Pirates of the Mediterranean - Epic Roman Music

Music & vocals by Farya Faraji. Please note that this isn’t reconstructed Ancient Roman music, it’s entirely modern music with an ancient theme using Greco-Roman instruments of the period. Many thanks to my friend Luke Ranieri of the polýMATHY channel for helping transform my original lyrics into something gramatically coherent; keep in mind that the Latin is very basic at best and not representative at all of the poetic and semantical conventions of Classical literature of Antiquity. I was inspired by Pierre de Marbeuf’s French poem “Et la mer et l’amour” and the way it plays with the semantical and phonetical properties of the words love and sea in Romance languages. The pronunciation used is the Restored Classical Pronunciation, the historical pronunciation of the city of Rome from around 100 B.C to 200 A.D. The melody follows Latin’s long and short vowels as well as the stress accent; long syllables are sang longer and the stressed part of the word are melodically accentuated, with a few exceptions where I prioritised the melody.

I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of piracy in the ancient Mediterannean, and I wanted to take a break from the usual militaristic themes of the Epic Roman series and move into other aspects of the culture, so I went this. Piracy in the Mediterannean is as old as the recorded history of the sea, and ranges from the Sea Peoples of the Bronze Age to the Cilician thalassocracy, to the pirates who captured Caesar, and onwards.

The instruments used are the Greco-Roman lyre, the aulos, pan flute, bagpipes, frame drums and tambourines, all utilised in the period.

Lyrics in Latin:
Mare, mare, mare…

Mare, mare,
Amāre tē, est mors certa,
Ah dēceptrīx!

Meminī tot nautās,
Fuisse amōrōsōs

Dein Sīrēn cantāvit,
Iam sepulcrum es,
Dēceptrīx!

Amāre mare’st amor,
Mōrōsus,
Quod amor marium amārum est,

Amāre mare’st amor,
Mōrōsus,
Quod mar’amat hominēs amārē!

Puella mea’st Marīa,
Plōrat mē adeunte maria,

Marīa puella mea’st, Jūdaeae,
Epona’st puella mea, Gallica

Rūfus meus cinaedus est,
Et Lunja’st puella mea, Libyca

Procellae, tempestātēs,
Spolia, praedae,
Sumus crassī*,

Quamquam mundus est lutārius,
Mundus sum, fīlius Neptūnius!

*A double meaning can be inferred here as the term can be translated both to plump/fat, or Crassuses as in the plural of Crassus, the richest man in the time of the Republic.

English translation:
Sea, sea, sea…

Sea, sea,
Loving you is certain death,
Ah, deceiver!

I remember, all those sailors who were amorous,
Then the Siren sang
Now you’re a sepulchre, deceiver!

Sea, sea,
Loving you is certain death,
Ah, deceiver!

Loving the sea is capricious love,
For the love of the sea is bitter,

Loving the sea is capricious love,
For the sea loves men bitterly!

Sea, sea,
Loving you is certain death,
Ah, deceiver!

Maria is my girl,
She weeps when I go to the seas,
Maria, she’s my Jewish girl,
Epona is my Gaulish girl,
Rufus is my catamite,
And Lunja is my Lybian girl,

Sea, sea,
Loving you is certain death,
Ah, deceiver!

Storms and tempests,
Spoils and plunder, we are plump!
Though the Earth is filthy,
I am clean, a son of Neptune!