PSALTERIVM

PSALMVS CXXXVI — SVPER FLVMINA

Upon the Rivers of Babylon

Super flumina Babylonis is the great psalm of exile, expressing the sorrow of captives who cannot sing the Lord's song in a foreign land. The haunting opening image of harps hung on willows has inspired centuries of art and music. In the 1962 Breviary it appears at Vespers on Fridays. The Fathers apply Babylon to this present world and Jerusalem to the heavenly city.

LATINE
Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et flevimus: cum recordaremur Sion.
In salicibus in medio eius, suspendimus organa nostra.
Quia illic interrogaverunt nos, qui captivos duxerunt nos, verba cantionum.
Et qui abduxerunt nos: Hymnum cantate nobis de canticis Sion.
Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena?
Si oblitus fuero tui, Ierusalem, oblivioni detur dextera mea.
Adhaereat lingua mea faucibus meis, si non meminero tui:
Si non proposuero Ierusalem, in principio laetitiae meae.
ENGLISH
Upon the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept: when we remembered Sion:
On the willows in the midst thereof we hung up our instruments.
For there they that led us into captivity required of us the words of songs.
And they that carried us away, said: Sing ye to us a hymn of the songs of Sion.
How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten.
Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee:
If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy.
NOTA
FONS
Douay-Rheims (1609) / Vulgata
USUS
Exile, Septuagesima, Longing for heaven
CONTEXT
Psalm 137 in Hebrew numbering. 'How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?' became a motto of exile. The final verses are read as prophecy of spiritual Babylon's destruction.