PART
7 –
Ch.XLI.11
The
great Pelasgian empire
(The
Pelasgian language)
XLI.
11. The Saliarae songs (Carmina Saliaria).
We have reproduced
in the former chapter a series of barbarian words from various regions of the ancient
world, which, by their forms and meaning, belonged to a prehistoric Latin
idiom.
But isolated words
constitute only the anatomical elements of a language and they cannot present
the live aspect of a language in its real life. The true physiognomy of a
language can be known only from the weaving of the words, from the grammatical
and syntactic construction of its elements.
The most ancient
texts which have been preserved from the prehistoric Latin idioms are just a
few small fragments from the Saliarae songs, two or three folk incantations,
the song of the Arvali Brothers and the Pelasgian sepulchral inscription
predating 500 bc, discovered in the
The Saliarae songs are the most ancient
remains of Latin religious poetry. But in the course of time the Roman priests
and literati have tried to introduce Latin forms in the Saliarae verses. In
this way they have darkened even more the true meaning of these songs, so that
in the times of Quintilianus (1st
century ad) not even the priests of the Salii could not understand them
(Inst.I.6).
The most important
fragment of these Saliarae songs, communicated by Varro, is the following:
Cozeulodoizeso;
omnia vero ad patula coemisse,
Iancus
Ianes duonus cerus es, dunus Ianus;
Ve
vet pom melios eum recum
(L. L. VII. 26; Egger, Latini sermonis vet. Reliquiae,
p. 75; Bergkius, Commentatio de
Carminum Saliarium reliquiis
By their form and
destination, the Saliarae songs were a sort of traditional folk carols, issued
from the same priestly, literary mould from which the ancient Romanian folk
carols also derive. Therefore we shall be able to understand the true meaning
of the words of these fragments only with the help of Romanian folk carols,
from which have not disappeared entirely the specific characteristics of
antiquity.
In truth, if we
compared the text presented by Varro and the text of Romanian folk carols, we
would be easily convinced that both these forms of traditional songs constitute
basically only one and the same type of prehistoric religious poetry. We
reproduce here the following verses from Romanian folk carols:
Colo’n jos, mai din jos,
Domn
din ceriu,
Crescutu-mi-au doi merisori inalti …
Jos la umbra lor, dusue,
misue d’un pat incheiat…
Vent de vara c’a batut
Prin pometul raiului… (Teodorescu,
Poesii pop. p. 77)
In the Saliar song,
Cozeulodoizeso is a simple group of
altered words, which correspond to the first verse with which most of the
Romanian folk carols from Transilvania usually begin: “Colo’n jos, mai din
jos”. The words: omnia vero ad patula
coemisse appear only as a corrupt Latinised form of the verses found in
Romanian carols “Jos la umbra lor,
dusuie, misue d’un pat incheiat”. It
is important that in the Saliar song had once also existed a word synonymous
with “incheiat”, which has disappeared entirely though from the fragment of
Varro.
The poet Ovid, describing the national feast
days of the Romans, “after the ancient books of the priests”, shows Ianus
speaking the following words:
Omnia sunt nostra clausa patentque manu
(Fast. I. 117).
“Clausa patentque” are without doubt
words borrowed from the Saliarae songs, which the Roman theologians being
unable to understand, had commented in a dogmatic sense, giving them an
entirely different meaning than that of the original text.
Iancus Ianes, duonus
cerus es, dunus Ianus is a
simple refrain with the name of Ianus – Iancus – Ianes, like that of Romanian
carols “Leru-i Domne, Domn din ceriu” (see Ch.XXXVIII.3). In
a liturgical fragment from Mahaci (16th cent.), donul =domnul (Statius,
Silv.I.6).
The next words: ve vet pom melios cum recum, present a
particular similarity with the verses of the above carol: “vent de vara c’a
batut prin pometul raiului”, or
“prin pomii merilor”, mentioned in
the same carol (TN – summer wind blew through the apple/trees of heaven).
As we see, the
fragment of Varro is deficient in many regards. The Saliar song was longer in
any case, and the verses are not extracted in a regular order.
A second fragment
of the Saliarae songs communicated by Varro
has the following form:
Divum empta cante, divum deo supplicante.
“Cante” says Varro,
is instead of “canite” (Rom. cantati – TN – sing). But the word empta makes this verse impossible to
understand. Bergkius supposes that
in the original text it had been templa (sing
the temples of the gods). But the ancient form had been without doubt FEPTA = facta, Rom. fapte (sing the
deeds of the gods).