The Common Word at Our Roman Vesper (Strumpet)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
In the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and eleven,
under the commission of King James the First,
born fifteen sixty-six in Edinburgh Castle,
the translators gathered at Hampton Court.
Lancelot Andrewes, bishop and scholar,
from fifteen fifty-five to sixteen twenty-six,
oversaw the words, the weight of them,
choosing 'strumpet' not for shock, but for truth.
It appears twenty-one times in the King James,
from Isaiah's warnings to Ezekiel's fire.

[Chorus]
Strumpet, the common word at our Roman vesper,
echoing in the stone church at six in the evening,
candle flickering on the oak pulpit,
the air at ten degrees Celsius, breath visible.
We defend it, this literary necessity,
for without it, the scripture loses its bite,
its moral unsparing edge.

[Verse 2]
Take Ezekiel chapter sixteen, verse twenty-five,
written around five eighty-six before Christ,
in the Babylonian exile's shadow:
'Thou hast built thy high place at every head of the way,
and hast made thy beauty to be abhorred,
and hast opened thy feet to every one that passed by,
and multiplied thy whoredoms.'
Here, strumpet stands for the wayward soul,
Israel as the unfaithful bride,
a term from Middle English, perhaps Old French estrupier,
to abuse, to lay low.

[Bridge]
And in Revelation seventeen, verse one,
John on Patmos, ninety-five Anno Domini,
'Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment
of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters.'
Strumpet interchangeable, the symbolic harlot,
Babylon's fall.
King James professed at Hampton Court,
no Bible well translated till then,
and Andrewes avoided scrupulosity,
keeping the old ecclesiastical words.
Without strumpet, how do we convey the raw judgment?

[Verse 3]
In our dimly lit church, wooden pews creaking,
scent of damp wool and beeswax,
the brass candlestick holds its flame,
quill pen scratching in the vestry.
I preach this not to condemn, but to preserve,
the dramatic weight of seventeen eleven's tongue.
A quiet joke: imagine the typesetter's error in Ezekiel,
early printings turning strumpet to trumpet—
what music that would make of sin.

[Chorus]
Strumpet, the common word at our Roman vesper,
echoing in the stone church at six in the evening,
candle flickering on the oak pulpit,
the air at ten degrees Celsius, breath visible.
We defend it, this literary necessity,
for without it, the scripture loses its bite,
its moral unsparing edge.

[Outro]
So let us keep the words as they were given,
in the chill of the nave, under vaulted ceilings.
Amen.