Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 15:52:49 -0700
From: Matthew Weber 
Subject: Re: (urth) A Thousand Ages

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At 05:43 PM 9/4/02 -0500, Steve wrote:

>In chapel today (I go to a Christian university) we had our academic 
>convocation service and sang the hymn Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past .  The 
>fourth verse jumped out at me because it s the exact quote Wolfe uses to 
>start the Book of the New Sun at the beginning of Shadow of the Torturer: 
>A thousand ages in thy sight/Are like an evening gone./Short as the watch 
>that ends the night/Before the rising sun.   The hymn says it s based on 
>Psalms 90, but I looked it up and the wording is different enough that I 
>bet Wolfe got the quote directly from the song.  I just thought it was 
>kind of interesting, and it made a boring service a little more 
>enjoyable.  I thought Wolfe was a Catholic; do Catholics sing the same 
>hymns Protestants do?  The other five verses don t hold a lot of interest 
>in regards to the Short Sun, except for verse five: Time, like an 
>ever-rolling stream/Bears all its sons away./They fly forgotten as a 
>dream/Dies at the opening day.  That fits the book rather nicely as well.

Yes, it's based on Psalm 90.  It's Isaac Watts' versification of the psalm, 
made when the Puritan faction was demanding that only the psalms be sung in 
churches.  These days, Roman Catholics avail themselves of the rich 
heritage of Protestant hymnody, when they bother to sing hymns at all (as 
opposed to bad "folk" music).

Oh, and hello, list.  This is my first post, after a month or so of lurking 
and reading the archives.  Are we still using Long Sun pseudonyms?

Matthew Weber
Curatorial Assistant
Music Library
University of California, Berkeley

Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree.
         The Holy Bible (The Old Testament):  _The First Book of the 
Kings_, chapter 4, verse 25

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At 05:43 PM 9/4/02 -0500, Steve wrote:


In
chapel today (I go to a Christian university) we had our academic
convocation service and sang the hymn Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past
.  The fourth verse jumped out at me because it s the exact quote
Wolfe uses to start the Book of the New Sun at the beginning of Shadow of
the Torturer: A thousand ages in thy sight/Are like an evening
gone./Short as the watch that ends the night/Before the rising
sun.   The hymn says it s based on Psalms 90, but I looked it
up and the wording is different enough that I bet Wolfe got the quote
directly from the song.  I just thought it was kind of interesting,
and it made a boring service a little more enjoyable.  I thought
Wolfe was a Catholic; do Catholics sing the same hymns Protestants
do?  The other five verses don t hold a lot of interest in regards
to the Short Sun, except for verse five: Time, like an ever-rolling
stream/Bears all its sons away./They fly forgotten as a dream/Dies at the
opening day.  That fits the book rather nicely as
well.

Yes, it's based on Psalm 90.  It's Isaac Watts' versification of the
psalm, made when the Puritan faction was demanding that only the psalms
be sung in churches.  These days, Roman Catholics avail themselves
of the rich heritage of Protestant hymnody, when they bother to sing
hymns at all (as opposed to bad "folk" music).


Oh, and hello, list.  This is my first post, after a month or so of
lurking and reading the archives.  Are we still using Long Sun
pseudonyms?


Matthew Weber 

Curatorial Assistant

Music Library

University of California, Berkeley


Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig
tree.

        The Holy
Bible (The Old Testament):  _The First Book of the Kings_, chapter
4, verse 25

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