For Lady Day Today: Purcell's "The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation"

Henry Purcell set Nahum Tate's poem, "The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation" as an ode for soprano and continuo published in his Harmonia Sacra. It depicts Mary's questions about what has happened to Jesus in Jerusalem when she and Joseph realize He is missing. (Luke 2: 41-52)

The inspiration for the text could come from the last verses of that passage: "Then He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them, but His mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."

Here's a performance of Frederica von Stade and Martin Katz on piano in a 1978/79 recital album.

And here's a performance in the continuo and organ setting.

The Blessed Virgin Mary fears that something terrible has happened--as terrible as the Slaughter of the Innocents in Bethlehem 12 years before and the dangers even of the Flight into Egypt. They went through all that to lose Him in Jerusalem? She calls on the Archangel of the Annunciation, Saint Gabriel, to comfort her.

Tell me, some pitying angel tell, quickly say,
Where does my soul's sweet darling stay?
In tiger's, or more cruel Herod's way?
O! rather let his little footsteps press
Unregarded through the wilderness,
Where milder savages resort:
The desert's safer than a tyrant's court.
Why, fairest object of my love,
Why dost thou from my longing eyes remove?
Was it a waking dream that did foretell
Thy wondrous birth? no vision from above?
Where's Gabriel now that visited my cell?
I call Gabriel, he comes not; flatt'ring hopes, farewell.

Me Judah's daughters once caress'd,
Call'd me of mothers the most bless'd;
Now fatal change of mothers most distress'd.
How shall my soul its motions guide,
How shall I stem various tide,
Whilst faith and doubt* my lab'ring thoughts divide?
For whilst of thy dear sight beguil'd,
I trust the God, but oh!
I fear the child.

*Saint John Henry Newman would prefer the term "difficulty" as Mary wonders why this has happened (as in "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt, as I understand the subject; difficulty and doubt are incommensurate. There of course may be difficulties in the evidence; but I am speaking of difficulties intrinsic to the doctrines themselves, or to their relations with each other. A man may be annoyed that he cannot work out a mathematical problem, of which the answer is or is not given to him, without doubting that it admits of an answer, or that a certain particular answer is the true one. Of all points of faith, the being of a God is, to my own apprehension, encompassed with most difficulty, and yet borne in upon our minds with most power.")

I wonder if Gerard Manley Hopkins ever heard a performance of this piece? He certainly admired ("the divine genius") Purcell!

It's a great source of meditation to remember: the Loss of Jesus in Jerusalem is one of the Seven Sorrows of Mary (the third) and the Finding of Jesus in the Temple is one of the Five Joyful Mysteries (the fifth)!

Image Source (Public Domain): Jesus Found in the Temple (Jesus retrouvé dans le temple) by James Tissot, 19th ct. (Brooklyn Museum, New York)