Punk Rock Latin Poetry - Catullus 5

The rock version of the ancient Roman poet Catullus' famous "thousand kisses" poem.

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Omnes unius aestimemus assis.
Soles occidere et redire possunt;
Nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.
Da mi basia mille deinde centum
Dein mille altera dein secunda centum
Deinde usque altera mille deinde centum!
Dein, cum milia multa fecerimus
Conturbabimus illa ne sciamus,
Aut ne quis malus invidere possit
Cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
And let's count the rumors of crotchety old men
As worth only a penny.
Suns are able to rise and set,
But for us our brief light sets just once
and then an endless night must be slept.

Give me a thousand kisses, then one hundred more!
Then another thousand, then another hundred!
Then a whole other thousand, then a hundred!

Then, when we've done many thousands of them,
Let's jumble them all up so that we don't know,
or so that someone bad can't look in on us,
and know how much kissing we've done.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• catullus
• latin
• punk
• rock
• music
• poetry
• thousand
• kisses

[beb4x]

Did you actually sing this in the proper meter?

[latinology]

@beb4x I try.

[snotje013]

Oeh, I love it ^^

[latinology]

@snotje013

Definitely show it in class--you wouldn't be the first!

You can find the chords by looking back through the old comments.

[AntCandygirl55]

just one thing.. centum or occidere must not be read as kentum and okkidere but with the c of..chewingum

[latinology]

It depends how you learn Latin: "church" Latin uses the "ch" sound but restored classical Latin pronunciation uses the "k" sound for "c". I'm curious: where did you learn Latin? Thanks for liking the video.

[BitmapMc0wnage]

This is Latin, not Italian ... of course it's kentum and okkidere

[ferroigneque]

Hoc amo. :)

[jimmyrights]

mirabile visu!

[goingdowninredbank]

this is so fantastic. im a classics major and ive been looking for catullus set to music, can you do more please?!

[zargbdarzoster23]

lol, my latin teacher showed this to us. YEA MR PIZARRO!!

[SayTmanChance]

HI JAMIE!!!!! THIS IS CHANCE FROM LATIN CLASS GOOD LUCK MEMORIZING THIS FOR OUR ORAL!

[BitmapMc0wnage]

@beb4x Yes, it's very good. You can definitely show it in class if you want to teach reading hendecasyllaba. There is one line where the accents don't quite meet the verse ictus: Nóbis cúm semel óccidít brevís lux - where he seems to be singing Nóbis cum sémel / occídit brévis lúx - but I suppose it's unpleasant to sing otherwise.

[beb4x]

@latinology Wow thats awesome, I think im totally going to give my Catullus oral like this.

[ZlorfikF17]

@BitmapMc0wnage

Of course the /k/ applied in Classical times. That was in response to your comment "th[at] is Latin, not Italian" as it seems to assert that Latin never had a /ch/ sound, which would be hard to prove.

[BitmapMc0wnage]

@ZlorfikF17 not sure what you're getting at. Catullus and Classical Latin were before Christianity emerged