London's burning
urbis ardent tecta Romae;
ferte fontes, ferte rivos.
en flammas, en flammas!
tecta Romae dant ruinas.
imperatorem Neronem
in Palatino sedentem
aspectas, aspectas;
en Nero qui dulce cantat.
Christionos ad leones
machinatores malorum!
festina, festina,
et feris da mox saginam.
(Courtesy of the late Prof. John Crook)
I also have Jack & Jill, In Dublin's fair city and Waltzing Matilda in Latin and What shall we do with a drunken sailor in Greek. The ones whose tunes I don't know are There's a tavern in the town and Come, landlord, fill the flowing bowl (both in Latin).
posted by Whispering Walls at 7:03 am
9 Comments:
Ave, Susurrone de Venta Belgarum,
I have just found out that you live in the market place of the Belgae tribe. Julius Cesar in his De Bello Gallico claims the Belgae were a fearful lot, liked fighting, were very brave and stank to high heaven. Obviuosly liked travelling to England to do trade, it would seem. Interesting, SVB.
There is also another fascinating fact which I shall write about sometime. Watch my blog.
Ave ED! It must have been the Belgae who started Winchester's carbon footprint
Dau gi bach yn mynd i'r coed,
Esgid newydd ar bob troed,
Dai gi bach yn dwad 'adref..
Wedi colli un o'i 'sgidiau...
Pwsi meri mew,
Le collaist ti dy flew ?
Wrth fynd trw'r eira mawr a rhew..
[Roughly translates as..]
Pussy merry meaow !
Where didst thou lose your fur ?
'While going through the snowdrift and ice..'.
Doesn't scan quite so well in English..
I hope Welshcakes enjoys this
I do, anon and WW! Lovely to see some Latin, WW. I know the tunes of "There's a Tavern" and "Landlord, fill.." but wouldn't subject you to my very unWelsh singing!
While out walking out lunchtime, it being half-term I heard the inevitable sound of kids asking their parents 'Why, Mummy..?', 'Why, Daddy..?' which I assume can get very wearing...
In Wales, they have a useful way around this. When one has answered quite enough questions for the day, thank you very much, the following rhyme is trotted out...
Pam sydd yn peri,
A'r ddafad sy'n pori,
A chwt y ci bach sy'n gam..
Apologies for the rough translation but the gist of it is..
Why is what causes [?],
And the sheep is what is grazing,
And the little dog's tail is what is bent...
I told you we were a funny race, but it does seem to work...
I like that! What about "pari", "piri" and "puri"? Do they exist in Welsh? If not we could perhaps devise a witty limerick half in Welsh and half in Latin?
Hmm.. I think it would be more useful to devise an English saying more harassed parents when the 'Why?' question has been inflicted once too often.. If we could come to a little agreement over royalties we may never need to work again...
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