Part of Ascensus Casusque Sigii Sidorum et Aranearum Martis, a project to translate Ziggy Stardust into Latin
Back to Lady Stardust — Forward to Hang On To Yourself
Star
by David Bowie
Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve
I could make it all worthwhile as a rock ‘n’ roll star
Bevan tried to change the nation
Sonny wants to turn the world (well, he can tell you that he tried)
I could make a transformation as a rock 'n' roll star
So inviting — so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation as a rock 'n' roll star
Get it all yeah! Oh yeah! (You know that I)
I could do with the money (You know that I)
I'm so wiped out with things as they are (You know that I)
I'd send my photograph to my honey — and I'd come on like a regular superstar
I could make a transformation as a rock 'n' roll star
So inviting — so enticing to play the part
I could play the wild mutation as a rock 'n' roll star
Get it all yeah! Oh, yeah! (You know that I)
I could do with the money (You know that I)
I'm so wiped out with things as they are (You know that I)
I'd send my photograph to my honey — and I'd come on like a regular superstar
I could fall asleep at night as a rock 'n' roll star
I could fall in love all right as a rock 'n' roll star
Rock 'n' roll star, rock 'n' roll star
Just watch me now…
Stella
ab D. Bovio
Antonius Angliae ivit ut bella conveniat
Rudia domum mansit ut fame conficatur
Me omnia digna fieri possent ut stella cantuum
Bevanius nationem laboravit mutare
Sonius terra vult vertere (hem, te potest dicere ut laboravit)
Ego posset me mutare ut stella cantuum
Sic suave, sic blandum sit partes agendum
Miro mutatione posset canere ut stella cantuum
Sic omnia adipisci! O, vero! (Id scis!)
Pecunia possem abuti (Id scis!)
Horum ut sunt me taedet (Id scis!)
Ad puellam imagonem transmitterem — et ut stellam maiorem viderer
Me transmutare possem ut stella cantuum
Sic suave, sic blandum sit partes agendum
Miro mutatione posset canere ut stella cantuum
Sic omnia adipisci! O, vero! (Id scis!)
Pecunia possem abuti (Id scis!)
Horum ut sunt me taedet (Id scis!)
Ad puellam imagonem transmitterem — et ut stellam maiorem viderer
Noctu in somno ferre possem ut stella cantuum
Bene in me amorem ferre possem ut stella cantuum
Stella cantuum, stella cantuum
Iam me videatis...
Translation notes
I found this song to be a lot of fun to
translate. There was a reasonable amount of reference to modern things, but really nothing that I couldn't translate into
Latin. All in all one of the easier songs to translate.
The first paragraph was fun: "Tony went to fight in Belfast" became "Antony went to Anglia to find a fight" — going to the barbarous Northlands to find war is entirely possible in Rome (although it's a bit ironic to send Antony there, if you check your history). I decided that Rudi was probably a woman's name (cp. Rudy), so I made it Rudia, and I even got to use the locative! (How many Romans?)
I had some difficulties with slang, mostly limited to finding an adequate translation of things like "wild mutation." I mostly used muto and transmuto to translate mutate and transform. "So inviting, so enticing" had pretty much exactly the same set of translations (at least in my dictionary), so my choice of suave and blandum is pretty much arbitrary.
One other decision which I made was to translate the "You know that I"s that are clearly audible throughout the song, using "id scis" — you know it! This is interesting to me mainly because "You know that I" isn't actually listed in the lyrics for the song.