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


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1 Kommentar:

Brother Charles hat gesagt…

Glad to discover this blog! Traditionally, the Dies Irae is said to have been written by the first biographer of St. Francis of Assisi, Brother Thomas of Celano, but this is not certain. It remains in the Church's liturgy today, as an optional hymn for the Liturgy of the Hours during the last week of Ordinary Time. Coincidentally, that's next week.

Rock on!

18. November 2012 um 11:36

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