Hello, everyone, and welcome back to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco. And my name is Catherine, and it's the holiday season, so that means more Christmas songs for you guys.
That's right. And today we're going to be taking a look at a very famous song, very relaxed but very beautiful song called Silent Night.
Yeah, this is one of those songs that you hear everywhere, but unlike Jingle Bells, which is like...
Single bell, single bell. Very cheery and uplifting and shopping music.
This is more, as Marco said, calm, peaceful, almost church music.
So we're going to find out what the words mean in this very classic song.
Right, it's classic and very religious because it has a connotation towards the Catholic religion.
So why don't we listen to the song and then we'll be back to explain it.
Thank you. Holy night Holy night all is bright round Mother and child Oh So tender and mild Sweet Heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace. Alright, we're back.
So now let's take a look at this song line by line.
So we're not going to do the standard format of picking out words.
We're going to do it line by line to kind of. get a good feel for this dialogue.
So first of all, some background. Okay, so the 24th, the evening, Mary and Joseph are looking for a place to stay.
Mary, the virgin mother of God. God is going to give birth to a baby.
And they need a place to stay. So finally they find a place.
It's not a hotel. It's not a house. It's like an inn.
Yeah, well, it's actually the stables for the inn, right?
Oh, the stables for the inn, yeah. And so what the song is celebrating is what happens afterwards, after the baby Jesus is born.
So that's where we are. Alright, so the first line says, Silent Night, Holy Night.
As you know, it's holy. That means it's religiously special.
It's important. Okay. All is calm. All is bright.
So we talk about bright lights sometimes.
Something is bright if it gives a lot of light off.
And well, the next line is very interesting because it says round yawn, virgin mother and child.
You see this first two words there, round yawn.
What is round yawn? So round comes from around.
Okay. Yawn means over there. So... Around over there, so over there we've got two people, okay?
Okay. Over there we've got... the Virgin Mother and her child.
Okay, so the Virgin Mother is Mary, right?
That's right. And the child would be Jesus.
Exactly. And it says, Holy infant, so tender and mild.
Okay, so what is an infant? An infant is a baby, some baby that's just been born.
So we can say that infants are very, very... delicate.
You have to be very careful when you hold an infant.
But in this case, a holy infant is Jesus.
He's special for religious reasons. Okay.
And when they say that he's tender and mild, what does he mean by that?
Well, you talk about tender things when you're talking about things that are soft, okay?
Delicate. gentle or sweet and something that is mild or someone that is mild is very quiet and calm and gentle, so not making much noise.
So the baby is very sweet, very tender, and wasn't crying or making a big fuss.
Exactly. And then we have sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.
Well, the baby's quiet because the baby's sleeping.
So you're saying sleep and heavenly peace, that means...
May the peace of heaven, because heaven is a very peaceful place, the most peaceful place, may that peace be with you when you're sleeping.
Okay, very good. Right, and moving on, we have Silent Night, Holy Night Again.
But then they say shepherds quake at the sight.
So what is this? Shepherds, we know that these are people that take care of sheep.
That's right. They make the sheep move from one place to another.
And but it says they quake at the site. So they quake at the site of what?
Well, quake, we often say quiver in one's boots, or to quake means to shake when you're nervous.
Okay, so... You know when you're going to make a speech in front of many, many, many people, your hands start to shake?
That's called quaking. Okay. To quake. Alright.
So, shepherd's quake, they're nervous at the sight, well...
The sight is the noun for seeing something.
The sight of Jesus. Of the baby. Okay. Glories stream from heaven afar.
Okay, the verb here. the action word is to stream.
To stream. Okay, that means to come down.
Okay, so to come down in kind of big amounts.
So we have glory, glory, so... happiness and joy and glory and good things coming down from the heavens.
Lots of positive good things coming down from heaven.
And where is heaven? afar afar so the key part of this is the word far it's far away right yeah Far is an old word we use to describe something that's far away.
So the heavens afar or the heavens that are far away are giving us all of this joy and happiness.
Okay. Glorious. And then the song says, Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia.
So heavenly hosts, those are bodies or people or spirits in the sky.
Angels. They're singing Alleluia. So Alleluia is a word that we often use in the Christian religion that comes from Greek, actually.
Oh, really? Yeah. So alleluia is a Greek word, and it means celebrate, joy.
Amen. Okay. Hallelujah. It's something you're happy about.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And then they say, Christ, the savior is born.
Now we have this the savior. What is it?
Who is a savior or what is a savior? That's a very good question.
A savior is a word we don't hear that often, but you've heard the word to save before.
So, for example, I fell into the water and Marco jumped in and saved me.
So I would be a savior? Marco is my savior.
He saved me. But in this case, savior refers to the Bible and the things that Jesus did later.
We say in Christianity, he saved people, the humankind.
So he is the savior. All right. Christ the savior.
All right. And then our next verse, it says, Silent night, holy night.
Son of God loves pure light. Radiant beams from thy holy face.
So we have radiant beams and then we have this word thy.
So these beams is like a beam of light, right?
It's like a line of light, but you know how light is clear.
So a beam of light. It's something that comes down in a straight line.
You can see it. You can see it. So, for example, when I turn on a flashlight and there's a line of light, that's a beam. okay and radiant mean it's very it means it's very bright it's very clear Clear and it's strong and it's coming out from that one place.
Okay. And what about this word, thy? It's very popular, like...
Old English, right? It's an old English form of saying... you you right so in the olden days in english we had different ways of saying the word you okay and so Thy is one of those words, and you hear this very often.
And so in this sentence, we're saying...
Radiant beams from thy holy face. We're now starting to talk to Jesus.
Because we're referring to him. You, radiant beams.
Light is coming out of your face. Your holy face.
Because you're such a holy. Now, I think you can probably see this thy and thou in Shakespeare, for example, right?
Exactly. Shakespeare, the Bible, prayers, and all sorts of old books and poetry.
Okay. And then we say, with the dawn of redeeming grace.
So what is to redeem? To redeem is to find value in something that didn't have value before.
Okay. So maybe I have a ticket. For some, okay, I won a small lottery ticket, $5.
I go to the store to redeem my money. The paper is worthless.
Right. but it's worth something when I redeem it.
Okay, so Christ the Redeemer, when he saves people...
He redeems them. He gives them value again.
Very good. So it's a very profound song, right?
And it talks about, as we say, about Jesus, about angels and it's very, very religious.
So it's a great song and it's a very popular song.
And even if you don't share the religious connotation that the song has, It still is very popular in North America and many parts of the world.
So why don't we have a listen to this song one last time.
Thank you. ¶¶ Holy, holy. all is bright round Mother and child.
So tender and mild Heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.
So when I was a little girl at school, we had to sing this in German.
So I know that there are some other countries that have the same song with different words.
So it's the same rhythm and everything, but just in German.
And is it pretty much the same idea, the same words?
Yeah, almost exactly the same, just in the translated form.
Maybe it came from German, I don't know.
Because it seems to be pretty old, right?
But it is a very common song during Christmas.
Even many times Christmas carolers will go around in a neighborhood and sing these songs in different places, right?
Exactly. And it's a really beautiful song, one of my favorites.
And I'm not a religious person, so I don't really like it for the religious perspective.
But I do think that it's just one of those beautiful classic songs that makes the season very warm and special.
The music is nice in this song. It is. Alright, so an interesting song and I'm sure we're going to have a lot of questions and comments about it.
We expect to see you guys on our website, EnglishPod.com, and we'll see you guys there.
Happy holidays and enjoy. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
