There was no Babylon 5 last night, as two of the regulars were in New Hampshire, quite reasonably celebrating their kid's birthday, so in honor of the impending holiday, Eric showed me "Halloween" from the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was very fun. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hans_the_bold had screened a handful of episodes for me in New Haven and I remembered a fondness for Ethan Rayne, but I do not think I had seen this particular bit of diablerie. Masks, faces; the fusion or exchange of the two. Joss Whedon wins no points with me for referring to Janus as "a Roman mythical god" (as opposed to the other kinds of Roman god?) and the Latin in Ethan's invocation is more than a little hinky, but I do give Robin Sachs credit for pronouncing it like Cicero, not like the Church.
—That's as far as I got with this post before I decided to track down the episode online and transcribe the invocation, just to see whether I was being unfair to Buffy's mad classics skills. Thank God, I think, for the WBTV website; the answer is, not really, no.
Janus, evoco vester animum. Exaudi meam causam. Carpe noctem pro consilium vestrem. Vene! Appare! Et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas. Persona intra corpem et sanguem commutandum est. Vestra sancta praesentia concrescit visceram. Janus! Sume noctem!
(Seriously, Whedon, had you no Latinists on-site? They aren't very hard to find. Or a textbook.) Going strictly on vocabulary, this means:
Janus, I call forth your spirit. Hear my suit. Seize the night for your purposes. Come! Appear! And show us what infinite power is. The mask must be changed for the flesh and blood within. Your sacred presence curdles the insides. Janus! Take up the night!
It is, however, terrible grammar. And while I am willing to accept the possessive adjective in the second person plural, because Janus is after all the double-faced god, bifrons, biceps, then the imperatives should not be in the singular—and either way, that's the vocative case you want for the god's name. Also, corpem is not a word. Neither is sanguem. And if persona is the subject of the passive periphrastic, someone should please have remembered it's a first-declension noun. Viscera is not. Oh, damn—
Animam tuam, Iane, evoco. Exaudi causam meam. Pro consilio tuo carpe noctem. Veni! Appare! Et quod est potestas infinita nobis monstra. Persona intra corpore et sanguine commutanda est. Concrescit viscera praesentia sacra tua. Iane! Sume noctem!
It's not well, but it's better. I return to restocking the kitchen.
hans_the_bold had screened a handful of episodes for me in New Haven and I remembered a fondness for Ethan Rayne, but I do not think I had seen this particular bit of diablerie. Masks, faces; the fusion or exchange of the two. Joss Whedon wins no points with me for referring to Janus as "a Roman mythical god" (as opposed to the other kinds of Roman god?) and the Latin in Ethan's invocation is more than a little hinky, but I do give Robin Sachs credit for pronouncing it like Cicero, not like the Church.—That's as far as I got with this post before I decided to track down the episode online and transcribe the invocation, just to see whether I was being unfair to Buffy's mad classics skills. Thank God, I think, for the WBTV website; the answer is, not really, no.
Janus, evoco vester animum. Exaudi meam causam. Carpe noctem pro consilium vestrem. Vene! Appare! Et nobis monstra quod est infinita potestas. Persona intra corpem et sanguem commutandum est. Vestra sancta praesentia concrescit visceram. Janus! Sume noctem!
(Seriously, Whedon, had you no Latinists on-site? They aren't very hard to find. Or a textbook.) Going strictly on vocabulary, this means:
Janus, I call forth your spirit. Hear my suit. Seize the night for your purposes. Come! Appear! And show us what infinite power is. The mask must be changed for the flesh and blood within. Your sacred presence curdles the insides. Janus! Take up the night!
It is, however, terrible grammar. And while I am willing to accept the possessive adjective in the second person plural, because Janus is after all the double-faced god, bifrons, biceps, then the imperatives should not be in the singular—and either way, that's the vocative case you want for the god's name. Also, corpem is not a word. Neither is sanguem. And if persona is the subject of the passive periphrastic, someone should please have remembered it's a first-declension noun. Viscera is not. Oh, damn—
Animam tuam, Iane, evoco. Exaudi causam meam. Pro consilio tuo carpe noctem. Veni! Appare! Et quod est potestas infinita nobis monstra. Persona intra corpore et sanguine commutanda est. Concrescit viscera praesentia sacra tua. Iane! Sume noctem!
It's not well, but it's better. I return to restocking the kitchen.
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