In the Officium Defunctorum Ad Mattutinum/Office of the Dead Matins there are nine lessons prescribed. This Responde mihi is the fourth of the 9 lessons for the Office of the Dead. This Lectio/Lesson is published in the Liber Usualis (edition 1936) page 1791. Juan de Durango sets this Leccion de difuntos Responde mihi for double choir SATB and SATB in coro spezzato style.
Interesting is to refer in this case to the two collected Lessons, Lectiones sacrae and Sacrae Lectiones novem composed by Orlando Lassus (1532-1594) in motet-form. These collections are two Motet cycles each of which consists out of the nine Lectiones from the Book Job that is published in the Officium Defunctorum ad Matitutinum or Matins of the Office for the Dead which have been published in the old Liber Usualis (edition 1936), on pages 1782 -1799. These nine Lectiones were full part of the Office for the Dead from the eleventh Century until the Second Vatican Council in 1965 were substantial revisions and alterations of the total Office in the Catholic Church have been made. This Office for the Dead more specific these Lectiones would be read Ad Matutinum, in the morning prior to a Requiem Mass and the Burial. All nine Lessons in the Service were normally followed by a Responsorium. Lassus is as far as we know the first composer who set all nine Lectiones in one composition together.
In this case Juan de Durango sets as far we could found only the fourth lesson, nevertheless seen his position in the Monastery as maestro de Capilla we suppose the other eight lessons have been lost.
This Lesson Responde mihi is set in the Lydian mode and can be found in the Archivo Musical del El Escorial Madrid no 38804 and in the Catalogo del Archivo del Monasterio de San Lorenzo El Real de El Escorial p 262, no 643.
Responde mihi
Responde mihi: quantas habeo iniquitates et peccata,
scelera mea et delicta ostende mihi.
Cur faciem tuam abscondis et arbitraris me inimicum tuum?
Contra folium quid vento rapitur, ostendis potentiam tuam,
et stipulam seccam persequeris?
Scribis enim contra me amaritudines,
et consumere me vis peccatis adolescentiae meae,
Posuisti in nervo pedem meum,
et observasti omnes semitas meas,
et vestigia pedum meorum considerasti:
qui quasi putredo consumendus sum,
et quasi vestimentum quod comeditur a tinea.
Translation
Answer thou me, how great iniquities, and sins I have,
my wicked deeds, and my offences shew thou me.
Why hidest thou thy face and thinkest me thine enemy?
Against the leaf that is violently taken with the wind,
thou shewest thy might,
and persecutest dry stubble.
For thou writest bitterness against me,
and wilt consume me with the sins of my youth.
Thou hast put my foot in band,
and hast observed all my paths, and hast considered the steps of my feet.
Who as rottenness am to be consumed, and as a garment
that is eaten of the moth.