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, 15. Juni 2008

Funeral Mist - Agnus Dei

Funeral Mist - Agnus Dei - Salvation (2003)

Agnus Dei means "lamb of God". This song contains some latin lines which refer to the Apostles' Creed.
Qui tollis peccata mundi - you who clear the sins of the world
[...]
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis, sub Pontio Pilato, passus et sepultus est
Qui carne quondam contegi dignatus es pro perditis,
cujus latus perforatum unda fluxit sanguine

Cruxified also for us, under Pontius Pilatus, suffered and buried
You who once deigned to be clothed in flesh for the sake of the lost once
whose waist pierced, a wave of blood ran out

The second line "qui..." is from a 10th century hymn. It was used by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) and by Morten Lauridsen (*1943) in his sacral piece "Lux eterna" from 1997.

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