Latin Music

I am so weird that every time I go into a store with music and I see the section labeled "Latin Music" for one brief moment I expect it to be LATIN. Instead, it's always stuff in that neo-Latin dialect called Spanish in vulgo, though it is really Castilian.

But there are a few hit songs in Old Latin. The Old One has done some research and found this version of "Gaudete" by Steeleye Span to match the one I linked to some time back.

And "O Caritas" by Cat Stevens has always been a favorite of mine.

And how could I forget this. It Academic I suppose.

I am appalled however by the people who criticize the English accent used by Steeleye Span. Are they so ignorant that they think there is a correct Latin accent, these days? There are various systems of pronunciation, and Germans sing theirs with a German accent, the Italians with theirs (that awful ecclesiastical pronunciation), and the English, ever weird, with their own idiosyncratic version with an upper class English accent. Even if we could bring back someone who could pronounce it as a native, we have 1500 years to chose from and a stretch of space from Scotland to Iraq. Think they all would sing it with the same accent?

Non of that working class Cockney stuff for us! Can't have that.

I just had a flash image in my mind of John Cleese saying that with his best upper class accent.
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"Lord of the Ring" in Latin

At least three people reading this blog like Latin. So here is a special treat.

Cum Magister Bilbo Baggins qui vivebat Perae Extremae nuntiavit eum centesimum et undecimum diem sui natalis breviter cum convivio magnificentiae egregiae celebraturum esse, erat multa fama et commotio in Hobbitone.

Unfortunately the fanatic who is doing this has only gotten through the first page of the first chapter of the first book, but after all, it is a tale that grew in the telling anyway.

makes me nostalgic for my old copy of Winnie ille Pu.

Sua cuique voluptas

Or, everyone has their own pleasures. One of mine is the sound and look of Latin. Ergo, this morning when I saw this column entitled 'Tu Betchus!' by Maureen Dowd, a columnist I ordinarily shun sicut pestis, I had to take a look. Mirabile visu! Half of it is written in Latin! Here is a taste of it:

Gubernatrix (prope Russia) Palina, spectans candidaciam MMXII, post multam educationem cum Kissingro et post multam parodiam de Sabbatis Nocte Vivo atque de Tina Feia, ferociter vituperat Obamam, ut supralupocidit (aerial shooting of wolves) in Hyperborea.

Well, what can I say. Dowd makes more sense in a dead language than she does in modern English!


ah well, diem perdidi et dis aliter visum as they said in old Roma

Latin Music

I have for years now always been fooled for at least a fraction of a second when I walk into a music store and see a bin in the popular music section labeled "Latin Music." For one brief instant I expect to find popular songs with lyrics in Latin. And I'm always disappointed.

Since I am in a nostalgic mood for all my past silliness, here are the lyrics to a song by Cat Stevens before he converted to Islam that actually are in Latin:

Hunc ornatum mundi
Nolo perdere
Video flagrare
Omnia res
Audio clamare
Homines
Nunc extinguitur
Mund(I) et astrorum lamen
Nunc concipitur
Mali hominis crimen
Tristetat(e) et lacrimis
Gravis est dolor
De terraeque maribus
Magnus est clamor
O caritas, o caritas
Nobis semper sit amor
Nos perituri mortem salutamus
Sola resurgit vita
Ah, this world is burning fast
Oh, the world will never last
I don't want to lost it here in my time
Give me time forever here in my time.

A type of Dies Irae from the point of view of those left behind, don't you think? Obviously Cat was giving a lot of thought to spiritual imagery at the time. Odd that he found his answers in Islam.