O Vos Omnes

Have you ever asked such a question, alone and despairing?

Jeremiah did and he beheld his beloved and abandoned city.

“O Vos Omnes” is a responsory, originally sung as part of Holy Week, and now often sung as a motet. The text is adapted from the Latin Vulgate translation of Lamentations 1:12.

It was often set, especially in the sixteenth century, as part of the Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday.

This rendition is by Pablo Casals.

O vos ómnes qui transítis per víam, atténdite et vidéte:

Si est dólor símilis sícut dólor méus.

VAtténdite, univérsi pópuli, et vidéte dolórem méum.

Si est dólor símilis sícut dólor méus.

Translation

O all you who walk by on the road, pay attention and see:

if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

Pay attention, all people, and look at my sorrow:

if there be any sorrow like my sorrow.

Lamentations 1:1-5[6-9]10-12

How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress.

The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter. Her foes have become the masters, her enemies prosper, because the Lord has made her suffer for the multitude of her transgressions; her children have gone away, captives before the foe.

[ From daughter Zion has departed all her majesty. Her princes have become like stags that find no pasture; they fled without strength before the pursuer. Jerusalem remembers, in the days of her affliction and wandering, all the precious things that were hers in days of old. When her people fell into the hand of the foe, and there was no one to help her, the foe looked on mocking over her downfall. Jerusalem sinned grievously, so she has become a mockery; all who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans, and turns her face away. Her uncleanness was in her skirts; she took no thought of her future; her downfall was appalling, with none to comfort her. “O Lord, look at my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”]

Enemies have stretched out their hands over all her precious things; she has even seen the nations invade her sanctuary, those whom you forbade to enter your congregation. All her people groan as they search for bread; they trade their treasures for food to revive their strength.

Look, O Lord, and see how worthless I have become. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.