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Isidore writes that they come from Greek liturgy and the opening words Kyrie eleison seem to indicate remnants of an old litany. Formerly they were read oftener during the liturgical year than we now are called on to repeat them. They are sometimes referred to as the preces flebiles, tearful prayers, because they are said in times of penance, and are formed to excite tears.
A company of men droned out Gregorian chants in painfully nasal tones, using antique books with square headed notes; then the sweet voice of our host's daughter, Evangeline, sounded solo, and her youthful companions in the choir took up the chorus of the Kyrie Eleison: "Then came the evening service.
For the city which is the tomb of Rubens still lives to us through him, and him alone. It is so quiet there by that great white sepulchre so quiet, save only when the organ peals and the choir cries aloud the Salve Regina or the Kyrie Eleison. Sure no artist ever had a greater gravestone than that pure marble sanctuary gives to him in the heart of his birthplace in the chancel of St. Jacques.
The reason of this sudden change from mourning to rejoicing we have already seen: the celebration of Christ's resurrection from the dead is celebrated by anticipation. Celebrant at His left hand: in the meantime the choir sings solemnly the Kyrie eleison etc.
Then the litanies of the ritual were unfolded, the invocation to all the Saints, the flight of the Kyrie Eleison, calling Heaven to the aid of miserable humanity, mounting each time with great outbursts, like the fume of incense. Then the voices suddenly fell, and there was a deep silence. Monseigneur washed his fingers in the few drops of water that the Abbe poured out from the ewer.
Yet, after all, there was something taking in this singular confusion of sounds after the "Kyrie eleison" and the opening invocations.
Those who had been able to do so, had knelt upon the seats, whilst the others joined their hands, or repeatedly made the sign of the cross; and when the murmured prayers were followed by the Litanies of the ritual, every voice rose, an ardent desire for the remission of the man's sins and for his physical and spiritual cure winging its flight heavenward with each successive Kyrie eleison.
The air was as mild as that of a spring day, and the sky was clear till noon. Then it became overclouded. No one ate or drank, but all bathed and put on their festal attire. During the afternoon processions of priests and monks marched through the town, and sang litanies, in which the people joined. Their Kyrie Eleison, "Christ, have mercy upon us," rang all over the town.
The thought of Christ healed him gradually gave him courage to bear an agony of self-criticism, self-reproach, that was none the less overwhelming because his calmer mind, looking on, knew it to be irrational. There was no prayer to Christ, no "Christe eleison" on his rips.
The "Kyrie Eleison" was the same but slower and more sonorous, more grave on the prolonged termination of the last word; at Paris the voices of the nuns drew it out and put a gloss on it at the same time, turned into satin its final sound, rendered it less dull, less spaced, less ample.
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