When it is said
It is sung with the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete, a long Lenten hymn of repentance, after its sixth ode, or song.
Great Lent is the fast before Easter. In its first week, the canon is read in four parts from Monday to Thursday, at Great Compline, the late-evening service. Russian books set this hymn at every Compline of that week.
On Thursday of the fifth week, the whole canon is sung at Matins, the morning service. The Greek book calls this “the ancient tradition”.
It is also sung at a deathbed, in the canon the Church prays when a soul is leaving the body.
Where it comes from
Author known
A hymn by St Romanos
St Romanos the Melodist wrote hymns in Constantinople in the 500s. His long hymns, called kontakia, were sermons in verse, with many stanzas. Today the Church sings only the opening of most of them, and this is one. The whole hymn survives in a single manuscript of the 1000s, kept on the Greek island of Patmos.
A. A. Lukashevich, The Great Canon, Orthodox Encyclopedia (Russian); Wikipedia, Romanos the Melodist
The rest of the hymn
The full hymn tells of Judas’s betrayal and of Christ’s suffering on the cross. It has no direct tie to the theme of the Great Canon. Yet the Church joined its opening to St Andrew’s call to repentance through the stories of Scripture, and it is still sung with that canon today.
A. A. Lukashevich, The Great Canon, Orthodox Encyclopedia (Russian)
What the words mean
“Come to your senses”
The Greek word the hymn uses, ananēpson, means to become sober again, as after drink. The New Testament uses it once, of people who “come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil” (2 Timothy 2:26). The Slavonic and the old English translations say “awake”.
The same words as O Heavenly King
The hymn ends by calling Christ the One “everywhere present” Who “fills all things”. In Greek these are the very words the prayer “O Heavenly King” says to the Holy Spirit.
The Scripture in it
So it is said: “Wake up, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear-minded and sober, so that you can pray.
“Can a man hide in secret places where I cannot see him?” declares the LORD. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the LORD.
Bible text: Berean Standard Bible, public domain.
In Greek
Ψυχή μου ψυχή μου, ἀνάστα, τί καθεύδεις;
τὸ τέλος ἐγγίζει, καὶ μέλλεις θορυβεῖσθαι,
ἀνάνηψον οὖν, ἵνα φείσηταί σου Χριστὸς ὁ Θεός,
ὁ πανταχοῦ παρών, καὶ τὰ πάντα πληρῶν.