St. Hildegard of Bingen - Two Sequences to Mary
Alleluia!
O branch and mediatrix,
your sacred flesh
has conquered death,
your womb all creatures
illumined
in beauty’s bloom from that exquisite purity
of your enclosèd modesty
sprung forth. (Alleluia! O virga mediatrix)
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That woman, whom God made to be the mother of the world,
had pricked her womb
with wounds of ignorance—the full inheritance of grief
she offered to her offspring.
But from your womb, O dawn, has come the sun anew;
the guilt of Eve he’s washed away
and through you offered humankind a blessing
even greater than the harm that Eve bestowed.
O Lady Savior (o salvatrix), who has offered to the human race
a new and brighter light: together join the members of your Son
into the heavens’ harmony. (O virga ac diadema, incomplete sequence)