cyprios in PG 43, 445C—48B.
49 For a fuller discussion of this motif see Bakker — Philippides, ‘The Lament of the Virgin’, 52—3.
50 Alexiou, ‘The Lament’, 127: ‘The laments, especially those in Ms C [of the Acta Pilati] [...] the sequence and detail of the narrative is strikingly close to the modern ballads […]’; 128: ‘Rather than assume a direct influence of the Acta Pilati on later vernacular tradition, I should prefer to argue that the text had itself been subject to popular re-handling in the process of transmission.’ See also Alexiou, The ritual lament 68: ‘The most probable explanation [of the AP being so close to the modern ballads] is that the Epitaphios, the apocryphal lament and the modern ballads were drawing on a common tradition, the Epitaphios elaborating the lyrical elements and the ballads concentrating on the narrative. It is not possible to date this common tradition precisely, but it must have been well established and widely known by the time the second recension of the AP was written down.’
51 Cf. W. Lipphardt, ‘Studien zu den Marienklagen. Marienklage und germanische Todenklage’, Beitrage zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur 58 (1934) 390-444, especially 396-8.
52 For the presence of the motif of the Virgin’s apostrophe to the Cross in Greek folk-song see Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge, 253-5.
53 Cf. Alexiou, ‘The Lament’, 134-40.
54 Alexiou, The ritual lament 64: ‘[…] several features of its style, notably the use of incremental repetition in groups of three, and traces of a refrain at key points in the line, would seem to owe something to the techniques of oral poetry.’
55 See also Alexiou, The ritual lament, 64.
56 See n.4.
57 Of the fifteenth century; see De Meyier — Hulshoff Pol, Codices bibliothecae publicae graeci, 122-3.
58 Of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries; see Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques des Départements. Tome premier (Paris 1849) 279ff.: manuscrits de la bibliothèque de 1’ École de médecine de Montpellier: no. 405, 44—8ff.
59 See Alkiviadis C. Calivas, Great Week and Pascha in the Greek Orthodox Church (Brookline, MA 1992) 8. See also Robert Taft, The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West. The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today (Collegeville, MN 1986) 276. In general see Pallas, Passion und Bestattung Christi 29-38.
60 See Robert Taft, ‘A Tale of Two Cities. The Byzantine Holy Week Triduum as a Paradigm of Liturgical History’, in Time and Community, ed. J. Neil Alexander (Washington 1990) 23; id., ‘In the Bridegroom’s Absence. The Paschal triduum in the Byzantine Church’, Studia Anselmiana 102: Analecta Liturgica 14 (1990) 91.
61 
See also Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge, 29-33, 
and Pallas, Passion und Bestattung Christi, pp. 4, 52.
62 
. See also Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge 33—4, and 
60. See also 
19 (1952) 189-90.
63 
64 See, e.g., 
(of the fourteenth century): 
65 I have found the same text, with only very slight alterations, in St. Lavra 1281. I 197, f. 283r (of the seventeenth century) and in the Vindobonensis Theol. Gr. 247 (olim 210), f. 3V (also of the seventeenth century).
66 See Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge 67. I reproduce here the (diplomatically edited) text exactly as it is printed in Bouvier’s book.
67 Cf. Bouvier, Le mirologue de la Vierge 78 (no. 89a, verse 1), 84 (no. 164, verse 6), 88 (no. 164, verse 92), and 108 (no. 83, verse 6), where the first verse of the first gloss is found as part of a lament of the Virgin.
68 Either as example or as a later reworking.
69 The same applies to the stavrotbeotokion quoted in n.64 (which, again, shows striking similarities with our Threnos — and with the stavrotbeotokion found in the Parisinus graecus 1595!): the structure of line 11 of this text is the same as we find so often in folk songs.
70 I thank Professors Georgos Amargianakis (f) and Grigorios Stathis of the University of Athens for their advice on this matter.
71 See Calivas, Great Week and Pascha, 13.
72 Calivas, Great Week and Pascha, 69.
73 This cannot be Ambrosius Camaldulensis: see n.6. Nor can it be either of two other known translators of works of Ephraem, Julius Clemens and Petrus Franciscus Zinus, who are mentioned as such by Assemani (see n.5) I: xv and lxxxvi—vii. Nor could it be Gerardus Vossius (see n.6), because in this case, the phrase ‘Eodem Gerard. Vossio Interprete et Scholiaste’, which he always uses in his Ephraem-edition, is missing.
74 Cf. Pallas, Passion und Bestattung Christi 58 note 181: ‘Wohl vom volkstumlichen Threnos des aussenkirchendienstlichen Dromenons wurde das künstlerische Gedicht 
.
75 See 
14-6. For the text see 
For a comparison between the original Threnos and Diakrousis’s version see Manousakas’ article, 70-3.
76 
For a comparison between Diakrousis’s text and the 
see 
64 and n.l. 66.
77 
78 One of the texts, the one from the village of 
, west of 
, he actually copied from an edition: 
1909).
79 While Diakrousis’s poem, just as the original Threnos, is still a monody (a monologue of the Virgin, with a small prologue and epilogue) the BovAl(TUEvr|-version has become a hotchpotch: (1) through the omission of verses of the Diakrousis-text and the addition of new ones, the original structure of themes and motifs has been thoroughly violated; (2) through the introduction of a narrator, pieces of the story of the crucifixion (with three ‘words from the cross’) and the burial of Christ (with Joseph of Arimathea and Pontius Pilate as speakers) have been inserted, with as consequence the fact that the Virgin’s monologue is interrupted by extensive pieces of narrative.
80 For further particulars about the places of origin and the titles of the texts and the texts themselves (from 
see the article of Amargianakis (n.77).
81 
82 For further particulars about the way the text is sung see 
188-9.
83 
84 It would be safe, however, to add as a marginal note that it may have been asleep during some period between these dates.