What Does The Prayer (Hymn) Really Say? Ave Maris Stella (Feasts of the B.V.M.)

Let’s have a look at the hymn from the Common of Feasts of the Blessed Virgin, Ave Maris Stella.

This hymn has been attributed to Fortunatus and, because of his deepply Marian devotion, St. Bernard.  However it is in a 9th c. manuscript.   This hymn came into the Roman Breviary without tinkering, one of the few.

Eusebius tried to interpret the name of Mary, Miryam, as coming for the Hebrew for “drop of the sea”.  Jerome went with this, and wrote Latin STILLA Maris.  But a copyist transcribed it wrong and got STELLA maris.  Eventually Isidore in his Etymologies spread this.  By the 8th c. we were signing hymns to Mary “Star of the Sea” and waxing eloquent about this poetic image.  Bernard of Clairvaux preached (Homilia II super “Missus est,” 17):

“If the winds of temptation arise; if you are driven upon the rocks of tribulation look to the star, call on Mary. If you are tossed upon the waves of pride, of ambition, of envy, of rivalry, look to the star, call on Mary. Should anger, or avarice, or fleshly desire violently assail the frail vessel of your soul, look at the star, call upon Mary. If you have fallen victim to some heinous crime, if you are overwhelmed by the reproaches of an evil conscience, if you fear being engulfed in the whirlpool of doubt or an abyss of sorrows, think of Mary, call upon Mary.”

The lines in the 7 short stanzas are in trochaic dimeter brachycatalectic, a six-syllable line composed of three falling, stressed–unstressed beats. We are using word stress not length of syllables at this point. We can break down the meter. A trochee is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable: DUM-da. Dimeter means the line contains two metrical units or metra. In trochaic verse, each complete metron normally contains two trochees. A full trochaic dimeter would therefore have four trochaic feet, or eight syllables: DUM-da | DUM-da || DUM-da | DUM-da. However, this is brachycatalectic or “shortened at the end.” The final metron is reduced, leaving three trochees, hence six syllables: DUM-da | DUM-da | DUM-da.

The opening of Ave Maris Stella illustrates the pattern:

Áve | máris | stélla
Déi | Máter | álma
átque | sémper | Vírgo
félix | cáeli | pórta

Each line has six syllables arranged, broadly speaking, as three falling rhythmic feet. Thus:

Á-ve | má-ris | stél-la
stressed–unstressed | stressed–unstressed | stressed–unstressed

There is a rocking quality to it, much as Mary might rock her spiritual children, and we might be rocked with her on the high sea of life.