Ego flos campi (I am a flower of the field)

• Ego flos campi (I am a flower of the field) is a motet in 7 parts.
• As for the piece’s inspiration, here’s one theory –
  • For a short period of time, Clemens was a member of the religious confraternity, Onze Lieve Vrouwe Broederschap (Our Lady Brotherhood). The guild was devoted to performing good works (including music) in the name of the Virgin Mary, and their motto was “Sicut lilium inter spinas” (As a lily among thorns), which is a line repeated in Clemens’s motet.
• Listen for wave-like phrases passing between the voices to illustrate the final line of the text, “source of living water that flows swiftly down from Lebanon.”¹

English translation of the Latin text:

I am a flower of the field and a lily of the valleys; as a lily among thorns, so is my beloved among women: as a garden font and source of living water that flows swiftly down from Lebanon.²

1. Stephen Rice, Notes in accompanying booklet, My Beloved’s Voice: Sacred Songs of Love performed by the Jesus College Choir Cambridge conducted by Mark Williams, Signum Classics 370, 2014, compact disc.
2. Jeremy Summerly, “Texts and Translations,” Renaissance Masterpieces performed by the Oxford Camerata conducted by Jeremy Summerly, Naxos 0843, 1994, compact disc.