What's all this fuss about?

Latin lyrics in Heavy Metal music are a common phenomenon. The darker the music, the more evil the band wanna be. What's better than using an old, mysterious, hardly understandable, cryptic, medieval and therefore almost satanic language? Unfortunately bands seldom know how to use this language properly. So, instead of evoking the demons of the realm of evil, they just evoke a hop-frog. Clatu verata nicto! - The most of you know what happened after this wrongly spoken spell.

Normally, two questions are the result of the fact that you've just read a latin phrase:
- What does it mean? (almost everybody)
- Is it correct? (just a few latin aficionados)

This page doesn't want to make fun of mistakes in latin lyrics. I wanna answer the first question to everybody who is interested. The second question is just for myself or for the two or three weird guys out there or for bands which are thinking about using a latin phrase as well. You can contact me if you want.

Sonntag, 9. Januar 2011

Belphegor - Goatreich - Fleshcult

Belphegor - Goatreich-Fleshcult (2005)

I've already written about the phrase "festum asinorum", but I've forgotten some more words.

~ The Cruzifixus - Anus Dei ~
Cruzifixus means The cruzified, Anus dei is God's anus/asshole.

~ Fornicationium et immundus diabolus ~
The noun fornicatio means arch or whorehouse or harlotry/prostitution. The ending -ium is incorrect, the form "fornicationum" would be genitive plural: of the arches/ whorehouses/ harlotry. Maybe Belphegor thought that "fornicationium" is a correct noun, so two translations are possible: a) the harlotry and the impure devil, or b) even the impure devil of the harlotry.

I think, the double meaning of this word goes back to ancient Roman times: it's certain that the arches of the Circus Maximus were used as little brothels, cheap and dirty ones.

\m/arkhei\m/

Belphegor - Angeli Mortis De Profundis

Belphegor - Blood Magick Necromance (2011)

Soon, Belphegor gonna release their next bloody opus. Track nr. 5 has a latin title, which means Angels of death out of the depths. If there will be any latin phrases in the lyrics, I gonna explain them later...

... back again: Now I hold the new CD in my hands and reading the lyrics, I found two latin phrases:

The phrase natus in morte (in: Blood Magick Necromance) means born in death, the phrase ignis extotum corpas (in: Possessed Burning Eyes) means... actually nothing. "ignis" is "fire" and the two other words don't exist. Maybe Belphegor wanted to say Fire out of the whole body, which would be ignis ex toto corpore in latin.

\m/arkhei\m/

Mittwoch, 5. Januar 2011

Enthroned - Pentagrammation

Enthroned - Pentagrammaton (2010)

A few weeks ago I saw Enthroned live and was quite impressed. I didn't expect that much and got a nice black-metal-concert full of power and energy. But, I have to confess, that Enthroned don't impress me with their latin skills. Here we go:

~ in missi solemnibus ~
In solemnibus means During the feast or In the solemn ones, missi is a participle and means They who have been sent or Of the one, who has been sent. Maybe the band wanted to say In the solemn moments of the mass. The correct latin form would have been missae.

~ Rion Riorrim ~
Bestia Centavri Imperivm
Maxime hvc homines
Bves praeses Magnvs
Ocvla habens Serptentinam

This is a collection of nice latin words without any grammatical coherence. As in Roman inscriptions, they often used the "v" instead of "u".

Beast of the Centaur Empire
Biggest hither people
Oxen (? - correct form would be boves) big master
who has serpentine eyes.

~ Pentagrammaton ~
Vestri sperma nomen
Diapente vox astrvm
Cvrator ab Senivm

The same problem: some nice words, no coherence, wrong forms.

Your sperm name
Diapente (= perfect fifth in classical music) voice star/constellation
curator/ caretaker of the old men (correct: curator senum)

~ magnus princeps Leopardi~
The song's title means great prince of the leopard. The next lines are almost a text, not only word fragments: huic sexagin(t)a Legiones Obsequntuur, incendit virum mulieris amore, mulierem vicissim aeterius, desiderio incitat.

Sixhundred legions obey him, he incites a man with the love of a woman/ to a woman (again the ambiguous genitive, as I explained at the end of the Deathspell Omega-article.), the woman again etherious (correct: mulierem aetheriam) he incites with desire.

~ ad te clamamus exsules mortua liberi ~
The beginning reminds me to Psalm 130: De profundis clamavi ad te, domine. The title here means We, the exiled, cry to you. The last to words mortua liberi mean dead and children. Maybe the line should mean: We, the exiled dead children, cry to you, but the grammar isn't correct.