Plato, Aristotle, Paris and Helen at the Last Judgement: the legacy of Audi tellus, audi magni maris limbus

ABSTRACT The twenty-four stanza abecedarium, beginning Audi tellus, audi magni maris limbus (Montpellier, Bibliothèque de la ville, 6), stands at the beginning of a long tradition of similar songs of judgement. A closer study of the sources provides for a deeper understanding of the transformation of the original song into a versicle to the Libera me and by the thirteenth century the first two lines of the song were transformed into the beginning of an unusual litany asking ‘Ubi sunt’, which was again most often described in the rubrics as a trope to the Libera me, particularly on All Souls Day. Here, however, an unusual and varying cast of characters enter the text of the song and the liturgy, including classical philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, historic figures, such as Paris and Helen, and even the biblical heroes Samson and King David. By the later Middle Ages, the trope had been further transformed into a devotional song and was especially prominent in sources associated with the cloisters of the Devotio moderna and later in polyphonic settings by Caspar Othmayr, Jacobus Gallus and Orlandus Lassus.