Ad Mortem Festinamus
Ad Mortem Festināmus is a monodic song (fol. 26v) from the 1399 Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, one of the oldest extant medieval manuscripts containing music. Its lyrics talk about the inevitability of death and the need to stop sinning. Its first few verses overlap with those of “Scribere Proposui”, a song from the 1582 Piae Cantiones. It has been recorded by a variety of artists, including the electronic neo-medieval act Qntal, that gave new music to the lyrics and made it a club hit in 1992.
Lyrics
As written in the original manuscript, with line breaks added, parts marked with “iterum” written out in full, “u” and “v” differentiated, punctuation modernized, and abbreviations expanded:
Podcasts:
Ad Mortem Festinamus
Scribere proposui de contemptu mundano
ut degentes seculi non mulcentur in vano
iam est hora surgere
a sompno mortis pravo
a sompno mortis pravo
Vita brevis breviter in brevi finietur
mors venit velociter quae neminem veretur
omnia mors perimit
et nulli miseretur
et nulli miseretur.
Ad mortem festinamus
peccare desistamus
peccare desistamus.
Ni conversus fueris et sicut puer factus
et vitam mutaveris in meliores actus
intrare non poteris
regnum Dei beatus
regnum Dei beatus.
Tuba cum sonuerit dies crit extrema
et iudex advenerit vocabit sempiterna
electos in patria
prescitos ad inferna
prescitos ad inferna.