A dirge () is a somber song or lament expressing mourning or grief, such as may be appropriate for performance at a funeral. Often taking the form of a brief hymn, dirges are typically shorter and less meditative than elegies. Dirges are often slow and bear the character of funeral marches. Poetic dirges may be dedicated to a specific individual or otherwise thematically refer to death.
The English word dirge is derived from the Latin Dirige, Domine, Deus meus, in conspectu tuo viam meam ("Direct my way in your sight, O Lord my God"), the first words of the first antiphon (a short chant in Christian liturgy) in the Matins of the Office for the Dead, based on Psalm 5. The original meaning of dirge in English referred to this office, particularly as it appeared in breviaries and primer prayer books.
History
thumb|right|Dirge of Three Queens (c. 1895), by [[Edwin Austin Abbey, inspired by The Two Noble Kinsmen]]
In the late Medieval period, it was common for Western Christian laity–both men and women–to attend the celebration of the Divine Office (canonical hours) according to various editions of the breviary alongside members of monastic communities. Formal liturgical saying of the Dirige–then legally required to be in Latin–persisted through the first half of the 16th century, with occasional requirements that certain proportions of a parish church's congregation be present for such events. as the members' anthem of the Lyke Wake Club, a society whose members are those who have completed the walk within 24 hours. This dirge saw a resurgence in popularity in the 1960s following performances by English folk bands such The Young Tradition and Pentangle. The Dirige was retained within the Elizabethan primer over Protestant objections to prayers for the dead and there remained resistance to the public liturgical performance of the devotion.
- "Ring Out Your Bells", by Sir Philip Sidney