Flavius’ Girl - Ancient Roman Song

Music and vocals by Farya Faraji, lyrics by Gaius Valerius Catullus. This another one of my attempts at conveying a historically accurate sound of what Ancient Roman music would have sounded like based on the known facts. In my opinion, the best place to start for reconstructing their music is the poetry: Ancient Roman poetry used the interplay of long vs short vowel lengths and stress accent to create rythmic effects to the poetry, not unlike modern rap does. This gives us a direct insight into some rythmic structures preserved by the phonemic quality of the language. This poem, known to us as Catullus 6, is written in the Phalaecean Hendecasyllabic metre of eleven syllables, which musically, translates to a 9/8 time signature in a musical framework. Given the close proximity between poetry and music, and the lack of profound distinction between the two in the eyes of the ancients, we can be surmise these odd time signatures such as 9/8 would have been the norm for the Classical world. Therefore, I based the structure of this song entirely on the recitation of the poem, and simply added musical notes to the pre-existing rythmic skeleton, using what they called the Dorian Chromatic mode, and building the instrumentation around my reconstructed Greco-Roman lyre, frame drums, a flute and ancient cymbals, all of which were in use back then. Knowing that poetry was often recited musically, I believe this example to be one of the most plausible possibilities of what their songs may have sounded like. The pronunciation used is Restored Classical pronunciation, which is the same pronunciation Catullus himself would have used. Catullus is one of the great Roman poets of the late Republic, who wrote in the Neoteric style, a style that was somewhat rebellious for its day in contrast to the established norm, since the Neoterics purposefully moved away from the epic scale of gods and heroes rooted in Homeric poetry, and instead embraced more personal issues like personal love, or an artist’s identity. Lyrics in Latin: Flāvī, dēliciās tuās Catullō, nī sint illepidae atque inēlegantēs, vellēs dīcere nec tacēre possēs. Vērum nescio quid febrīculōsī scortī dīligis: hoc pudet fatērī. Nam tē nōn viduās iacēre noctēs nēquīquam tacitum cubīle clāmat sertīs ac Syriō fragrāns olīvō, pulvīnusque peraequē et hic et ille attrītus, tremulīque quassa lectī argūtātiō inambulātiōque. Nam nīl stupra valet nihil tacēre. Cūr? nōn tam latera ecfutūta pandās, nī tū quid faciās ineptiārum. Quārē, quidquid habēs bonī malīque, dīc nōbīs. Volo tē ac tuōs amōrēs ad caelum lepidō vocāre versū. English translation: Flavius, of your darling to Catullus, if she were not unpretty and inelegant, you’d be wanting to speak nor could keep quiet. But you love I don’t know what of a feverish harlot: it shames you to admit this. For that you don’t spend the nights single your speechless bed screams in vain, fragrant with garlands and Syrian oil, and the mattress equally on this side and that worn away, and the creaking and movement of your shaking bed. There’s no point in being quiet about your debauchery. Why, you wouldn’t reveal such sexually tired sides unless you were doing something silly. So, whatever good and bad you have, tell us. I want to summon you and your love to heaven in my witty verse.