Pie Jesu is a motet derived from the final couplet of the Dies irae and often included in musical settings of the Requiem Mass. The settings of the Requiem Mass by Luigi Cherubini, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé, John Rutter, Karl Jenkins and Fredrik Sixten include a Pie Jesu as an independent movement. Of all these, by far the best known is the Pie Jesu from Fauré's Requiem; Camille Saint-Saëns said of it, "just as Mozart's is the only Ave verum corpus, this is the only Pie Jesu".[1]
The original text, derived from the Dies irae sequence, is as follows:
| Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem. (repeat 2x) |
Kind Lord Jesus, grant them rest. |
| Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem sempiternam. |
Kind Lord Jesus, grant them everlasting rest. |
Pie (the vocative of the word pius) is conventionally translated as "sweet", but normally means "dutiful", "godly", "faithful", or "kind".[2]
Requiem (accusative of requies) is often translated as "peace", although that would be pacem, as in "Dona nobis pacem" ("Give us peace"). A more faithful translation of requiem would be "rest", as in "Requiem aeternam dona eis" ("Grant them eternal rest"). At the end is the word sempiternam ("sempiternal", a graded expression of aeternam, "eternal"), making it to dona eis requiem sempiternam ("grant them sempiternal rest").
The Andrew Lloyd Webber version combines the text of the Pie Jesu with that of the version of the Agnus Dei formerly appointed to be used at Requiem Masses:
| °Pie Jesu, (4x) °Qui tollis peccata mundi °Dona eis requiem. (2x) |
Merciful Jesus, Who takes away the sins of the world, Grant them rest. |
| Agnus Dei, (4x) Qui tollis peccata mundi, Dona eis Sempiternam(2x) requiem. (2x) |
Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Grant them rest Everlasting. |
(°The first verse is repeated twice)