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.

Freitag, 9. November 2012

Rhapsody of Fire - Reign of Terror

 Rhapsody of Fire - The Frozen Tears of Angels (2010)

These latin lines are from the Gregorian hymn "Dies Irae". It talkes about a book which is called "The book of Life". In this book, God records the names of every person who is destined for Heaven or the World to Come.

liber scriptus
liber proferetur
in quo totum continetur


the well-written book
the book shall be brought
in which all is contained

liber scriptus
liber proferetur
unde mundus judicetur

the well-written book
the book shall be brought
whereby the world shall be judged.
 
lacrimosa dies illa
qua resurget ex favilla
Ah! that day of tears and mourning 
From the dust of earth returning

cum resurget 
pater lacrimarum
when the father of tears
resurrects

cum resurget
pater tenebrarum
when the father of darkness
resurrects

libera nos
relieve us


Rhapsody of Fire - Ira Tenax

Rhapsody (of Fire) - Legendary Tales (1997)

I'm back again. And today I gonna present you NO black metal, NO satanic rites and NO evil messages. Read and enjoy the light:

Male sit tibi tenebrarum rex
ab initio ad finem sacra ultio
cruenta pugna et epicus furor
contra mali discipulos
Ad perpetuam gloriam lucis
furor ira tenax
contra iniuriam et ruinam
rabies ira tenax

Male sit tibi tenebrarum rex

cruentus rex 


That's how the first Rhapsody of Fire album starts. Grammatically, everything is correct, which makes me happy. This is the meaning of these lines:

May you fare badly, king of darkness,
from the beginning to the end holy revenge,
bloody fight an epic rage
against the students/ followers of evil.
For eternal glory of the light
rage and tenacious wrath
against injustice and destruction
fury and tenacious wrath.

May you fare badly, king of darkness,
bloodstained king.