Latin Translation Exercise: "Mary on a Cross" by Ghost B.C.
The 2019 B-side rerelease off the album "Seven Inches of Satanic Panic," rendered into an ancient tongue.
I believe that this song is the newest release of anything I’ve done so far for this blog. The genres I tend to listen to have waned in popularity, but this song has been all over TikTok for a while and I thought it would be worth trying something new. I ran into a few problems with this translation, primarily that I have no idea who the titular Mary figure is supposed to be. The impulse is to connect it to the Virgin Mary because of the words “Holy Mary,” and that is indeed the most plausible, but why would a Satanic band regard her as holy? Additionally, none of the synoptic gospels1 name her among the crowd at the crucifixion. Mary Magdalene the prostitute2 and Mary, mother of James, were more generally agreed upon as witnesses. Mary Magdalene’s reputation in history makes her a more likely candidate for someone that a devil-worshiping band would venerate, but who knows? Maybe we’ll find out, maybe it doesn’t matter. There’s no easy way to portray the obvious allusions to weed: even if the Romans had known about it, there’s no easy way to do bilingual wordplay on that level. Regardless of these difficulties, I hope you enjoy this translation.
Simul festinabamus,
Umbrosas semitas.3
Ut famam habuerimus,
Maerorem sumpsimus.
Sed per multas curas,
Enixus sumus.
Et enimvero in hoc re,
Numquam te dimittam, dimittam.
Per urbis quaerebamus,
Ut retribuamus.
Etiam cum claritate,
Contritus sumus.
Sed per multas curas,
Enixus sumus.
Et enimvero in hoc re,
Numquam te dimittam, dimittam.
Simile Mariae descendis.
Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem.
Rustica virgo non solum es.
Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem.
Si mecum fugere decernes,
Te risum penitus movebo.
Injuria non infertur.
Causas, ut leges sequar,4
indagavimus.
Id ineptia esse
Mox didicimus
Sed per multas curas,
Enixus sumus.
Et enimvero in hoc re,
Numquam te dimittam, dimittam.
Simile Mariae descendis.
Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem.
Rustica virgo non solum es.
Maria est, Maria est...
Simile Mariae descendis.
Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem.
Et tuam formam non timeo.
Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem.
Si mecum fugere decernes,
Te risum penitus movebo.
Injuria non infertur.
(Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem)
Non injuria.
(Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem)
Non injuria.
(Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem)
Maria est, Mari[a] ad crucem.
John 19:25 does.
I'm not getting into this debate while in the middle of another debate. Too many Palestinian women were named Mary in the first century AD. I only make mention of her commonly recognized occupation because of its relation to the point I'm about to make
Festino is used transitively, even if English struggles to provide a proper equivalent. Stat. Th. 2, 478.
I saved a syllable here by changing the grammatical number from singular to plural. English is unclear about purpose clauses like this, but it's totally kosher in Latin.