06 — The Hymns of Repentance
David IV as poet and penitent: his own Galobani Sinanulisani (Hymns of Repentance), a sequence of penitential poems in which the victorious king lays bare his sins before God in the voice of the biblical David — one of the treasures of medieval Georgian literature; and the personal piety of the man behind the throne — the Gospel he carried, his devotion, and his humility toward the monastic fathers.
Tradition: Georgian Orthodox
This section turns from the king’s public works to his inner life, so far as the sources let us see it. Uniquely among Georgia’s royal saints, David left a body of his own writing — the Hymns of Repentance — in which the conqueror of Didgori speaks not as a triumphant monarch but as a sinner pleading for mercy, measuring himself against his namesake, the penitent King David of the Psalms. The first file treats these poems: their form, their themes, their place in Georgian literature, and the care needed in quoting them. The second gathers what the sources attest of David’s personal devotion — the Gospel-book he is said to have carried and read, his fasting and almsgiving, his reverence for monks and hermits, and the humility that his gate-tomb at Gelati made into a permanent sign.
Quotation from the Hymns is kept sparing and its translation-provenance flagged, per the repository methodology.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-galobani-sinanulisani.md | The Hymns of Repentance (composed c. 1120): the sequence of penitential hymns; David’s self-identification with the biblical David; the Marian and penitential themes; the poems’ form and literary stature; and the care required in dating, attributing, and quoting them. |
| the-piety-of-the-king.md | The personal devotion of David: the Gospel he is said to have carried and read; his fasting, vigils, and almsgiving; his reverence for the monastic fathers and hermits; his patronage of monasteries at home and abroad; and the humility that culminated in the gate-tomb. |
See Also
- The Battle of Didgori (1121) — the providential frame of David’s self-identification with the biblical David
- The Gelati Academy — the literary culture of David’s reign
- A King and a Saint — the penitence set beside the hard statecraft
References
- Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia: A History, 3rd ed. (London: Garnett Press, 2010).
- David Marshall Lang, Lives and Legends of the Georgian Saints (London: Mowbrays, 1976).
- The Life of the King of Kings David (Cxovreba mepet-mepisa Davitisi), in Kartlis Tskhovreba: A History of Georgia, ed. Roin Metreveli, trans. Dmitri Gamq’relidze et al. (Tbilisi: Artanuji, 2014).