Tu mandásti mandáta tua custodíri nimis: útiam dirigántur viæ maæ, ad custodiéndas justifications tuas.
You have given your commandments to be defended vigilantly. Oh that my way may be guided by Your saving precepts.
Psalm 118: 4-5
The wave-like melody from ad custodiéndas to tuas expressively depicts that the Lord’s “saving precepts” undergird “my ways”. There is a shift in the tritus maneria from mode V to mode VI here, as the musical line revolves around LA, rather than DO. The torculus LA-TE-LA recurs four times in that phrase, including the one on custodiéndas, which has an ancus added to emphasize the consonant “n”. This motive harkens back to mandáta and custodíri, once again calling to mind the Lord’s commandments.
My rendition diverges from the Vatican edition. Although the added letter “r”, sursum, usually indicates a melodic ascent, after the cephalicus on dirigántur, it instead indicates a descent by the lowest possible interval.1 Given the lowered leading tone earlier in the word on dirigántur, the lowest possible interval from DO would be TE. On the following word, viae, both St. Gall and Laon clearly only depict a virga with an added “r”. Thus, there should only be one note on that syllable. I interpreted the virga as RE rather than DO, given the presence of the “r”. It also foreshadows its presence on the next word, meae, and links both genitive declensions together, forming “my ways”. The added LA on meae bracketed in the Vatican edition exists nowhere in St. Gall or Laon. Therefore, the first torculus and the oriscus belong on that syllable instead.
- Cardine, Eugene, Gregorian Semiology, trans. Robert Fowells. (Solesmes: 1982), pg. 225.
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