stanzas. 2. Because the transition from one part to the other is so unusually abrupt. 3. Because, at the end of the sixth stanza, there is a quasi-doxology as if to point out that the hymn originally concluded there.
There is, in the Paris Breviary, a rifacimento of this Hymn; very inferior, it is true, to the original, but much superior to the Roman reform. The first verse may serve as an example.
Original:
Urbs beata, Jerusalem,
Dicta pacis visio,
Quæ construitur in cœlo
Vivis ex lapidibus,
Et angelis coronata
Ut sponsata comite.
Roman:
Cœlestis urbs Jerusalem
Beata pacis visio,
Quæ celsa de viventibus
Saxis ad astra tolleris;
Sponsæque ritu cingeris
Mille Aogelorum millibus.
Paris:
Urbs beata, vera pacis
Visio, Jerusalem;
Quanta surgit; celsa saxis
Conditur viventibus:
Quæ polivit, hæc coaptat
Sedibus suis Deus.
