Quem tamen esse deum te dicam, Iane biformis?

[sovay]

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. 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.

Comments

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Good on you!

I agree--it's ridiculous when they don't go to the minimal trouble of finding a Latinist for something like this.

But I'm glad you otherwise enjoyed the episode. Have fun restocking the kitchen!

[sovay]

I agree--it's ridiculous when they don't go to the minimal trouble of finding a Latinist for something like this.

See reply to nineweaving. The first month of our year is still named after him, for Numa's sake.

Have fun restocking the kitchen!

(Now that all the shelves and cabinets are finally done, we can, you know, start keeping food in the kitchen as opposed to the sun porch or downstairs. The question is just where everything goes.)

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

The first month of our year is still named after him, for Numa's sake.

True. Well, perhaps the vengeance of Janus has, as nineweaving said, fallen upon Mr. Whedon.

(Now that all the shelves and cabinets are finally done, we can, you know, start keeping food in the kitchen as opposed to the sun porch or downstairs. The question is just where everything goes.)

Excellent. Good luck finding the answer to the question!

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

YAY LATIN!

[sovay]

YAY LATIN!

I like it.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I love it when you fix their puny Latin...

Nine

[sovay]

I love it when you fix their puny Latin...

I considered the possibility that it was intentional dog-Latin, like many an authentic historical spell, but this is Janus you're invoking, numen of endings and beginnings, one of the archaic, indigenous gods of Rome, not some two-bit medieval demon. For him, you could take the time to make your nouns and adjectives agree.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Truly. Maybe his vengeance is Dollhouse...

Nine

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

Hear my suit

this ot me giggling like no tomorrow... its a Disco Suit, like from the movies... all shiny and ...uh.. mesmerizing.. shiny... shiny...

[sovay]

this ot me giggling like no tomorrow... its a Disco Suit, like from the movies... all shiny and ...uh.. mesmerizing.. shiny... shiny...

Sorry; that's me, not Joss Whedon's Latin. I translated causa as "suit" in the sense of "lawsuit" or "petition," because "hear my cause" is just clunky in English. Apologies!

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I know that suit meant more than clothes, it just struck me as so very bad and so very funny. To "hear" ... snort, snort... yeah, I can hear you coming from a mile away in that outfit...

ahhh, its good to have a twisted brain... hours of amusement.

[sovay]

yeah, I can hear you coming from a mile away in that outfit...

I do know people who dress like that . . .

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

*patpatpatpat* Here. Put down the duckie. Look at this. Don't be disturbed by mean Mr. Whedon.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118010550.html?categoryId=1061&cs=1&cache=false

[sovay]

Don't be disturbed by mean Mr. Whedon.

Dude, if I didn't correct strangers' Latin, you wouldn't love me.

he Berlin Film Festival will screen Fritz Lang's original cut of "Metropolis," which was feared lost but discovered in an Argentine museum last year, at a gala ceremony on Feb. 10, the Berlinale said Thursday.

WOOT!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Splendiferous! So when's the DVD?

Nine

ROMANES EUNT DOMUS

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Dude, if I didn't correct strangers' Latin, you wouldn't love me.

Somehow I'm getting a mental image of you dressed as a Roman centurion.

[sovay]

Somehow I'm getting a mental image of you dressed as a Roman centurion.

I'm flattered!

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the show, but that sort of open-ended invocation doesn't usually go well for the summoner...

[sovay]

I'm not familiar with the show, but that sort of open-ended invocation doesn't usually go well for the summoner...

He has tied it to the Halloween costumes he sells, so he himself is immune, but he does get beaten up by a mild-mannered, very displeased librarian.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Well, of course he gets beaten up by a librarian. His Latin alone could cause that.

[hans-the-bold.livejournal.com]

Romanis eunt domin!

Or better...

Babilayyu ana bitim alka!

[sovay]

Babilayyu ana bitim alka!

Amein!

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen the West Wing episode "18th and Potomac"?

[sovay]

Have you ever seen the West Wing episode "18th and Potomac"?

No; does it have Latin?

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

It does. I'm told the Latin is good, and anyway it's much more dramatically useful in that context than in the Buffy episode.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

I correct myself: the episode in question is "Two Cathedrals," but "18th and Potomac" gives it context.

exeunt

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I loved this entry so much. Just this morning, I ended up mentioning it to Little Springtime, who's been studying Latin in high school since freshman year and is now starting Greek (it's just a token Greek class but it's better than nothing--she's a junior now). We were talking about the vagaries of translation, and she was asking why in the world they left "exit" and "exeunt" in plays as stage directions when everything else was translated into English. "And furthermore," she said, "It's a Greek play we're reading!" (in translation)

At the very least, we thought, they ought to use Greek to tell us that people (plural) have left the stage.

Anyway, I'm going to have to have her read this. I meant to tell you sooner. Especially the part about needing to use the vocative :D

Re: exeunt

[sovay]

Just this morning, I ended up mentioning it to Little Springtime, who's been studying Latin in high school since freshman year and is now starting Greek (it's just a token Greek class but it's better than nothing--she's a junior now).

Oh, lovely. I'm glad her high school has Greek.

At the very least, we thought, they ought to use Greek to tell us that people (plural) have left the stage.

Seriously!

[justice_turtle]

...oh, hello again! :D I am delighted that somebody else has done this, since my Latin is nowhere near up to the task -- I learned strictly ecclesiastical Latin, and I'm rusty enough that it's verging on dog-latin by now. I've tried before, and couldn't even pick out any of the words. I salute you. :-)

[sovay]

I salute you.

Hello again and thank you! I get this way about dead languages done badly.

(Honesty compels me to add that I get this way about dead languages I can understand. I am not qualified to have opinions on the ancient Egyptian dialogue of The Mummy except insofar as I'm pretty sure that the hieroglyph Jonathan and Evie are shouting about at the climax of the first movie—and Alex and Jonathan are shouting about at the climax of the sequel—is actually a Hellenized name. I can tell you that the Akkadian in Kushiel's Avatar is about as good as Whedon's Latin, though.)

[justice_turtle]

I came to fandom by way of Stargate SG-1, so my general assumption about Ancient Egyptian in media is that somebody is probably claiming to be the Great and Terrible Oz. ^_^ (And according to the DVD commentary, that's a fair assumption for The Mummy; the actors claim that the director would start with the real Egyptian dialogue, but then mangle it until he felt it sounded cool.)

I've not read the Kushiel books, but that's pretty cool to know about the Akkadian. :D I'm always kind of... impressed, thrilled, awed... that there are people in the world who know the Really Old languages, the ones that were forgotten. The revival of a language is a hell of a thing. :-)