1 This poem has given four hymns to the Roman Breviary:—­
     (1) For the Feast of the Transfiguration, Vespers and Matins
     consisting of ll. 1-4, 37-40, 41-44, 85-88.
     (2) For the Epiphany at Lauds, beginning O sola magnarum urbium,
     ll. 77-80, 5-8, 61-72.
     (3) For the Feast of Holy Innocents at Matins, beginning Audit
     tyrannus anxius, ll. 93-100, 133-136.
     (4) Also the Feast of Holy Innocents at Lauds, beginning Salvete
     flores martyrum, ll. 125-132.

5 For a curious parallel to these opening lines see Henry Vaughan’s
     Pious Thoughts and Ejaculations (the Nativity):—­

          “But stay! what light is that doth stream
          And drop here in a gilded beam? 
          It is Thy star runs Page and brings
          Thy tributary Eastern kings. 
          Lord! grant some light to us that we
          May find with them the way to Thee!”

12 Cf.  Ignatius, Ep. ad Ephes. xix.:  “All the other stars, together
     with the Sun and Moon, became a chorus to the Star, which in its
     light excelled them all.”

15 Prudentius mentions the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa
     Minor (to which latter the Pole Star belongs) as examples of stars
     in constant apparition.  All the Little Bear stars are within about
     24 deg. from the Pole; hence, if viewed from Saragossa, the birthplace
     of Prudentius, the lowest altitude of any of them would be 18 deg.
     above the north horizon.  The same applies to the majority of the
     stars in the Great Bear.  Some few would sink below the horizon
     for a brief time in each twenty-four hours; but the greater number,
     especially the seven principal stars known as the “Plough,” would
     be sufficiently high up at their lowest northern altitudes to be in
     perpetual apparition. [My friend, Rev. R. Killip, F.R.A.S., has
     kindly furnished me with these particulars.] Allusions to the Bears
     are constantly recurring in the classical poets (cf. e.g. Ovid.,
     Met. xiii. 293, immunemque aequoris Arcton, “the Bear that never
     touches the sea").  The idea that these stars are mostly hidden by
     clouds, though perpetually in view, is a poetic hyperbole intended
     to enhance the uniqueness of the Star of Bethlehem.

49 Jerome (ad Eustoch. Ep. 22) commenting on the passage in Isa.
     xi. 1, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse,
     and a flower shall rise up out of his root” (Vulg.), remarks:  “The
     rod (virga) is the mother of the Lord, simple, pure, sincere ...
     the flower of the rod is Christ, who saith, ’I am the flower of the
     field and the lily of the valleys.’”