Words: Prob­ab­ly 16th Cen­tu­ry Po­lish or Ger­man (Wa­rum Be­trübst Du Dich, Mein Herz?). At­trib­ut­ed, ap­par­ent­ly in er­ror, to Hans Sachs (1494–1576). Eng­lish trans­la­tion ap­peared, un­cred­it­ed, in A Col­lect­ion of Hymns for the Child­ren of God of All Ag­es (Lon­don: 1754), Part I, pages 69–70.

Wackernagel, iv. pp. 128–130, gives three forms of the text of this ano­ny­mous hymn: No. 190 as the first of Zwey schöne newe geist­liche Lied­er, Nürn­berg, N.D., [no date] c. 1560; No. 191, from an En­chi­ri­di­on print­ed at Ham­burg, 1565; No. 192, from the Psalm­en und Le­der, Lü­beck, 1567.

In his Bib­lio­gra­phie, 1855, p. 279, he had cit­ed it as in Neun schöne geist­liche Lied­er, Nürn­berg, N.D., which he then dat­ed 1565—prob­ab­ly too ear­ly.

According to Koch, v., 563, it had al­rea­dy ap­peared as Cze­mu sie tros­czyss, [sic, Cze­mu się troszcz­ysz in mo­dern spell­ing] in a Pol­ish hymn-book ed. by Pas­tor Sek­lu­cy­an, and pub. at Kö­nigs­berg [now Ka­lin­in­grad, Rus­sia] in 1559.

This hymn has oft­en been as­cribed to Hans Sachs. So Am­bro­si­us Han­ne­mann in his Pro­dro­mus Hym­no­lo­giæ, Wit­ten­berg, 1633, Se­cond 10, No. 8 en­ti­tles it Con­so­la­tion against Tear­ful­ness. Hans Sachs; and in Je­re­mi­as We­ber’s G.B. [Ge­sang­buch], 1638, p. 578, it is en­ti­tled On Fa­mine. A good fa­mi­ly hymn. Writ­ten for the use of heads of house­holds and their fa­mi­lies by Hans Sachs, of Nürn­berg, the well-known Ger­man po­et.

The hymn has not how­ev­er been traced in any of the works of Sachs, and the as­crip­tion to him seems to be with­out foun­da­tion.

Julian, p. 1234

Music: Ked­ron (Ger­man), from a Ger­man cho­rale (🔊 pdf nwc).