A Christmas Carol

My sister has just asked me to translate a carol for her from her Medieval songbook. It's quite pretty so I'm passing it on.

Quem pastores laudavere
Quibus angeli dixere
Absit vobis jam timere
Natus est rex gloriae

Ad quem magi ambulabant
Aurum, thus, myrrham portabant
Immolabant, haec sincere
Nato regi gloriae

Christo regi, deo nato
Per Mariam nobis dato
Merito resonet vere
Laus, honor et gloria

The king, the king whom the shepherds praised,
The king with whom the angels spoke,
He is separated from you now, with awe,
The king of glory is born.

To he whom the wise men travelled,
To whom they carried gold, incense and myrhh;
They burned these things with sincerity
To the born king of glory.

To Christ the king, the born God,
Given to us through Mary,
He resounds truly with merit,
To Christ the king: Praise, Honour, Glory.

Translation notes: This poem is holding back the subject to the last line of each stanza as an intensifier. This works well in Latin syntax but less so in English, hence some of the repetitions of 'Christ the king' inserted where there were none before: they aid comprehension and I think add to the poetic effect. The third line of the first stanza I'm not terribly sure about, it doesn't quite seem to fit the rest of the verse and 'timere' could be a form of verb. I'm choosing to translate it as adverbial by comparison with the equivalent line in the other stanzas.

Pronunciation notes: (Cat asked how to pronounce it, with particular reference to 'c's.) Bah humbug. 'c' is the worst of the lot. In the Classical period it's believed to have sounded like a 'k' does now. In the Medieval period it could be like an 's' or like a 'ch' depending on where you live, and that's before you take into account the spelling confusions between 'c' and 't'. I refer you to someone with more knowledge on the subject and suggest you go with the Southern Continental / Church Latin instructions, hence pronouncing 'c' as 'ch' and 'g' as 'j' when coming before most vowel sounds.

Scansion notes: The poetically inclined will have noted that this poem is both rhythmical and rhyming, developments in Latin poetry which were pretty much concurrent with the rise of Christian poetry. Classical Latin poetry is quantitive, the music that comes out of recitation is based on patterns in the length of the vowel sounds, not in patterns of stressed syllables. Rhythmical techniques did exist in part, but were mostly reserved for rhetorical prose. I suspect that one of the drivers in the early days of rhythmical poetry in the Christian Church was its use in singalongs - rather than performance pieces that one speaker presents to a crowd, many of the early hymns were written as group pieces for use during services and to keep people's spirits up in the middle of a purge. Later on, of course, when Latin was only ever learnt as a second language, rhythmical poetry became a lot easier to write than quantitive, it's easier to hear stressed syllables than vowel quantities that you have to look up in a book because nobody pronounces them that way anymore. There were still people writing the latter, but I don't know of any really good pieces.