2

Hello: I am back again with more neo-Latin from Lawrence of Brindisi. This time, it's his Latin rendering of Psalm 45:13-14

"tota gloriosa filia regis intrinsecus propter intertexturas, induta auro in recamatis"

I am stumbling in particular on intertexturas and in recamatis. Intertexturas I take to mean "interweavings"-->"interwoven clothes". "ricamatus seems to me to mean the same thing as ricamus/ricamum (https://logeion.uchicago.edu/ricamum): Opus acu pictum. In Italian, ricamare means embroider; it's possible that Lawrence came up with the form ricamatus on analogy with his native language.

So: all glorious [is the] daughter of the king inside [the palace?] on account of [lit.] weavings/woven clothes, dressed/having dressed herself in garments embroidered with gold."

Does this seem correct?

omniamutantur1
  • 459
  • 2
  • 6
  • 1
    Your interpretation of recamatis as a variant of ricamatis and ricamatis as an Italianism is probably right, but also be aware the Latin mashes together two separate Hebrew sentences. Tota gloriosa filia regis intrinsecus propter intertexturas auro renders כָּל־כְּבוּדָּה בַת־מֶלֶךְ פְּנִימָה מִמִּשְׁבְּצוֹת זָהָב לְבוּשָׁהּ׃ (Psalms 45:14 in the MT, 45:13 in most Christian Bibles for some reason), Induta in recamatis is the start of the next verse. – Cairnarvon Nov 11 '22 at 02:21
  • 2
    @Cairnarvon It looks like recamatis renders riqmot from the next verse (and is maybe just an attempt to Latinize that Hebrew word?). Induta auro renders זָהָב לְבוּשָׁהּ (syntactically inaccurately as that is not a constituent in the Hebrew). – TKR Nov 11 '22 at 18:30
  • 1
    @TKR Oh, you're right, and that's an interesting point. Apparently רִקמָה and Italian ricamare are ~cognate: the Italian is a loan from Arabic رقم raqm (I can't read Arabic). Presumably it came through Spanish recamar, which could explain the vowel used. To what extent Lawrence of Brindisi will have been aware of that (and whether he even knew Latin never had that word) is another matter. – Cairnarvon Nov 11 '22 at 23:16

0 Answers0