Young—Officium Pastorum. 
303 
versus: Ora est psallite; iube, domne, canere 1 eia. 2 
The trope is still a mere introduction to the Introit. The ad¬ 
ditional verse, Ora est, psallite; iube, Domne t cartere; eia <eia 
dicite> , is not easily explained as it stands before us in the 
text. This passage is found several times, in other manuscripts, 
as an introduction to this or that well known trope, and is char¬ 
acterized by Gautier as “le trope d ? un trope.” 3 In the present 
case it may be intended as an introduction to the trope that fol¬ 
lows in the manuscript, or it may be a special festal introduc¬ 
tion to the Introit proper, following upon the general intro¬ 
ductory trope Quem quceritis. A more probable explanation, 
however, miay be suggested by a detail in the following: 
4 ix die Nataix DomiNi STAao ad sanctuM petru m. 
INCIPIENT TEOP US 5 ANTEQUAm DICAT UT OFFICmm. 4 
Quem queritis in presepe, pastores, dicite ? 
Respondent : Saluatorem Xpistum Domsinum, 
infantem pannis inuolutum, 
secundum sermonem angelicum. 
Respondent: Adest hie paruulus cum Maria matre sua, 
de qua dudum uatizinando Isaias dixerat propheta: 
Ecce uirgo concipiet et paries filium; 
et nunc euntes dicite quia natus est. 
'Respondent: Alleluia, alleluia. 
Tam uere scimus Xpistum natum in terris, 
de quo <fol. 9 r > eanite omnes cum propheta dicentes: 
Awtiphonas son i <vii> : 6 Puer na tus <est nobis>. 
1 MS canetet. 
2 Followed immediately by:—Tropws: Gaudeamus hodie, quia Deus 
descendit . , a fresh trope of the Introit. 
3 Gautier, p. 226. 
4 Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS. lat. 1118, Troparium-Tonale-Prosarium Lemo- 
vicense saec. xi-xii, fol. 8v. For a facsimile see Gautier, p. 215. 
5 This word is spelled and declined in a variety of ways. See 
Gautier pp. 49-50. 
8 Dom Bevssac has helped me to interpret this puzzling rubric. 
The nominative singular antiphonas is familiar in Limoges manu¬ 
scripts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Sonus in here used in 
the sense of tonus. 
