Funeral Ikos - Armonico Consort

Which they utter as they go hence?

I am parted from my brethren

All my friends do i abandon and go hence

But whither i go, that understand i not

Neither what shall become of me yonder;

Only God who hath summoned me knoweth

But make commemoration of me with the song:

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

But whither now go the souls?

How dwell they now together there?

This mystery have i desired to learn;

but none can impart aright

Do they call to mind their own people, as we do them?

Or have they forgotten all those who mourn them and make the song:

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

We go forth on the path eternal, and as condemned

With downcast faces, present ourselves before the only God eternal

Where then is comeliness?

Where then is wealth?

Where then is the glory of this world?

There shall none of these things aid us, but only to say oft the psalm:

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

If thou hast shown mercy unto man, o man

That same mercy shall be shown thee there;

And if on an orphan thou hast shown compassion

The same shall there deliver thee from want

If in this life the naked thou hast clothed

The same shall give thee shelter there, and sing the psalm:

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Youth and the beauty of the body fade at the hour of death

And the tongue then burneth fiercely, and the parched throat is inflamed

The beauty of the eyes is quenched then, the comeliness of the face all altered

The shapeliness of the neck destroyed;

and the other parts have become numb

Nor often say: Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

With ecstasy are we inflamed if we but hear that there is light eternal yonder;

That there is Paradise, wherein every soul of Righteous Ones rejoiceth

Let us all, also, enter into Christ, that we may cry aloud thus unto God:

Alleluia!

Alleluia!

Alleluia!