Vexilla Regis - "lanceae" or "lancerae" ?

[gwyn]

This on-line copy of Vexilla Regis
http://www.preces-latinae.org/thesaurus ... xilla.html
has verse 3 as:
Quo vulneratus insuper
mucrone diro lanceae,
ut nos lavaret crimine,
manavit unda et sanguine.

as does this:
http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/venantius.html

A debate arose last eve at choir rehearsal as to whether this might be a misprint and should in fact be "lancerae".

We'd appreciate some clarification/correction before Sept 14th.

Diolch (thanks)

Gwyn.

[presbyter]

My Latin dictionary gives:

lance.ae N 1 1 GEN S F
lance.ae N 1 1 DAT S F
lance.ae N 1 1 NOM P F
lancea, lanceae N F
light spear, lance;

lancerae ======== UNKNOWN

[Lakelark]

What's more, the Latin lancea is derived from the Greek lonche (two syllables, which I add because I can't do Greek on this word processor). The short o of the Greek becomes a long a in Latin. The word should therefore, I think, be pronounced with the first a of lanceae long - the "lan" should more or less rhyme with "barn". This really seems pretty important. We must get these things right.

[presbyter]

Ita vero debemus

[quaeritor]

"lancerae"- is it perhaps just another example of the inability of speakers of Home Counties English to cope with two vowels next to each other without inserting a consonant? - I was listening to a Haydn Mass on Radio Three this morning which had an awful example of the dreaded "Hosannerin excelsis" I've lost count of the number of times I've tried to convince choirs that "Hosanna" does not rhyme with "banner" despite the appalling "Sing Hosanner, wave your banner" - an abuse only exceeded by the quite dreadful "Dominus Deus shabby-yacht"

(Exit, foaming gently at the mouth.)

[presbyter]

just another example of the inability of speakers of Home Counties English to cope with two vowels next to each other without inserting a consonant?

In Britannia secunda? Gwyn in Gobannium habitat.

[gwyn]

'Na fe.

Diolch pawb.

[nazard]

... Gwyn in Gobannium habitat.

Skooze my igneranse, but shudunt that be "Gwyn in Gobannio habitat"?

[contrabordun]

or apud Gobannii?

[mcb]

or apud Gobannii?

Nah, unless he's lodging with a bloke called Gobannius, or a bunch of them. But apud takes the accusative.

I think it needs a locative: Gwyn Gobannii habitat.

[JW]

Glad this was all sorted prior to September 14th (Mrs JW's birthday)

[presbyter]

Skooze my igneranse, but shudunt that be "Gwyn in Gobannio habitat"?

Hand up to that one - yes it should. But at least I looked up the Roman name for Abergavenny!

[nazard]

I would never have guessed Abergavenny had a Roman name. Have you any idea how it got its English name, which does not strongly resemble "Y Fenni"?

By now I am wonderfully off topic, of course.

[contrabordun]

Just pure speculation, but given the way "b" and "v" tend to turn into one another over time, I'd have said that "gavenny" wasn't too far from "gobannium"

[musicus]

We are some way from Vexilla Regis - but it is interesting and fun...