…so they’ve produced this website, which appeals to the Latinist in me, but grates on the singer in me. Besides, whatever happened to “a language understanded of the people”? The link was buried in the paid ads in Private Eye.
That being said, I like this one:
Misit huc Magos Oriens:
stella tres nos ducit agens
rura rivos campum clivos
donaque transferens.
O SIDUS ADMIRABILE
CLARA PULCHRITUDINE
NOS PRAECEDENS, NUSQUAM SEDENS
NOS AD LUMEN DIRIGE!
Natus est ad Bethlehem Rex:
aureus confirmet apex;
totus sine cuncto fine
pareat illi grex:
Numinosum offero tus:
noscitatur ture Deus;
ornent iuncti Summum cuncti
cum prece laudibus:
Ecce! myrrha acerbum olens,
umbras imminere docens!
Cruciatum immolatum
en lapis opprimens!
Iamque vindicatus ovat,
se victorem nuntiat;
angelorum terra chorum
laude reduplicat.
Presumably you can all make a stab at figuring out which hymn this is. He’s even preserved the internal rhyme in the third line of each stanza in the English version.
Macte virtute esto!
I think I got it; here’s a parody from my childhood:
We three kings of Orient are
Tried to smoke a rubber cigar
It was loaded and exploded
That’s how we got so far
I’m not familiar enough with Latin vocabulary beyond what has survived in English or Spanish to know how well the lyrics translate in any meaningful sense, but I suspect there will be a number of problems with prosody (or “putting the acCENT on the wrong sylLAble”) trying to sing these.
One project that has come to mind — and I’m sure I’m not the first to have thought of it — is to set the text of “O magnum mysterium” to the theme music from “Magnum, P.I” and see who gets the joke. Perhaps I should take this on in my Copious Free Time. Deo volente et si rivus non crescit (Lord willing and the creek don’t rise — and thanks for the translation).
I took one year of Latin only, and may have spotted it because of the metre…
Just looked at it again and in this one the prosody is pretty good.
It’s something like Chinese music, where the tones are lost when you sing but Chinese can understand it anyway.