Handel: Messiah, HWV 56

I just listened to Handel's Messiah.  Last summer, I listened to it fairly regularly as part of an-other project, and I ended up writing a lengthy post about it, but listening to it this time, I found something new... sort of.

I'd noticed before that in Part II, No. 23, Handel puts in a cross-shaped figure in the vocal melody for the first "He was despised":

(notation found here)

A few years ago, I read John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, and he illustrates how Bach does this in Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4:

I've been fascinated by this feature since then.

Listening to the Messiah this time, I heard (and then confirmed via the score) a cross-shape for "acquainted" later in "He was despised":

Back in June, I wrote how that first cross figure (for "He was despised") "provide[s] an example of one of the forms in which Christ was despised - the crucifixion."  Similarly, the cross-inscription for "acquainted" links what's described in the text ("a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief") with its cause.