| Songs of the Fratres Arvales |
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Help us, Lares! Help us, Lares! Help us, Lares!
Marmar, let not plague or ruin attack the multitude!
Be filled, fierce Mars! Leap the threshold! Halt, wild one!
By turns call on all the gods of sowing!
Help us, Marmor!
Triumph!
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| --Translation by Amra the Lion, 2005
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| Carmen Arvale |
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Enos Lases iuvate Enos Lases iuvate Enos Lases iuvate
Neve lue rue Marmar sins incurrere in pleoris
Satur fu, fere Mars, limen sali, sta berber
Semunis alterni advocapit conctos
Enos Marmor iuvato
Triumpe
--The Latin is taken from Carmen Arvale, electronic version |
Myth's Notes
The Fratres Arvales were the priesthood of Dea Dia, who had a sacred grove of laurel and oak trees, located along the River Tiber. The priesthood observed Dea Dia's festival in May. During this festival of Dea Dia, several other deities were invoked, including the Lares and Mars. Mars, also known as Marmar, Marmor, and Marspiter, originally had agricultural attributes before he became a god of war. It was in his earliest function as a protector of seeds that he was invoked here. The Lares were also invoked as protectors of the newly sprouted crops.
Lady Passion and *Diuvei, in The Goodly Spellbook (2004), suggest this ancient Roman invocation can be used to ensure and protect the fertility of a field or garden. Their excellent book gives advice and variations of this protective spell on pages 328-329. They also give an alternate translation of this ancient chant. As Amra the Lion wrote to me in a private email, December 26, 2005, the Carmen Arvale "... is so old, we can't translate it with any degree of accuracy. It is in a form of Salian, I think, which is kind of like a form of proto-latin. This [translation] might be a bit closer to the meaning, at least it seems to me more sensical. ... It is probable that by the Principate of Augustus the priest reciting this wouldn't be sure what it meant exactly either."
The Bibliotheca Augustana website, from which the Latin version was taken, provided a list equating some of the archaic Latin with Latin spoken at the time of Augustus. These illustrate, in part, the changes in the language.
enos = nosIt is my opinion--although one I have not seen voiced by any Latin scholar--that the worship of Diana and the worship of Dea Dia were linked in early Rome. If so, Dea Dia would be an aspect of Diana and link her with the growth of seeds within the earth.
Lases = Lares
Marmar/Marmor = Mars
sins = sinas (?)
pleores = plures
lue = luem
rue = ruem
Semunis = Semones
advocapit = advocabite (imp. fut.)
conctos = cunctos