The main lengthener of English votive antiphons, however, was the exceptionally rich larding of the
canonical texts with tropes. Any text that embodied prayer, and hence even potentially “votive” (like
Kyries, for example), gave rise to another sort of jungle growth in the form of additional words. The
concluding triple acclamation of the Salve Regina, shown in Ockeghem’s already highly melismatic
setting in Ex. 13-2, is an especially indicative case, since the tropes on “O clemens,” and “O pia” so
dwarf the canonical ejaculations. Cornysh set the text in this version:
Imagine all of these words set with the same soaring melismatic abandon as the canonical ones, and it