United Church of England and Ireland

These little books have a translation of the Psalms which is based ultimately on Coverdale's translation rather than the Authorised Version. Don't tell anyone, but I think it's better than the AV. When I first came across it I thought it was wrong, wrong and should be stopped. In place of “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” you have “The Lord is my shepherd : therefore can I lack nothing”. I just didn't sound right. But take 110:3. This version has “the dew of thy birth is the womb of the morning”. No idea what it means but it's beautiful. I won't even repeat what the AV has. I'm given to understand there's some dispute about the vowel pointings in this verse.

Anyway, I slowly came round to appreciating Coverdale with its long, slow, free rhythms and a full complement of poetic techniques deployed. In the best of the psalms you wouldn't know it was a translation. And comparing with the original Coverdale you wouldn't know it as by him. This is very much a living text and has been modernised and amended again and again over the years.

Where it says 'pointed as they are to be sung or said in churches' it refers to the : between words. These usually coincide with the joins between parallelisms which is handy if you're unfamiliar with Hebrew poetry, but they also do exactly what they say. This is the first time I've actually read this version of the collection cover to cover, but discovered it by going to Evensong. It's the only way you'll really appreciate what can be done with those rhythms. They normally subject you to an accompaniment on the organ but if you're really lucky it'll be plainsong. My advice would be to find an Anglican cathedral and go to one of these services. Chelmsford has particularly good acoustics. You don't have to be religious. Frankly, I think they're glad of the audience. Just sit behind someone who knows what they're doing as there's a cyclical standing-and-sitting ritual the intricacies of which is known only to initiates. Do NOT applaud at the end. It makes people look at you funny.

The rest of the book is a set of instructions on how to practice Anglicanism. I didn't read that bit. I think there's a US book by the same name. I have never seen one and can't attest to its contents.… (mehr)