From the Narrow Desert: Latin

Showing posts with label Latin. Show all posts

Saturday, December 17, 2022

The Seven Penitential Psalms, in Latin, with stress marks

I couldn't find a suitable text for these on the Internet (the only one I found that had stress marks was also full of typos), so I had to make my own. I mostly follow La Sainte Bible Polyglotte of F. Vigouroux, with the spelling standardized (j for i when consonantal; ae and oe without ligatures; medieval "Greek" spellings like coelus and lacryma corrected).

The Seven Penitential Psalms (Latin with stress marks)

I'm not excatly imumne to typos myself, so please leave a comment if you catch one.

Friday, December 2, 2022

What does "do-re-mi" mean?

Most of the solfeggio syllables we use today come from the first stanza of "Ut queant laxis," a medieval hymn to John the Baptist.

Ut queant laxis resonare fibris
Mira gestorum famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti labii reatum,
Sancte Iohannes!

In the hymn's melody, the syllables I've bolded -- the first syllable of each half-line -- are sung on the ascending notes of the major scale: C D E F G A. This was noticed by Guido de Arezzo, the father of musical notation, in the 11th century, and he used the syllables ut re mi fa sol la to represent those six notes. There was no syllable for the leading tone, a gap which was surprisingly not filled for many centuries.

In the 17th century, Giovanni Battista Doni changed ut to do, arguing that an open syllable was more suitable for singing. (The tendency to pronounce sol as an open syllable, so, bears this out.) Do was chosen because it is the first syllable of Dominus, "Lord" (and also, perhaps not coincidentally, of Doni). Around the same time, a seventh syllable, si, was added for the leading tone. This was an acronym of Sancte Iohannes, the next line of "Ut queant laxis," even though in the hymn the first syllables of Sancte and Iohannes are sung on G and C, respectively.

In the 19th century, music educator Sarah Anna Glover wanted to be able to abbreviate each syllable as a single letter, so she changed si (which began with the same letter as sol) to ti. As far as I know, the letter t was chosen arbitrarily, and any other consonant (except the six already taken by other syllables) would have served just as well.

So, do stands for Dominus, "Lord." (Dom should therefore be an acceptable variant, which strengthens the link between do-re-mi and Domrémy.) Re stands for resonare, "to resound, to echo." Mi stands for mira, "wonderful, marvelous." Fa stands for famuli, "servants, slaves." Sol stands for solve, "loosen, free, release, dissolve." La stands for labii, "of lip(s)." Ti, uniquely, does not stand for anything, but is a modification of si (Sanctes Iohannes, "O Saint John"). If we assume that ti, too, is an acronym, and that the second (unchanged) letter still stands for John, the only Latin expression that comes to mind for it to stand for is testimonium Ioannis, "the witness of John" (see John 1:19, Vulgate).

It is appropriate that the tonic, on which the whole scale is based, is identified with the Lord, and that the leading tone, which "points to" the tonic, is identified with John and his witness. It is also interesting to note that, in the modern system of letter names for notes, Dominus has become C (as in Christus), and Sancte Iohannes has become B (as in Baptista).

As for do-re-mi itself, well Dominus resonare mira is sort of like Romanes eunt domus -- it's not even remotely grammatical Latin, but the gist is clear enough: "the wondrous echoes of the Lord" or something of that nature.

It occurred to me to wonder if any modern song would be as suitable as "Ut queant laxis" for naming the notes of the scale, and the first thing that came to mind was the Christmas carol "Joy to the World," of which the first eight notes run down the major scale. Of course it wouldn't really work because two of those syllables are the same (the), and because world, with its consonant-heavy rime, has ut's problem in spades, but it is an interesting coincidence that some of the lyrics recall Dominus resonare mira: "Repeat the sounding joy / Repeat the sounding Joy / Repeat, repeat the sounding joy."

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Note added: About five hours after I posted the above, I was teaching a children's English class. Their book featured the following phonics exercise:

Although the focus here was on pronunciation, I also checked that the students understood what all the words meant. One boy didn't know what sew meant, and a girl said, "Oh, you know! You sew with a needle," miming the action as she said it. And then, apparently having been reminded of the line "So, a needle pulling thread," she began singing: "Do, a deer, a female deer! Re, a -- uh, I don't remember the rest."

I'm reasonably sure that, in my 20 years of teaching, this is the first time "do-re-mi" has ever come up in class.

Friday, November 25, 2022

Ave Maria

As a young child, I had heard Ave Maria set to music, and I was aware that Catholics and football players prayed "Hail Mary," but for a surprisingly long time (maybe until I was 11 or 12?) I never made the connection between the two. Having been raised without any knowledge of Latin, I didn't know what ave meant, but I thought of it as likely meaning "grandmother" (because of Esperanto avo, "grandfather," which I correctly guessed was probably derived from Latin) or perhaps having something to do with birds (the class Aves). The relevance of birds was obscure, so I tended toward the former interpretation: Ave Maria probably meant something like "Grandmother Mary" -- as God's children might well address the woman called the "Mother of God." I never guessed that it simply meant "hail"!

I also noticed early on the similarity of ave to the name Eve, which struck me as a meaningful coincidence. Eve was also our "grandmother," of course, and Mary was the mother of the Second Adam, Jesus, just as Eve was symbolically the "mother" of the first Adam (who called her "the mother of all living" before they had had any children together).

Much later, when I became aware of Muhammad's apocryphal statement about the goddesses of Mecca -- "these are exalted birds, whose intercession is to be hoped for" -- that idea, too, became part of the cloud of association surrounding the phrase Ave Maria.

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Today I was washing the dishes and listening to the Verve song "Bitter Sweet Symphony," with its repeated line, "it's a bittersweet symphony, that's life," and it made me think of the old debate among Mormons over whether the fruit of the tree of life was bitter or sweet. Referring to the two trees of Eden, the Book of Mormon speaks of "the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter" (2 Nephi 2:15). The problem is that the fruit of the tree of life is said elsewhere to be "sweet above all that is sweet" (Alma 32:40-42), and the forbidden fruit is said to be "delicious to the taste and very desirable" -- so which fruit was bitter? When I was a missionary, one of my colleagues attempted to solve the riddle by proposing, mostly tongue-in-cheek, that the forbidden fruit was the coffee bean -- bitter but delicious, and of course forbidden to Mormons!

The bitter fruit debate passed briefly through my mind, and my attention turned to other things. I thought of the /x/ thread I linked in my November 15 post "Mandrakes, treasure-hunting, syzygy," in which one anon had, somewhat surprisingly, listed "Spelling and Etymology" as one of the factors that might bring about paranormal experiences. This made me wonder if there were any words that I used often without knowing their etymology. Not really, not in English, but then it occurred to me: a word I am in the habit or repeating 50 times a day every single day -- ave! I know now of course that it means "hail," not "grandmother" or "exalted bird," but I realized that I hadn't the faintest idea where the Latin word had come from or what other Indo-European words it might be related to. I couldn't even hazard a guess -- what a strangely opaque word! Our English hail obviously means to wish someone good health and is related to hale and heal and other such words, but where could ave possibly have come from?

After I finished with the dishes, I looked it up, and it turns out it's not an Indo-European word at all. It's of Semitic origin, borrowed from the Carthaginians, and the similarity to Eve is not a coincidence.

Borrowed with an unspelled /h/ from Punic *ḥawe ("live!", 2sg. imp.), cognate to Hebrew חוה‎ ("Eve"), and as avō from Punic *ḥawū (2pl. imp.), from Semitic root ḥ-w-y (live).

So Ave Maria is literally, etymologically, connecting Mary to Eve and to the tree of life. This reminded me of this striking passage from the Book of Mormon, in which Mary is equated with the tree of life:

And it came to pass after I had seen the tree [of life], I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast shown unto me the tree which is precious above all.

And he said unto me: What desirest thou?

And I said unto him: To know the interpretation thereof . . .

And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look! . . . And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white.

And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me . . . And he said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God . . . Knowest thou the meaning of the tree . . . ?

Then I made the connection: I had just been thinking about the tree of life, and whether its fruit was bitter or sweet. Well, doesn't the name Mary itself mean "bitter," etymologically -- related to Marah, the bitter waters? And yet to Sancta Maria, "holy bitter," we pray, Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve! -- "Hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope!"

Then there's Yeats's idea that the two trees, the sweet and the bitter, are really only one holy tree and its reflection, and that we undo the Fall when we "gaze no more in the bitter glass."

I think I'm starting to agree that there is something paranormal about etymology.

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Alma's prayer in Latin

Latin is not among the 115 languages into which the Book of Mormon has been translated, so I had to do this myself. The original prayer of Alma the Elder at the Waters of Mormon, just prior to baptizing Helam, is:

O Lord, pour out thy Spirit upon thy servant, that he may do this work with holiness of heart (Mosiah 18:12).

Here is my Latin rendition:

Effunde Spiritum tuum, Domine, super servum tuum, ut opus hoc faciat in sanctitate cordis. Amen.

I spent quite a lot of time fiddling with different word orders, and I'm fairly confident that this one flows the best. My only real liberty with the text was to translate with holiness of heart as in sanctitate cordis (rather than cum sanctitate cordis). I have no real explanation for this, other than that my "ear for Latin" (such as it is, trained only on the Rosary and the Vulgate Psalms) demands it. A Google search shows that cum sanctitate cordis is an attested Latin expression but that in sanctitate cordis is about 100 times more common, so I suppose I'll take that as confirmation of my hunch.

As always, I welcome feedback from (and this is a very low bar!) more competent Latinists than myself. Me, I'm just some guy with a Bible and a dictionary.

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Praying the Rosary in Latin

As far back as 2018, when I was no longer an atheist but had not yet returned to Christianity, the synchronicity fairies were directing my attention to the Holy Rosary.

My father was raised Roman Catholic but converted to Mormonism before I was born, and my experience of Catholicism has been pretty much limited to attending funerals and reading. Until a month ago I had never so much as laid eyes on a rosary. Nevertheless, the nudges continued, and on May 29 of this year, I walked into a Filipino-run chapel and asked where I could get -- well, I only knew the Chinese for Buddhist mantra beads, but they figured out what I meant. Only later did I realize that I had bought it on a Sunday, breaking the Sabbath.

Once I had my rosary, I tried praying it a few times but kept getting hung up on doctrinal snags. Can I recite the Apostles' Creed if I'm agnostic about the Virgin Birth and the Second Coming? Doesn't thy kingdom come imply a Synoptic worldview I do not share? And do I have any reason to think that Jesus' mother really has any of the goddess-like qualities ascribed to her by tradition?

(I had similar issues with the Pledge of Allegiance as a schoolchild. Surely my allegiance is to the country itself, not the flag; history makes it hard to believe any nation is "indivisible"; and "liberty and justice for all" are obviously ideals, not realities. In the end I whittled it down to "I pledge allegiance to . . . America . . . under God" -- remaining silent for all the rest.)

The Spirit kept nudging me to pray the unmodified Holy Rosary, though, and in the end I just asked God point-blank how I was supposed to do so in good conscience. Three very clear communications appeared in my mind:

1. Don't worry about doctrinal quibbles. It's supposed to be like singing a hymn, not writing a theological treatise.

2. Recite it in Latin. That will help bypass the discursive side of your brain.

3. How is it that you've never read Histoire de la magie?

So I printed out the Rosary prayers in Latin, brushed up a bit on church-Latin pronunciation, and prayed the Rosary in Latin. I was surprised at how easy it was, how readily I took to it, and how rapidly and fluently I was able to pray. As promised, the change from Latin changed the mood from one of doctrinal nitpicking to pure devotion, and that in me which had considered the Hail Holy Queen just a bit much was somehow able to pray the Salve Regina with sincere fervor. Not for the first time, Latin has proven to be almost magical. Latin! The mundane, no-nonsense language of the Roman Empire -- but Virgil transfigured it, and so, apparently, has the Church. I suppose this is something like Sheldrake's "morphic resonance," and that reciting fixed prayers in their original language allows one to tap into the faith of all the other Christians through the ages who have uttered those same words.

Speaking of magic, I downloaded A. E. Waite's translation of Éliphas Lévi's Histoire de la magie -- which, surprisingly, I really had never read before -- and started on it. At first it wasn't at all clear what it had to do with anything, but eventually I came to this passage:

[T]he popular forms of doctrine . . . alone can vary and alone destroy one another; the Kabalist is not only undisturbed by trivialities of this kind, but can provide on the spot a reason for the most astonishing formulae. It follows that his prayer can be joined to that of humanity at large, to direct it by illustrations from science and reason and draw it into orthodox channels.
If Mary be mentioned, he will revere the realisation in her of all that is divine in the dreams of innocence, all that is adorable in the sacred enthusiasm of every maternal heart. It is not he who will refuse flowers to adorn the altars of the Mother of God, or white banners for her chapels, or even tears for her ingenuous legends. It is not he who will mock at the new-born God weeping in the manger or the wounded victim of Calvary. . . .
[A]ll that is expedient and touching in beliefs, . . . the splendour of rituals, the pageant of divine creation, the grace of prayers, the magic of heavenly hopes -- are not these the radiance of moral life in all its youth and beauty? Could anything alienate the true initiate from public prayers and temples, could anything raise his disgust or indignation against religious forms of all kinds, it would be the manifest unbelief of priests or people, want of dignity in the ceremonies of the cultus -- in a word, the profanation of holy things. God is truly present when He is worshipped by recollected souls and feeling hearts; He is absent, sensibly and terribly, when discussed without light or zeal -- that is to say, without understanding or love. . . .
Every definition of God hazarded by human intelligence is a recipe of religious empiricism, out of which superstition will subsequently extract a devil.

I’ve been praying the Rosary in Latin once or twice a day for about a week now -- I started on June 23 -- and I can report that it's doing me good. I know that some of my Romantic Christian associates will dismiss this as an atavistic behavior, a futile attempt to return to a less-conscious form of Christianity. Against this I can only report my direct experience so far: that 20 minutes spent reciting the Rosary prayers is 20 minutes spent in the presence of Christ. Yes, presence is precisely what I get from this. It is not really a form of communication with God, nor is it really meditation. It is something else, something that I needed, and the various spiritual agencies that have guided me to it were right to do so.

Your mileage may vary.