Mary's prayer from a Christmas hymn by Saint Romanos the Melodist (+ ca. 560 A.D., celebrated in the East on 1 October):
Tell me, my Child, how were you planted in me, and how were you formed in me? I see you, O my womb, and I am stunned. My bosom is full of milk, and I am not married. I see you wound about with swaddling clothes and perceive that the seal of my virginity is still intact, for it was you that kept it intact, when you deigned to be born, my little Child, God before all ages! High King, what do you have in common with our sorrows? Creator of heaven, why do you come among the inhabitants of earth? Were you taken with desire for a cave? Are you in love with a manger?
--On Christmas 1, 2-3: P. Maas and C. A. Trypanis, Sancti Romani Melodi Cantica Geniuna (Oxford, 1963); Cantica Dubia (Berlin, 1970)
