"Sei mir tausendmal" (#91)

German text in the Gesangbuch:

1 Sei mir tausendmal gegegrüßet,

der mich je und je geliebt,

Jesu, der du selbst gebüßet

das, womit ich dich betrübt.

Ach, wie ist mir doch so wohl,

wann ich knien und liegen soll

an dem Kreuze, da du stirbest

und um meine Seele wirbest.

2 Ich umfange, herz und küsse

der getränkten Wunden Zahl

und die purpurrothen Flüsse

deiner Füß und Nägelmal.

O, wer kann doch, schönster Fürst,

den so hoch nach uns gedürst,

deinen Durst und Liebesverlangen

völlig fassen und umfangen?

3 Heile mich, o Heil der Seelen,

wo ich krank und traurig bin,

nimm die Schmerzen die mich quälen,

und den ganzen Schaden hin,

den mir Adams Fall gebracht

und ich selbsten mir gemacht;

wird, o Arzt, dein Blut mich netzen,

wird sich all mein Jammer setzen.

4 Schreibe deine blutgen Wunden

mir, Herr, in das Herz hinein,

daß sie mögen alle Stunden

bei mir unvergessen sein.

Du bist doch mein schönstes Gut,

da mein ganzes Herze ruht;

laß mich hier zu deinen Füßen

deiner Lieb und Gunst genießen.

5 Diese Füße will ich halten

auf das best ich immer kann;

schaue meiner Hände Falten

und mich selbsten freundlich an

von des hohen Kreuzes Baum,

und gib meiner Bitte Raum,

sprich:  laß all dein Trauren schwinden,

ich, ich tilg all deine Sünden.

Paul Gerhardt, 1662.

(Nach dem 1. lat. Passionssalve des heiligen Bernhard.)

My prose translation:

1 Be greeted by me a thousand times,

He Who loved me forever and ever,

Jesus, Who You Yourself atoned for

That with which I grieved You.

Oh, yet how well is it for me

When I should kneel and lie

At the cross where You die

And win my soul.

2 I embrace, hug, and kiss

The countless soaked wounds

And the purple-red streams

Of Your feet and nail marks.

O, most beautiful Prince,

Who thirsted so much more compared to us,

Who can entirely grasp and comprehend

Your thirst and desire for love?

3 Heal me, O Salvation of souls,

Where I am sick and sad;

Take away the pains that plague me

And all the harm that Adam's fall brought me

And [what harm] I have done myself;

O Doctor, Your blood will anoint me,

Will settle all my despair.

4 Write Your bloody wounds

In my heart, Lord,

That [in] all hours they may

Be unforgotten with me.

You are surely my most beautiful good,

Where my whole heart rests;

Let me here at Your feet revel in

Your body and good will.

5 I will hold these feet

The best I always can;

Look at the folds of my hands

And at me myself warmly

From the tree of the high cross,

And give room to my petition;

Speak:  "Let all your sorrow disappear;

I, I erase all of your sins."

Paul Gerhardt, 1662.

(After the first century Latin Passionssalve of the holy Bernard.)

I copied the German text as it appears in the Gesangbuch, but obviously "gegegrüßet" in the first verse has an extra "ge-."  There's a line break in between the two, which may explain why this error wasn't caught.  I'm not sure that "win my soul" is the best translation for "um meine Seele wirbest" at the end of the verse.  The only translations I could find for "werben um" were "advertise" and "woo," and neither of those fits the context here.

I'm not too happy with how the second verse turned out, but I can't think of a better way to do it.  There's a relative clause modifying the vocative ("O, most beautiful Prince, / Who thirsted so much more compared to us"), but an interrogative "who" immediately follows this ("Who can entirely grasp and comprehend..."), and this could easily be mistaken as an-other relative clause at first.  I'm also not too confident in my translations of "der getränkten Wunden Zahl" as "the countless soaked wounds" and "so hoch nach uns gedürst" as "Who thirsted so much more compared to us."  I had to move a couple lines around for syntactical purposes, too.

There's a bit of wordplay at the beginning of the third verse ("Heile mich, o Heil der Seelen"), but I couldn't think of a way to include this in my translation.  I have just "Heal me, O Salvation of the soul."  "Netzen" later in the verse means "to wet" or "to moisten," but I translated it as "anoint."

It's not exactly the same, but the image of writing on the heart in the fourth verse also appears in Jeremiah 31:33.

As far as I can tell, this hymn isn't in The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Worship, or The Lutheran Service Book.  According to the Gesangbuch, the text is sung to the tune "Jesu, deine heilgen W[unden]."