Part of Ascensus Casusque Sigii Sidorum et Aranearum Martis, a project to translate Ziggy Stardust into Latin
Back to Five Years — Forward to Moonage Daydream
CST Approved
Soul Love
by David Bowie
Stone love — she kneels before the grave
Her brave son — who gave his life to save the slogan
That hovers between the headstone and her eyes
For they penetrate her grieving
New love — a boy and girl are talking
New words — that only they can share in
New words — a love so strong it tears their hearts
To sleep — through the fleeting hours of morning
Love is careless in its choosing — sweeping over 'cross a baby
Love descends on those defenseless
Idiot love will spark the fusion
Inspirations have I none — just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love — and love is not loving
Soul love — the priest that tastes the word and
Told of love — and how my God on high is
All love — through reaching up my loneliness evolves
By the blindness that surrounds him
Love is careless in its choosing — sweeping over 'cross a baby
Love descends on those defenceless
Idiot love will spark the fusion
Inspirations have I none — just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love — and love is not loving
Amor Animae
ab D. Bovio
Amor saxi — ea ob tumulum genibus
Filii fortis — qui vitam dabat rationem ad servandum
Quae inter monumentum oculosque pendit
Nam maerentem penetrant
Amor novus — puella puerque loquantur
Verba nova — in qua soli possunt partire
Verba nova — tam amor fortis cordes findet
Dormire — per horas fugantes mane
Amor incautus electione — trans infantem percurrerens est
In inermes amor descendet
Amor stultus fusuram incipet
Furores nullos habeo — sed columbam flammantem tangere
Solum quod habeo amor amoris — sed amor non amans
Amor animae — sacerdos quod verbum gustat
Deque amorem dixit — et quomodo Deus summus
Amoris tote — cum nitar solitudo evolvit
Caecitate quae eum cinget
Amor incautus electione — trans infantem percurrens est
In inermes amor descendet
Amor stultus fusuram incipet
Furores nullos habeo — sed columbam flammantem tangere
Solum quod habeo amor amoris — sed amor non amans
Translation Notes
This is it: the song that inspired this entire project. It's also the first thing I've put up on Everything2 that got me accused of plagiarism, but that's neither here nor there.
This song was one of those Bowie songs that effortlessly becomes Latin, leaving me free to play with word choice instead of worrying about juggling meaning, rhythm, and the sound of the words. In fact, there was only one word in the song that didn't have at least one Latin equivalent: "slogan," in line 2, which I replaced with rationem, which can mean reason, reasoning, explanation, and several other almost-there concepts. It's unfortunate that there wasn't an exact translation, as the choice of "slogan" was most likely deliberate in view of the word's connotations of Big Brother's lies.
There was some word play in the song that didn't quite make it into Latin. You can see this in "love descends on those defenseless" — the words "descends" and "defense(less)" sound almost identical. However, as this didn't add anything to the song's meaning, I wasn't too upset to see it go.
The most important thing in the song is that the 4 types of love and their peculiarities are introduced: stone love, new love, idiot love, and soul love are meant to be lenses through which we can interpret later songs.
And yes, I did mean what I wrote. The original line (12) actually is "inspiration have I none, but to touch the flaming dove." Nobody quite knows what is meant by it.