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, 26. Juli 2015

Powerwolf - Blessed & Possessed

Powerwolf - Blessed & Possessed (2015)

~ Blessed & Possessed ~

Benedictus - Blessed
Et Affectus - and Possessed
Benedictus - Blessed
Halleluja - well..., not too difficult

~ Armata Strigoi ~ 
Armata means armed and strigoi sounds like the latin word striga - witch. But the ending "-oi" ist masculine plural in Ancient Greek, therefore the basic form must be "strigos". This is the name of the Warhammer's "Empire of Vampyre" [by the way, if Powerwolf ever gonna cooperate with Cradle of Filth ("Powerfilth"), this would be the perfect album's title - feel free to use it!].

~ Sanctus Dominus - Holy Lord ~
Sacramentum - sacrament
Nocturnarum - of the night's
Oremus - let us pray
Deus sanctus, deum filium - holy God, God son
Dominum - Lord 
Martyrum - martyr
Convertere apostolicus - to convert apostle
Cedere - to give way
Animus - soul

Debitus - debts
Et catholicus - and catholic
Debere - to have to
Deum animalum - animal God

Dominum - Lord
Et imperitum - and lay person

E nomine - from the name
Sanctus dominus - holy Lord
Christus animus - Christ soul
Et sanctus spiritus - an holy spirit

A nice collection of Latin words; and in the wild and free country of the wraiths, in the empire of vampyre, there is no need of a dictionary and of following grammar rules, auuuuuuuuuuuuhhh!
 

~ All You Can Bleed ~
Ex Christus, Ex corpus - from Christ, from the body
sanguinem malum -
bad blood
Ex sanguis, sanctorum -
from the blood, of the holy's
 sanguis in dominus - blood in Lord

... auuuuuuuuuuuuhhh! 

1 Kommentar:

Unknown hat gesagt…

Hi Markheim,

'Armata Strigoi' comes from Romanian, and it means Army (of) Undead (the correct form is 'armata de strigoi, also heard in the song - the 'de' particle meaning 'of').

What does 'Strigoi' mean can be looked up on the internet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strigoi). It seems that Powerwolf's vocalist, Attila Dorn, although of Hungarian nationality, was born in Romania, which may explain the usage of these words in this song.