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, 8. März 2013

Rotting Christ - Grandis Spiritus Diavolos

Rotting Christ - Kata ton Daimona eautou (2013)
 
 
Demons of the world, unite! In 2013, Rotting Christ sings about a lot of aspects of occultism: Mesopotamian, ancient Greece, Viking, Rumanian and Russian and - of course - Christian demons. For every demon they use elements of it's proper language. Here is the catholic one:
  
Ave pater tenebrae grandis - Hail, great father of the darkness
Gloriossissime pater - most glorious father
Gloria - gloria - glory - glory
Salve domine inferum pater - Hail Lord, father of the demons
Sanctum est nomen tuum - holy is your name
Gloria - gloria - glory - glory

Magna patris - gloria grandis - great glory of the great father
De profundis - nostris patris - out of the depths of our father

Grandis spiritus diavolos - great spirit demon

Pater nostrum qui es in caelis - Our father who art in heaven
Sanctifacatus sit nomen tuum - hallowed be thy name
Victoria - victoria - victory - victory
Pater grandis et liberalis - great and kind father
Sed libera nos a bono - but deliver us from good
Victoria - victoria - victory - victory

Magni patris - gloria grandis - great glory of the great father
De profundis - nostris patris - out of the depths of our father

Grandis spiritus diavolos - great spirit demon

In nomine penebrae patris - in the name of the father's darkness (? > tenebrae)
In domine libertatis - in the name of liberty
In nomine gloriae grandis - in the name of the great glory
In nomine satana - in the name of Satan.
 
Finally, Rotting Christ put together some fragments of Roman liturgy, especially from the Lord's prayer. Not all the latin forms, genders and endings are correct, but the devil will understand them all right.

One last comment concerning the album's title. Some say that it's a phrase said by Aleister Crowley and means "Do what you will!" If Crowley said it, I don't know. Anyhow, the title is written in Ancient Greek and means "in accordance with the inner demon itself". In Ancient times, men believed that every man had his personal "demon" or - better - "inner voice". The word "daimonion" haven't had a negative connotation then. It was also a little bit similar to our idea of the guardian angel.

Maybe you know Socrates, the famous philosopher and persistent inquisitor of morale aspects. He was contemned to death because of corrupting the youth and of denying the Gods of the city of Athene. In court, he also refered to his daimonion and said that he just puts into practice what his inner voice says to him.