Early this morning, as is my wont before attending a UA / TLM /Extraordinary / Whatever-you-want-to-call-it Mass, I checked the propers for the day. I'm having fun brushing up my Latin, so I try to read and follow along as much as I can in that language. When I flipped open the propers for the vigil of the Birth of John the Baptist (I was reading the little Latin only missal I have to see how much I could get on my own first without "cheating") my eye fell on the latin (and English!) word "vulva."
"Well, this should be fun today" I thought. The word was in the epistle which was from Jeremias 1: 1-10.
The St. Jerome's Latin version didn't mince words: "In diebus illis: Factum est verbum Domini ad me, dicens: Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te: et antequam exires de vulva, sanctificavi te, et prophetam in gentibus dedite."
The English given for that same passage: "In those days the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Before I formed thee in the bowels[! not exactly accurate, is it?] of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb [true enough, but that's not EXACTLY what it said!] I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations."
I guess they didn't want Victorian [and later!] folks fainting had an "exact" translation been given! Hand missals frequently didn't have all the Latin. Who said it didn't pay to study the classics?
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Can you imagine the snorts and giggles when the proper Latin names of otherwise innocuous plants are used?:
Pinus ponderosa
Paspalum vaginatum
I have to say that last night when I was flipping through the missal I was taken aback when the gospel reading for Good Friday had this line:
"Dixit ergo Jesus Petru: Mitte gladium tuum in vaginum."
"Jesus therefore said to Peter: Put up thy sword into the scabbard."
I suppose it's just as well that most women don't think of the origen of the word "Testify" when they are asked to do so in court!
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