Adbertos Yemoni – The Sacrifice of Yemonos

Adbertos Yemoni – The Sacrifice of Yemonos

This document is written in my own rather crude, simplified dialect of Gaulish, in 2010.  I still use long and short vowels, which are essential to the rhythm of it, though not the official metre.  I wrote it during a long and boring meeting, in which I was not expected to speak.  I have not checked the vocabulary in Delmarre’s  Dictionnaire de la Langue Gauloise, nor in Matasovic’s Etymological dictionary of Proto-Celtic.  In any case, this is an artistic conceit, and not to be taken too seriously.  The myth is proto-Indo-European, from Bruce Lincoln’s Death, War, and Sacrifice, and not Celtic, though Ariomanus is a real Gaulish name, found in inscriptions in Pannonia and Noricum.  I’m using him here as a stand in for the proto-Indo-European Manu.

The poem is written in a rather simplified Saturnian metre, for the first 4 stanzas, though the last is non-metrical.  I use too much repetition to make it work, but it works nonetheless.  The scheme is essentially four lines per stanza, each line of 13 syllables, divided into half-lines separated by a caesura.  Each half-line has 7 to 8 syllables.  It alliterates fairly adequately.

So, on to Adbertos Yemoni:

Wer noxtion cinton                  nebuwânt bitus tirroswe
Nebuwânt in wiryî                   sâwelios lugrâwe
Nebuwânt ander nemon                caitoi abonâswe
Nebuwânt ander nemon                sleiboi swâ lânoiwe

In noxtiobi cintobi                 buwânt tri cawâroi
Buwântyos Aryomanus,                Yemonos, Tritiosc
Buwât bous co eyobi                 myolkobous co eyobi
Tri cawâroi bousc                   in noxtiobi cintobi

In notxtiobi cintobi                tri cawâroi âwont
Cawâroi âwont bitun                 es credê Yemoni
Seueyon credon swâ                  Yemonos adbertât
Sueeyon bîwin                       in noxtiobi cintobi

In noxtiobi cintobi                 cawâroi adbertânt
Aryomanus adbertât                  Yemonon adbertât
Sueeyon bratren                     Aryomanus adbertât
Bratren adbertâtis                  in noxtiobi cintobi

Au eyon cnamobi                     krakus âwonto
Au eyon cîcî                        talamun âwoto
Au eyon waitê                       morin âwoto
Au eyon anatlî                      weton âwoto
Au eyon râdiyins                    nellus âwonto
Au eyon enequon                     sâwelion âwoto
Au eyon anatiyin                    tenon noibon âwoto


On the first night                  there were not world or land
There were not, in truth            sun or moon
There were not, under heaven        forests or rivers
There were not, under heaven        mountains or plains

In the first nights                 there were three heroes
Who were Aryomanus,                 Yemonos, and Tritios
There was a cow with them           a milk-cow with them
Three heroes and a cow              in the first nights

In the first nights                 the heroes made
The heroes made the world from      the body of Yemonos
His own body, so                    Yemonos sacrificed
His own life                        in the first nights

In the first nights                 the heroes sacrificed
Aryomanus sacrificed                Yemonos he sacrificed
His own brother                     Aryomanus sacrificed
The brother he sacrificed           in the first nights

From his bones                      the stones were made
From his flesh                      the ground was made
From his blood                      the sea was made
From his breath                     the wind was made
From his thoughts                   the clouds were made
From his face/honor                 the sun was made
From his soul                       the sacred fire was made

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