One of its interpretations goes as follows:
Translation Translation by
Eric Herbet Warmington:
Lexical analysis • The term "" may consist of the Latin pronoun ("we") and the same prefix found in terms such as ("by
Pollux"). In the edition of the text for the by
Ernst Lommatzsch, the word is rendered as a single unified term "." However, other authors—such as Gordon—separate the sequence into two separate words: "" and "." • The word "" is an unrhotacized form of the word . There are other examples of a similar preservation of intervocalic in Old Latin, such as the archaic form for later ("altar"). • The forms "" and "" are generally separated by most editors and often emended to "" and "" respectively. These terms may be interpreted as the accusative singular forms of the Latin words ("plague, pestilence") and , a word that is otherwise only known from a single gloss in which it is equated with the term ("ruin"). • Regarding the interpretation of the term "," the philologists
Philip Baldi and
Frederic de Forest Allen both consider it to be an inflected form of the verb ("to let, permit"). More particularly, Baldi suggests that it is equivalent to the Latin second-person singular present active
subjunctive form ("to let, permit"), whereas Allen allows for the additional possibility that the term may represent the second-person singular future active indicative form . Baldi further suggests that the specific form "" perhaps reflects a mistake with the stone carving. • The first two instances of the sequence "" are sometimes split into the "" and "," though Gordon suggests that the inscription may instead showcase a break in the script between "" and "." • The text simultaneously utilizes the form and , both of which are probably archaic forms of the Latin
comparative ("more, many"). • The forms "" and "" are probably alternative names of
Mars. • The phrase means "jump over the beam of the threshold/door/lintel, stand" in standard Latin. • In the original inscription, the first instance of the sequence "" is spelled with an initial "E-like F." This is form is generally split into the terms "" and "." Of these terms, the word "" probably derives from the
Proto-Indo-European root , whence also —the
past perfect form of the verb "" ("to be"). It is possible that the term may be an old imperative form that was eventually lost by the time of
Classical Latin. • The exact meaning of "" is unclear, with Baldi stating that most analysis of this form is purely "speculative." Baldi suggests that the term may be a reduplication of an otherwise unknown stem and de Forest Allen suggests that it may equate to the term ("whip, lash"). Another possibility, also advanced by Baldi, is that the word boundaries perhaps ought to be emended, allowing for a reading of the form as "." If this theory is accepted, it may allow for a connection with the word ("melting, decay"), which itself may indicate that the form "" means something akin to "war." • The term "" may be a later
Imperial-era corruption rather than a genuinely archaic form. • The term "" ("by turns") may represent an old
locative form. Within the sequence "," the word may be alternatively spelled as "." • According to Baldi, the form "" may constitute a reduction of an older second-person plural imperative form . De Forest Allen additionally suggests that it may represent a hypothetical imperative form , a type of future imperatives that—should it have existed—could perhaps parallel the future forms marked by the morpheme . Alternatively, Allen suggests that it may equate to Latin , labelling the form a "future in imperative sense." However, Weiss argues that the interpretation of the term as a future form is incongruent with the imperative verbs in the other lines. Likewise, Warmington argues that the term is best interpreted as an imperative considering the other lines of the song largely include imperative verbs. According to Allen, the spelling with the letter is "unexampled" and likely an error for intended . However, according to the philologist Michael Weiss, since the inscription also contains words such as "," it was certainly written in an alphabet that utilized the letter . For this reason, Weiss opts to explain the term as a combination of and a variant of , an emphatic
particle. • The form "" is probably a contraction of . ==See also==