Talk:Carmen Arvale

message: Is there a scholarly translation of this somewhere out there? - Christopher 00:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need a Translation 

message: H. W. Garrod of Merton College, Oxford, gave a similar orthodox explanation in "The Oxford Book of Latin Verse" (1912). He noted that the three-beat half-lines of the Saturnian verses correspond to the three-stepped dance or "tripodatio" performed by the brotherhood, the halves corresponding to the forward swing and the recoil of their dance.
His endnotes propose an entirely different interpretation, the standard account being suitable for the god of war but inappropriate for the farmers' god. The words as inscribed are mostly non-classical, may not have been understood when carved in 218 AD, and in fact the inscribed lines are not repeated identically, though they are usually printed as such. 
"satur, fu, fere Mars: limen sali, sta berber" appears once as "satur fu, fere Mars: limen saii sia berber." 
He suggests as the original version *"sator fu: sere Mars limen Saii, sia berber" which he translates as: 
*"Be thou the sower: sower Mars, sow the soil, moisten the loam." 
He also suggests that the mysterious first word of the hymn, "enos," instead of meaning "us," could mean something like "harvests."
Garrod considers the hymn to be appropriate for Seedtime (in March, the month of Mars), and suggests that it was transferred to a harvest festival in May after the meaning of the words had been forgotten. As the Fratres Arvales entered on their duties at the Saturnalia, their worship may originally have been connected with Saturn, the god of sowing.
I don't know what modern scholars make of all this.NRPanikker 16:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  H. W. Garrod's version 

message: This chant doesn't appear in any traditional Wiccan documents or teachings, and is fairly obscure amongst modern Eclectic Wiccans as well. Lady Sheba's book, from which this reference has been drawn, is almost entirely a work of plagiarism: somehow she obtained a Book of Shadows, probably an Alexandrian one) and published it (with numerous errors) along with a fairly random assortment of charms and chants lifted from other sources. This chant doesn't derive from Wicca, nor has it been taken up by any more than a handful of Wiccans. Her work is not representative of Wicca, either traditional or mainstream. I'm therefore removing the reference to this as a Wiccan chant on the basis that it's not notable. Cheers, Fuzzypeg★ 01:49, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wiccan chant? 

message: Carmen arvale can be decomposed into two separate texts.
limen sali, sta ...
is obviously an instruction for the dancing priests saying
jump over the barrier, stand ...
It doesn't belong to the remaining agricultural filling.
limen means threshold, but in racing barrier which should be jumped over. Its words are standard Latin.
Other instruction for the dancing priests is incurrere, incurre in other version, standard Latin too.
It is not understandable why linguists involved the words in translations.
The original text is visualized in Two reconstructions in http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924021619709#page/n10/mode/1up. The visualizations contain the word alternei. Hence
alterne i ad duo might be an instruction too. The remaining archaic words are as follows.
    enos Lases iuuate
    en nos Lares iuvate
    
    neu elue rue Marmars ins in pleores
    neu elue neu rue Marmars iens [cubitum] in {flores}
    
    satur fu, fere Mars berber
    sator fuit, fert Mars {verber}
    
    semunis cadit conctos
    semones {caedit} cunctos
    
    enos Marmor iuvato
    en nos Marmor iuvato
    
    triumpe triumpe triumpe triumpe triumpe 
-- jn 147.251.80.34 (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Remark 

message: An editor has advanced an interpretation which considers parts of the text to be instructions to the performers of the ritual. I do not wish to discuss the merit of such an opinion, but it cannot be presented here, both in the reproduction of the text and in its interpretation (but especially in its reproduction), without giving authoritative references.Aldrasto11 (talk) 05:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restored text and interpretation 

message: The Portuguese version of this article contains a translation, as well as an image of the carving. I've compared it to the image in Baldi and it appears to be the same carving with an additional fragment restored. If there are no objections, I'll add it to the article. Preston stone (talk) 13:04, 1 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portuguese Wikipedia article