Lyr Add: Latin Language 'Delenda Cartago nobis'

Subject: Lyr Add: Latin Language 'Delenda Cartago nobis'
From: chico
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 10:49 PM

Text from internet, some co-ed translated a bunch of modern songs into proper la lingua latina. Here is one edited with the proper chords added:


Carthago est Trans Mare Nostrum
Nova verba scripta ad melodem Brittanicam cui nomen "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."


    D       G            D
Carthago est trans mare nostrum,
          E       A7
Carthago vastavit bellis.
D          G       D (7)
Carthago est trans mare nostrum,
   G       A7    D
Delenda Carthago nobis.

      7      G E    A
Delenda, delenda, delenda
    7      D   (A) D
Carthago nobis, nobis,
    7      G E7
Delenda, delenda,
    A7             D (A7 D)
Delenda Carthago nobis!

Ego, Marcus Porcius Cato,
Senator sum, quod bene scis.
Et a me est ceterum censa
Delenda Carthago nobis.

Mos hodie juvenum malus.
Moribus uti antiquis
Debetis, ut bene vivatis.
Delenda carthago nobis.


Carthage is across the Mediterranean Sea,
Carthage has laid waste with wars.
Carthage is across the Mediterranean Sea,
Carthage, which we must destroy.

I, Marcus Porcius Cato,
Am a senator, as you well know.
And by me is also believed
Carthage we must destroy.

The morals of today's youth are bad.
The morals of old to use
You ought, so you live well.
Carthage we must destroy.

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Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Latin Language 'Delenda Cartago nobis
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 08:43 AM

Why would one translate "Mare Nostrum" as "Mediterranean Sea," which is an idiomatic but not a literal translation, and then do the rest literally and unidiomatically ("The morals of old to use you ought, so you live well"?)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Latin Language 'Delenda Cartago nobis
From: OtherDave
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 12:33 PM

"Mare nostrum" was what the Romans called the Mediterranean. "Our sea." The way, say, Anglophones refer to the English Channel, when one side of it isn't all that English.

You could be more metrical:

Oh, Carthage lies over the water
Bad wars they have often deployed
Though Carthage lies over the water
I think that it must be destroyed...

I'm Marcus Porcius Cato
(A senator, as you well know)
And often I've shared this opinion
That Carthage, it simply must go...

Young people today have no morals!
If they held to the ones I've enjoyed
Their lives would be noble and upright...
And Carthage? It must be destroyed!

(No parallels in the fact that previously Carthage has used elephants of mass destruction against the Romans)

Historically, Cato the Censor died before the end of the Third Punic War, in which Carthage was in fact destroyed by the Romans. Robert Graves points out that this was in violation of a solemn pledge and brought onto Rome the "Punic curse."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Latin Language 'Delenda Cartago nobis
From: GUEST,Nerd
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 08:53 PM

Good job, otherdave. Nice translation.

I understood that Mare Nostrum was what the Romans called the Mediterranean, but the rest of the translation was totally literal, so why not that too?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Latin Language 'Delenda Cartago nobis
From: OtherDave
Date: 08 Apr 05 - 11:22 PM

Oh, can't help you there, Nerd. You either make a literal translation or a metrical one; it's hard to do both at the same time. The first Latin verse isn't that great -- the "nobis" doesn't work well; I suspect the author tried too hard to imitate the English-language song.