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The Church Fathers · c. 570–600; attribution traditional
Altus Prosator
Attributed to Columba · 521–597
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What it is
An abecedarian hymn running from the Trinity before creation through the fall of the angels to the last judgement, in dense and deliberately difficult Latin.
Why it lasted
The masterpiece of early Irish Latin verse, and evidence of the peculiar learned culture of the Irish monasteries.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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