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Concept
Dirge
Summary
A dirge (dirige, naenia) is a somber song or lament expressing mourning or grief, such as would be appropriate for performance at a funeral. Often taking the form of a brief hymn, dirges are typically shorter and less meditative than elegies. Dirges are often slow and bear the character of funeral marches. Poetic dirges may be dedicated to a specific individual or otherwise thematically refer to death.
The English word dirge is derived from the Latin Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam ("Direct my way in your sight, O Lord my God"), the first words of the first antiphon (a short chant in Christian liturgy) in the Matins (a canonical hour before sunrise) of the Office for the Dead (a prayer cycle), based on (5:9 in the Vulgate). The original meaning of dirge in English referred to this office, particularly as it appeared within breviaries and primer prayer books.
In the late Medieval period, it was common for Western Christian laity–both men and women–to attend the celebration of the Divine Office (canonical hours) according to various editions of the breviary alongside members of monastic communities. However, the complexity of these breviaries proved prohibitive for a layperson to adopt in private use, so certain devotions that were invariable or only varied slightly day-to-day were adapted into primers.
Among the most consistent devotions within these primers was the Office of the Dead, a popular arrangement of the canonical hours as prayers for the dead. This office was itself typically divided into two hours for recitation at different times of day: Dirige (equivalent to Matins and Lauds) in the morning and Placebo (equivalent to Vespers or Evensong) in the evening. Both terms were derived from among first words always said when reciting those hours, with Dirige starting an antiphon derived from Psalm 5. Gradually, Dirige and eventually "dirge" came to refer to not only to the morning hour, but to the Office of the Dead as a whole and its pairing with the Psalms of Commendation (Psalms 119 and 139).
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