Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We have been enjoying the excellent, largely thankless, and certainly unpaid work of Ionarts contributors for most of the time we've been here: Todd Babcock (since October 2003), Jens Laurson (since December 2003), Mark Barry (since December 2003), Frank Pesci (since September 2005), and a handful of guest contributors. Guys, your Christmas bonuses are in the mail. Bonnes fêtes de la fin de l'année!

Vagis, infans, caeli heres,
in praesepe reclinatus,
riges gelu, Dei proles,
jumentorum hospes factus,
strictus fascium rigore
doles artuum languore,
Noe!

Aestus frigorum ardore,
fanem raves luges ore,
carnis aspro more nascens,
gemitus dolorum ferens
poenas multas peccatorum
mira sorte gaudiorum.
Noe!

You are crying, baby and heaven's heir,
lying in the manger,
you are stiff with cold, song of God,
made the guest of farm animals,
tightly bound in swaddling clothes,
limbs aching with pain.
Noel!

In the pain of winter's cold,
you suffer the pain of hunger,
born into the bitter folly of the flesh,
wailing with your pains, bearing
the many sufferings of sinners,
as a wondrous cause of joy.
Noel!

- Text of Salve, salve, puellule, a motet by Giacomo Carissimi